Aleisha and Ryan - a rocking wedding in Cheshunt and Enfield

It's very much "the morning after the night before for me" as I suspect it is for Ryan and Aleisha, who's wedding I covered yesterday.   A combination of Aleisha's massive hard work & attention to detail, and a truly excellent toast master made this a really easy wedding to cover.    Here are a few, very early samples of some images that immediately stood out for me.


These, and a few more images are also displayed on my facebook page.   If you'd like this quality of coverage for your wedding, then please pop over to my website.

Finally, a message for Ryan - "Thursday Nights, Channel Five!" :-)

Dan

Why everything gets more expensive when you mention the "W" word

If you are making plans for your wedding, then you've probably felt a little "taken advantage of".  Many brides will tell me "as soon as I mention that it's for a wedding then prices seem to go through the roof".   As a wedding supplier, I'm going to give my perspective on this.

Now, I'm bound to try and deny the existence of this phenomenon aren't I? We can't possibly all be money grabbing people taking advantage of brides desperation and inexperience when it comes to planning a wedding, can we?

Well here's the first surprise.  From my perspective, things do get more expensive at the first mention of the dreaded "W" word, and the second surprise is that I think this is (usually) perfectly justified.

Brides get married (hopefully) once in their life, which rightly means that they want their wedding to be a once in a lifetime experience.  Everything needs to be perfect, "good" is simply no longer good enough.

This means as wedding suppliers we are under even more pressure to make sure that we deliver the perfection that wedding couples rightly desire.
 

Let's consider the florist.   If you pop into a florist and buy a £30 bouquet and 6 hours later the heads have dropped off a couple of the blooms, then you'll be annoyed, but you'll probably just get on with it, remove the stems and "make the most of" the remaining flowers in the bouquet.   A week later you'll probably have forgotten it ever happened.   On your wedding day, "make the most of" is not an emotion that any bride should be prepared to accept.  This means that  your wedding florist will select only the best flowers and spend considerably more time carefully putting the bouquet together, making sure everything is secured in place and that no blooms have been in any way damaged in putting it all together.  With that additional pressure for higher quality, it's natural (indeed a business essential) that your florist will charge more than for their day-to-day flowers.

Similarly, if a seam on a dress you've just bought un-picks a week after you've bought it, you'll probably patch it up "and make the best of it".  If the same thing happens to your bridal gown then you'll likely (and rightly) be distraught.

The same applies to my role as a wedding photographer.  If I shoot a portrait session and the images are "off", I can invite you back at my cost, re-shoot you, offer you an extra framed print and you'll walk away happy.  However, if I miss the first kiss at a wedding, or my group shots are underexposed then you'll never have a quality record of those moments and you'll hate the fact you booked me for the rest of your life.   So my quality threshold has to be higher, much higher.  I need to spend more time and money training, to make sure I have the best equipment, have selected the best suppliers, and even at the end of what is often a 14 hour working day, I need to immediately get onto the computer, even if it's midnight and get the images backed up and safe from any possible damage or loss.  

Your wedding day deserves to have a "premium" feel and you won't get that by paying rock bottom prices.   Do the maths, if a supplier is offering you a price that means that they can't possibly be doing this as their only full time job, then how good a service are they going to give you?

     Dan

Nikki and Mez tie the knot at Upton Park

HI folks, here's a quick preview of some favourite images from my most recent wedding, which took place at Upton Park, home of West Ham United.   Once I'd set aside my Chelsea supporting credentials, it really was a good place to photograph a wedding, with large rooms and helpful staff.

Have a look at some of my favourites:




Bridal preparations always go better with a little lubrication.

One of Nikki's beautiful sari's hung up and ready to be worn for the wedding.


Time for a quick check of the make up.

Beautiful shoes.

Mez looking statesmanlike (he was actually watching the cricket and yet another English wicket falling!).

Final preparations.

One of the strongest features of the day was how many laughs Nikki and Mez had, with absolutely no Bridezilla or Groom from Hell moments.








The first kiss.





They start them young over at West Ham.

The first grooms speach of the day as the sun sets behind the top table.



A broken arm wasn't going to slow this young reveller down.

Nikki react's to Mez's "loving words" during his evening speech.



Cutting the cake, and nephew & niece got involved too!

First dance.






Dan

A splash of Autumn Sunshine as Caroline & Jeremy get married in Enfield

I was overjoyed last weekend to be able to capture Caroline & Jeremy's wonderful wedding.       The sun shone and shone and shone, and as a result everyone looked absolutely their tip-top best and had a wonderful day.    

Caroline tied the knot to Jeremy at Our Lady of Mount Carmel & St. Georges Church in Enfield, where the priest, despite this being his first wedding, did a fantastic job.     The Church was bedecked in beautiful flowers, and the autumn sunshine flooded in.     A fantastic choir almost raised the roof and the wedding went off without a hitch.

After this we all headed off to De Vere Ponsbourne Park where we were looked after in spectacular fashion for the rest of the evening.

I hope that these few photographs give you a sense of what was a fantastic day:

Andy & Lorraine trot into a sensational Enfield Wedding

A good news story about Enfield is surely overdue, and there's nothing better than a good wedding to get some smiles onto people's faces.     Here's a few early sample images from the fabulous wedding I photographed at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. George, last Friday:

I hope you enjoyed these.  Why not pop over to my Facebook page for more examples of my work.   It's got to be worth a "like"!

 

Dan