In this blog post I want talk about my experience of photographing my very first covid wedding. This will not only help fellow wedding photographers understand what the restrictions of a covid wedding are like, but it will also help future couples getting married understand that a beautiful wedding is still very possible. I know things seem grim at the moment, and uncertain, but weddings are still happening! It just means you have to scale things down a bit. Your wedding day will still be very special, as I am about to show you in this post!
Gorgeous Guildford Town Wedding
On August 22nd 2020, Italian Bride Matilde and Michael got married in the beautiful, historic town of Guildford in Surrey. Guildford is such a stunning wedding location with cobbled old streets, historic high street and castle. Their original plans were to have large wedding in Winchester, but sadly, as thousands of couples across the UK have also experienced, they had to scale down their wedding to a much smaller size to keep in line with the law. Matilde was absolutely determined to get married this year, they had already postponed the wedding from March. The bride also had family flying from Italy which added the difficulty of planning a wedding that would mean all the important people could be there.
The Challenges of a Covid Wedding
One of the biggest challenges from my point of view was wearing a mask! Of course I wore one in the only indoor part of the day during the getting ready part of the morning to stick to the government rules, but it was not pleasant in the slightest. The big problem is that whilst wearing a mask the view finder on my camera kept fogging up from my breath. This makes photography very challenging as I can’t see what’s going on! I tried clearing the view finder, and holding my breath, but it was no use as it became difficult to concentrate. So in the end I just had to get on with not being able to see much. I basically just aimed my camera at the silhouette of my subject as that’s all I could see, and then narrowed the aperture on my 85mm lense to create a wider plane of focus. I did this to make sure I didn’t miss focus on anyone’s eyes. I would usually navigate my focus point precisely onto someone’s eye but it wasn’t possible with my viewfinder all fogged up! Fortunately this technique worked fantastically! Luckily shooting indoors was just a very small portion of the day, so I could be mask free outside for the majority of the day and take photos with much more comfort.
Social Distancing at Weddings
In regards to social distancing, it was quite easy, I used my 85mm and 70-200mm lenses most of the day to keep my distance when taking photos. These lenses are telephoto lenses, meaning I can photograph at a further distance.
Wedding Ceremony Covid Regulations
Another issue is that the wedding ceremony venue at the Registry office in Guildford Town Centre would not allow me inside to take photos of the ceremony itself. It was such a shame, as photographing the ceremony is one of my favourite parts of a wedding, so many emotions to capture! I was however allowed to enter whilst wearing a mask to photograph Matilde and Michael signing their marriage certificate and register. From other wedding photographers I have spoken to about this circumstance it seems that it is entirely up to the registrar whether the photographer can photograph within the ceremony or not. It is a big shame but it’s an adaption we have to make to allow weddings to still happen, so I am more than willing to comply.
Wedding Photo shoot along the River Wey
After the ceremony I grouped the family on the steps of the Guildford Register office for some family portraits. These really showed off the beauty of this wedding venue. After that I started taking some romantic photos of the bride and groom. I even managed to capture the moment that they were FaceTiming relatives and friends on their phone, it felt so good to perfectly capture the joy on their faces! We then drove down to The George Abbott Pub where I took another gorgeous family group shot on the iron bridge across the river Wey, before taking a few more romantic bride and groom photos along the river Wey.
In Conclusion, to wrap up this post which I hope will be useful to couples getting married and other wedding photographers. I would like to say that if you are worried about how Covid will affect your wedding day please do not panic! You will still be able to get married, it will still be special! You will just need to alter some of your plans. I have a few clients who are having a very small ceremony and gathering in the final quarter of 2020, and then making plans to have large celebration when circumstances allow. Matilde and Michael plan on having a big celebration in Italy next year so that they can have a big celebration with all their friends and family.
