Continuing from the first part of this blog post...
We find the groom and best man nervously pacing around at the front of the church. We say a quick hello to the guys then we seek out the vicar to introduce ourselves. This is probably the single part of the day I don’t relish - we find that some vicars are not, shall we say, photographer friendly. Fortunately this week the vicar is a pretty chilled guy with a relaxed attitude towards us (unlike last week but I won’t go into that one now). So anyhow this week we get a prime spot at the front of the church to do our thing and the Saturday boy (oops sorry Nick) at the back of the church with his favourite telephoto lens.
But before that it’s back to the groom and best man – they also have two ushers who are busy seeing people to their seats. We do the usual shots of the groom looking quite twitchy, then a couple of shots of the groom and best man. The vicar comes out of the church as its 1oclock - time for the service to begin, so we have to get the guys inside as they are in danger of seeing the bride arrive as she should already be at the church. With the guys safely inside the church, Dawn and I head down to the church gates with the vicar to greet bride and dad. I sense at this point the vicar is getting a bit stressed as they are running late and he has another wedding after this one. Still at least he only has only one day left to work then he gets the week off (well I never see them working in the week anyway).
Anyway, at the gates the limo is in sight with the bride and dad now looking somewhat more nervous than when we saw them at the house. We take a few pics of them walking up the pathway and coming into the church. By this time the church is packed and eagerly awaiting the brides arrival. Nick is already in place by the font at the back of the church. Dawn and I now take up our places at the front and the service begins. The church shots are easy for us as we are limited with the use of flash. We can usually only use the flash about six times during the service, but we can still shoot without flash during most of it.
I love to watch the congregation during the service. In fact the vicar was very patient I have to say - what with the children acting like the church is a play ground and people chatting. In fact, I am sure I herd the passing of wind at one point with a wave of giggling to follow (I didn’t chuckle promise, and no I didn’t do it this time).
With the service over and pics of the signing of the register done its outside for the dreaded posed shots. Don’t get me wrong we love doing the posed shots, but it’s at this time all the congregation seem to disappear, so we enlist the best man to round up the lucky subjects. It’s also at this point, unknown to us, we find out that someone in their wisdom has hired another six highly-professional photographers all armed with top quality compact cameras which came from last years Christmas cracker. Funny I swear they are all from some secret photographic society where to be a member you must be female aged between 50 and 70, wear flowery frocks and must be named Aunty Mary, Maud, or Flo or something like that. Mind you they are clever, I have to say, they are highly trained to let you set up the group shot then jump in and snap. We have a plan for this one her name is Dawn she is trained to spot this kind of opportunist snapper I know when she spots one as I hear “that woman is standing in my way again” from behind me.
Please see the third and final part of this post next!
