There was more than one wedding taking place on Friday 29th April. There was the obvious one at Westminster Abbey in London between William & Kate. That one got a lot more media coverage than the one we went to - Princethorpe in Warwickshire seemed to be a BBC and SkyNews free zone as far as we could see. This was rather handy, as Sally and I were the "official" photographers for this particular wedding, and were very pleased that there weren't any pros there to show us up!
The morning was a bit overcast, and the wind made it definitely chilly if you were not sheltered. The wedding guests mostly seemed less than keen to have their photos taken on their way into church - mind you, my saying they were for security purposes in case anything got nicked from the church may not have helped!
As Lisa, the bride arrived, Sally went inside to join Chris, the groom, and all the other guests while i captured her arrival. Once Lisa, her father and chief bridesmaid were inside, i raced around the edge of the church to get into position to photograph the walk down the aisle and the lighting of the candles.
The evening before, at the rehearsal, the priest, Father Ted (yes, really!) had given us instructions on where and when he was happy for us to take pictures. I was very conscious of not wanting to upset him, and stuck very much to the rules he had given us. I'm told that he later said that he was very pleased with how inconspicuous we had remained throughout.
Being a full blown Catholic ceremony and mass, it lasted quite a while, but i have to say that Father Ted's manner and sense of humour shone through and made the whole thing not only fly by, but also made it fun. He is a truly lovely man, who i would be very happy to get to know better.
As soon as i had captured the signing of the register, Sally and i raced outside to get ready to capture the exit from the church. This turned into a bit of a free for all, and trying to gain control of the guests to get the group photos we wanted turned into a real challenge. In the end, one of the guests took pity on us, and used his loud voice and commanding manner to organise the madding crowd. I never did discover his name, but i owe him a drink! Without him, we may still have been there now trying to get people into the right places.
Chris and Lisa finally left in a Bentley, we packed our gear away and dashed to the reception venue to continue our duties. Ignoring the directions the SatNav suggested, we actually managed to get there before most of the people who had left the church well before us. We also managed to avoid some of the less salubrious areas of Coventry on the way, so got there with car and contents intact!!
I managed to get some nice shots of Chris & Lisa in the grounds of the hotel, and even took on the challenge set me by Chris' dad John to make him look half decent in a photograph. I think i succeeded, but i will let him be the judge. I did remind him of the rather good one i got of him at his daughter Vicki's wedding last year as they went into the church.........
The reception went off without any hitches, we got quite a few photos of the meet and greet as the guests went in, and also during the speeches. While the room was re-arranged for the evening do, we reviewed the photos and got them onto the ipad. inevitably there were some that were not that good, but there were also enough that were either good as they were, or would stand a bit of cropping to turn them into something pretty decent.
We were both surprised and honoured to be mentioned during Chris' speech, and were very grateful for the thank you gifts they gave us. We were doing it as a favour to them, and had said that we would do it as a freebie, so that was really lovely of them. I just hope they are pleased with the photos we took now!!
