My first wedding of 2021!
In Spring 2021, I was very lucky to be chosen by South African couple Samantha and Trienko to photograph their wedding day in the beautiful city of Oxford. Despite only six people being allowed to attend the wedding due to current covid wedding guidelines, I have never been so excited for a wedding! It was just really thrilling to be able to get back into photographing weddings again after a long six month ban on weddings. I was feeling quite nervous through lack of photography practice since my last wedding in October. Also The Bride, Samantha, is also a professional photographer. That’s one way to add pressure for my first wedding of 2021!
Although I market myself as a Dorset wedding photographer I am more than happy to travel to other areas, I love a good road trip! I really loved driving through the hilly countryside outside Oxford, it was a great start to my day! I hit the road at 9am to get to the brides home at 11am leaving me plenty of time for a relaxing start with the getting ready photos. I was greeted at the door by the maid of honour Daisy and the brides adorable dog, Ellie the Staffordshire bull-terrier! She immediately started chewing on my arm, which I was told means she likes me (Ellie not Daisy!) I got straight into setting up my equipment, my set up is straightforward but effective. I use two Nikon D750’s with a 85mm and 35mm lenses, this means I can capture beautiful candid portraits and wide angle scenes without switching lenses. I started off by photographing the wedding rings and brides jewellery using the beautiful bouquet as a background.
Bride Preparation photos
Once the hair and make up team had arrived I took lots of shots of them carrying out the bridal transformation, this really helps tell a story in the wedding album! I also took some portraits of the dog, Ellie! It’s important to capture all these small details, they are just as important as the big moments. I had quite a lot of time during the getting ready part of the day so I decided to get creative with my photography, I wanted to try out a new trick which I had seen on a YouTube video. Whilst Georgina the hair stylist was applying the finishing touches to Samantha’s hair and spraying hairspray I placed my off camera flash behind Samantha’s head and fired away. I loved the results of this shot, the light from my flash illuminated the droplets of spray and created a backlight, whilst Samantha’s face was lit up by natural light coming from the window in front of her. You can see the result in the image below, I love it so much that it made it into my portfolio! I would love to give some credit to the ladies who made this shot possible. The make up was done by ‘Beauty By Ruby Grace’ (https://beautybyrubygrace.co.uk/) and the hair was by ‘Hair By GH’ (https://hairbygh.co.uk/). Ruby and Georgina often work together as a team, I highly recommend them both, they will make you look your absolute best on your wedding day!
Beautiful Wedding Ceremony at The Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford
Timing was quite tight, the hair and makeup was completed about 10 minutes before Samantha was due to get married but it was worth hanging around so I could photograph the final touches as Ruby and Georgina had done an incredible job, Samantha looked beautiful! I finished the preparation shots with the brides Mum or ‘Mom’ as they say in South Africa, doing the back of the dress up before dashing off to the church, luckily it was literally a 1 minute drive away!
The Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford is so beautiful! It had a very traditional vibe with stained glass Windows, stone architecture and candles. From a photographers point of view it is fantastic, there are large windows along the length of the church which means the bride, father and groom are nicely lit whilst walking down the aisle. I find some churches don’t let in much natural light and are over powered by candles and incandescent lighting which can make peoples skin color look a little unnatural, didn’t have that problem luckily! It was strange having so few people in the church, but luckily the whole ceremony was being streamed on Zoom by Daisy so friends and family back in South Africa could still witness the wedding. This church is also has a very interesting bit of history, the famous author C.S Lewis who wrote the Narnia Novels is buried here so it’s a bit of a tourist hot spot. After the small wedding ceremony we headed outside for group photos and I captured some beautiful, emotional moments between the bride and groom, these are some of my favourite photos of the day, because just capture the love and they just look so natural which is my preferred style.
Oxford City Centre Bride and Groom Romantic Photo shoot
We then headed back to the Bride and Groom’s home for a short celebration. I was treated to South African Coffee and Champagne, just what I needed after the long drive and busy afternoon. One of my favourite perks of being a wedding photographer is that sometimes I am treated like a guest and not just a worker, which is really nice! We were at the house very briefly, I started backing up the images I had already taken to my laptop and I took some photos of Samantha and Trienko with Ellie. We then headed to Oxford City Centre for a romantic bride and groom photo shoot.
We walked around Oxford getting a combination of natural and posed shots, I just tried to capture as many intimate moments between Samantha and Trienko as I could, these photos really tell a story and help you relive the big day when you are looking back at the images. My favourite thing about photographing weddings in city centres is that you get lots of strangers on the pavement shouting ‘CONGRATULATIONS’ at the Bride and Groom as we walk down the streets. I had a lot of fun walking around Oxford with the bride and groom, I had a lot of these photos planned in my head but what I wasn’t expecting to see was an old red telephone box which I thought made a great photo, although it was tight squeeze as Trienko is very tall! I thought it was really awesome getting some beautiful wedding photos in front of some iconic landmarks in the historical city centre, especially the Radcliffe Camera building, see below.
Final Thoughts
It was quite a strange experience photographing a wedding with only six people but under the circumstances it was amazing to be able to get back into what I love doing most! One big advantage was that I could really focus my images more on the bride and groom. At larger weddings I would usually spend a lot more time taking photos of guests, groomsmen, bridesmaids, various group photos and all the little wedding details I love to capture. With a small, intimate wedding like this it was purely about capturing the love between Samantha and Trienko, I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet but I think I did a great job of capturing the love between them.
I always tell my couples that I will send them some preview photos from their wedding day within 24 hours after the wedding, however I thought I would surprise Samantha and Trienko as they were unable to have a honeymoon. Once I got back to my home in Dorset that very evening, I fired up my computer and prepared a few preview photos for the couple and loaded them onto the online gallery. I was so happy and relieved by Samantha’s praise of my work, I was actually feeling a bit anxious, every photographer fears the day they have to photograph another photographers wedding day! Us photographers are probably the most picky people on the planet!