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I was fortunate enough to be hired to be the wedding photographer at a wedding at the beautiful Orleans House Gallery in Richmond a few weeks ago. This was one of my favourite weddings of the summer because of the diversity of the day and the great couple that I got to photograph.The morning started well with the bridal preparation taking place in a fantastic hotel not far from the wedding ceremony venue. The mood in the hotel room was relaxed and everyone was having lots of fun. I photographed portraits and detailed shots of the wedding dress, shoes, flowers and Jewellery.

Unfortunately there was some delays with the wedding cars that were needed to transport the bridal party to Orleans House. This did cause some tension, but this was resolved very quickly and the plans were back on track.

The staff at Orleans House were wonderful and very professional in their care of the bride and groom in a friendly and professional manner. The Venue itself is an amazing building with one of the most photogenic interiors I have ever photographed.

After the civil ceremony there were some formal wedding photos as well as some contemporary photographs in the grounds of Orleans House. Once this was completed we moved onto catch a boat up the Thames river for the religious ceremony. This was a wonderful bit of planning, as the transport to the reception venue had the ceremony as well as the champagne reception.

Once we arrived at the jetty at the Warf Restaurant in Teddington the celebrations started. A fine meal was served followed by speeches then cake cutting and dancing.

This truly was a wonderful day, thanks so much for having me guys, I hope you like the photos.

Bridal Preparation - Detailed shot of the wedding dress

Bridegroom sharing a joke with best man before wedding ceremony

The entrance of the Bride

During the ceremony - sharing vows

The signing of the register in Orleans House

Wedding guests outside Orleans House

Contemporary Wedding photos inside Orleans House

A beautiful wedding photo of the bride and groom outside Orleans House

Contemporary wedding photography in the grounds

The Bride and Groom leaving the boat to go into the wedding reception

Bridal Preparation – Detailed shot of the wedding flowers

Tips for planning your wedding day. Number 1, Do a pre-wedding engagement photo shoot at your wedding venue

5 tips for planning your wedding day – a guide

1. Engagement Session

Sometimes called a pre-wedding photo shoot, these relaxed informal photo shoots can be great fun. As most people have not had their photo take by a professional before, it’s a great chance to have a practice run before your big day. A photo shoot can take from 30 minutes to one hour to complete.

One of the biggest reasons to do a pre wedding shoot is to build up a relationship with your wedding photographer. Your photographer is going to play a large part in your wedding day, and they will certainly be pointing a camera at you for most of it. Knowing your photographer will mean you are likely to relax a bit more and this will come across in the photos.

I would advise couples to arrange to do their pre-wedding shoot about  4 weeks prior to wedding at the venue if at all possible, and around the same time as your wedding. This gives your photographer a chance to see what backgrounds work best for you at the venue and to see the level of natural light, as this plays a big part in where photos will be most effective. If you can’t have your photos taken at your venue, try to use somewhere special to you, for example where you got engaged.

After your photo shoot, I would advise you to discuss your wedding day in detail with your photographer. One month before your wedding, you will have most of your planning completed, and it is always wise to talk through your plans with your photographer. This way we will be able to capture every detail that you have been planning all these months.

2. Planning for hair and makeup

Hair and make up artists are the first part of bridal preparation. They play a vital role in getting the bridal party ready for the wedding. They can also end up running late. If this happens, it means the bride has to rush get to the ceremony on time. What can happen in this scenario is the photos of the bride with bridesmaids and family can end up getting left out. I would suggest to brides to book hair and makeup earlier than they think. This way the bride is not under pressure if things run over, and it leaves more time for photos with the bridal party and brides family.

3. Transportation

If the bridal preparation is taking place in a different location from the ceremony, I would suggest using a reputable wedding car company. I have been the photographer at weddings where the wedding car was late, causing unnecessary stress for everyone concerned. Most wedding car companies know the location of the wedding venue, but just to be safe I would also recommend giving them a postcode for the sat nav, or directions printed from the internet.

4. The dress

It goes without saying that check you have the dress, shoes, jewellery, bouquet etc. with you at the bridal preparation. Photos of these can provide some lovely fillers for your album so keep the gift boxes and think about where they can be displayed until needed.

5. Organising Family formal pictures

Some brides give their photographers lists of formal shots they would like taken on their wedding day. I would suggest giving a copy of this list to the best man or someone in the family who will know most of the people at your wedding. It is very easy for us photographers to arrange the formal shots, but not so easy for us to spot that your Uncle Bob is missing from the photo. This sounds silly, but often the only people we know at your wedding is the bride and groom. A little help from someone who knows family members goes a long way.

We hope you find this list of tips useful. Careful planning does go a long way towards a successful wedding, but do be prepared for the occasional timings to not go 100% to plan. Good luck, We hope you have a great wedding day.

The happy couple having their wedding photos done outside the front of Lythe Hill Hotel

Lythe Hill Wedding Photographer

I had the opportunity to photograph a beautiful wedding at Lythe Hill Hotel in Haslemere in Surrey a few weeks ago. Speaking as a wedding photographer, I can’t overstate how impressed I was with Lythe Hill as a wedding venue. RachelJ&ustin were a really great couple, they photographed very easily and they were great fun.  I had the opportunity to meet lots of wedding suppliers in Haslemere and I will mention them in this post.

The wedding started with bridal preparation, in one of the hotel rooms in the hotel. Hair and makeup went without any problems and I was there to photograph it all.

After the bridal preperation we did a few fun shots outside before we made our way to St Peters Lynchmere Church. It was a gorgeous country church overlooking the hills of leafy Surrey. The church was quite full by the time we arrived, and left little time to set up tripods and camera equipment to capture the ceremony. After the service, there was some time for a few contemporary couple shots in the church grounds before they climbed into the Mercedes and drove off to Lythe Hill Hotel for the wedding Reception.

Again, I need to say how impressed I was with the staff at Lythe Hill they were very efficient and had set the venue up beautifully for the reception. After a Champaign reception, we did the group shots followed by the contemporary couple shots in the grounds of the hotel.

The evening was planned very well, the meal went smoothly, followed by speeches. The Band was fantastic and everybody enjoyed playing on the fun casino.

Thanks guys for having me as your photographer, I really enjoyed your wedding day, I hope you like the photos.

I would also like to thank all the suppliers for making this wedding such a great day. They are as follows:

Brides Makeup being done by Sarah Jane of Eden Hair in Hazelmere

Fantastic reception dining room at Lythe Hill Hotel

The excitement increases during the bridal preparation

Bridesmaids outside St Peters Lynchmere Church

A happy moment during the ceremony

Confetti Shot

Bridal bouquet by Stella C Flowers in Camberly

The Bride and Groom arrive at Lythe Hill Hotel

Contemporary couple shots in the grounds of the hotel

A fun moment in the grounds of the hotel

Contemporary Groups shots

Contemporary couple shots

Wedding Band by the F Word in London

Casino by Fun Casino in London

Just getting everything ready for the shoot later today with an engaged couple in Guildford. Its quite an involved process, as I need to ensure that every possible thing that can go wrong needs to be thought of and a suitable backup put into place. Speaking as a wedding photographer its simply no good turning up to a shoot and having some item of equipment go down on me!! That would be an absolute nightmare!!.

As a professional photographer I ensure that all my equipment is checked and tested before the shoot. One of the most time consuming is cleaning the camera sensor and lenses with the blower and cloths to ensure that there are no specs of dust on the sensor for the shoot. This can seriously ruin a shot if there are specs on the image. If this does happen, you have two options, either bin the shot, (or the whole shoot if they all have specs on them.) or enter a lengthy painful process of removing them in post production with photoshop.

If the shoot does go well, the couple (who will be getting married in a months time) are interested in black and white or in a sepia tone. This is quite unusual for a wedding couple to request to have mostly black and white images. Normally it is just a few images in B&W that the couple ask for during the engagement photoshoot.

Well with all my cameras charged and everything backed up to ensure there is no redundancy, i’ll be heading out to do the shoot. Check back on the blog later to see the images I post.

Hello again, just back from the shoot, and we had lots of fun. The guys were a little late due to traffic on the Guildford roads, but it was no problem as it was such a bright sunny day. It didn’t take long to set up the lights and get going. They guys loved this really gorgeous tree, so we ended up doing most of the photos there. They also loved this really long path along the canal, so we did some natural walking shots there. The greens in the trees were so amazing, I decided to turn the sepia tone to allow the greens to blend through. I’ll also post the original photo so you can compare the two. Let me know what you think by comenting below.

Thanks for reading

Rob

Engagement Shoot in Guildford with fantastic lens flare from the sun

Looking very Serious!!

Moody close up of the guys

The Engaged couple looking natural walking along the Guildford Canal. This shot has a slight tint of Sepia tone and a slight increase in contrast.

This shot shows the really amazing colours that the soft light was producing that day. This photo is the original unedited photo to show how saturated the green tones were in the trees that day.