Wedding guests

Wedding guests

Shooting a wedding, documentary style, allows you a multitude of photo possibilities, with Wedding guests.

My premier concern is always the bride and groom, but sometimes when I am up front and waiting for the bride to arrive, I am still capturing shots of the groom, but also looking around for ‘personalities’ and interesting shots within the crowd.

Whether it is an interesting hat, an expression, a particularly lively child, a loved-up young couple, someone looking vexed, someone beaming, someone wistful, an exchange of words that looks interesting, I try and capture these. These people / persons are the personality of the crowd, of the wedding party. When the couple look back on their wedding photos these shots will summarise in photos what was happening within the congregation, prior to their ceremony.

Likewise around the terrace areas, after the wedding ceremony, standing back with a long lens you see all sorts of activity, rivalry between children, people lost in their own thoughts, laughter, facial expressions, people meeting and greeting each other.

Sometimes I find being in the middle of the crowd, talking to people, asking them all sorts of questions as if I am a wedding guest myself, then people start to talk to me, I am closer in and can get some better shots, as guests relax around me, children in particular respond well to this kind of chatting.

This is part of Lisa and Rob’s wedding, shot at Ettington Park Hotel in July this year.

This little girl had a small plastic vessel containing cheerios, to try and amuse her but with young children this lasts but just minutes . This little girl was running up and down the red carpet , prior to the brides arrival, dropping cheerios, instead of rose petals.  I was doing my best to pick them up or kick them under chairs, concerned the bride would slip on them and this interaction with the child enabled me to get this shot.

 

This girl looks a little agitated, waiting for the bride to arrive, it looks like her mum has asked her to be patient. But its a truity of the day, it happened ( I have shots of her later on where she is happily collecting rose petals from the confetti throwing crowd).

 

Lovely pensive shot of the grooms son, in the Library @ Ettington Park Hotel

I do love this, the grooms mum, looks very royal here and what a fabulous queenie wedding hat!