Christine and Gary's snowy wedding

Well when Christine and Gary booked me for their wedding back in January none of us imagined we were going to be doing a set of winter wonderland wedding photographs, but their wedding a fortnight ago was held amid the worst weather we have had in Scotland for a long, long time!
According to the news it was so bad that for the first time in history every single school in Edinburgh was closed at the same time. There certainly wasn’t going to be too many Edinburgh wedding photographers happy this week. I can imagine that the days running up to the wedding must have been rather worrying and stressful for both Christine and Gary and also their families. But as it happened we ended up with a glorious wedding and a fantastic set of photographs!

Because of the snow the church was rendered inaccessible so the ceremony was switched to Melville Castle.
Melville Castle itself had been virtually cut off for most of the week too but they brought a tractor come digger in on the Thursday to clear the driveway. It was also of great concern that I wouldn’t be able to get into Costa Coffee en route to the wedding, but the powers that be at Kinnaird Park arranged for the roads and car park to be cleared by tractor just in time enabling me to get in and pick up my cuppa as I drove over to Melville in the morning ;)

With the ceremony being moved to Melville Castle Christine was given a room there on the morning to get ready in which meant I could squeeze in a few pre-wedding shots of both Christine and her bridesmaids prior to going
through for the ceremony. I also did a quick session with Gary and the groomsmen too along the snow clad driveway and then a few different shots of Gary at the main entrance. The first picture posted here was one of my favourites with Gary and you can also see me (in the next pic) taking the shot too, courtesy of Christine’s sister, Jen, lol.

I got a series of images as Christine, father and bridesmaids came down the main staircase at Melville Castle on their way to the Ballroom for the ceremony. I always like to get a nice photograph of the bride with her father just before entering the ceremony room and coming down
the aisle, so as they descended I asked Christine and her father to pause briefly on the lower landing and I grabbed two nice shots before running ahead to take up position three quarters of the way down the aisle to photograph the procession.

For most of the ceremony I quietly worked in the corners of the room unobtrusively moving from one to the other to capture the facial expressions as we went through the declarations, vows and ring exchange. As the Ballroom is one of the grandest rooms at Melville Castle I always try to get a photograph right from the back at some point showing off the entire room with all the guests and families enjoying the ceremony. As I move around behind the couple
for this I take a second to silently straighten out the brides dress as it usually becomes bunched up from her walk down the aisle and the shot will look so much better if the dress is straightened and splayed out a touch over the red carpet. When I meet back up with couples after the wedding most of the brides say they didn’t notice me doing this and it’s not until seeing the photographs that they realise it. I always reply “Well you were kind of busy concentrating on something else at the time!” lol

Drinks and canapés were served in the hotel lobby following the ceremony, and after grabbing a quick shot of Gary and Christine chinking glasses I left them to mingle with their guests for a
few minutes while I cleared away the chairs and set up some lighting in the Ballroom for the group photographs. The Ballroom at Melville is perfect for group shots as it is so spacious and the light is fantastic! I use a couple of studio lights with shoot through umbrella’s which I have set to balance with the ambient light of the Ballroom. The large, ornate Ballroom windows all run along the south facing wall so if I didn’t balance out the lighting there would be a touch too much side light coming from the left handside, particularly at this time of year when the sun sets earlier in the afternoon.

When the group photographs were completed we went into the bride and groom session. Both Gary and Christine were keen to go outside for at least part of the time and get some photographs in the snow.
However, I started off with them inside the castle as I wanted to get the timing just right for outdoors. Despite being a very nice day it was still cold and I didn’t want them being outside for too long so I paced things to allow us to go outside just as the sun began to drop behind the tree line. The affect of the sun being so low in the sky was to cause a shimmering mist to ascend from the snow which gave me stunning backgrounds as it created an almost dry ice appearance rising dramatically behind them. There are two good examples shown here. In the photograph showing them walking along the snow clad track you can see how striking the angled sunlight is as it comes in from the right handside illuminating their faces and giving warmth and depth the image. The following shot is one of a sequence of head and shoulders where I asked them to look at me, then to look at each other and then to kiss. You can see the rising dry
ice affect I spoke of coming up from the snow and really giving them prominence and making them stand out from the background. Just as the sun was ready to touch the horizon I swung them around and moved in from the opposite side so the setting sun was directly behind their heads. This (the last photo) is my personal favourite image from their day. It is one from a set of four which also included them looking into camera as well.

Of course, the day didn’t end here. We also did the cake cutting, speeches, a few requests and then the first dance. So all in all, despite the concerns earlier in the week over the weather adversely affecting the wedding day it actually played a strong part in making the day more memorable and spectacular than any of us would have guessed back in January!

There are a lot of wedding photographers in Edinburgh, and indeed throughout the country, who decline to work the winter months because they say it gets dark too quickly and makes it too hard working in the difficult light conditions.
Well in my view they don’t know what they are missing out on. The shorter day light, winter months produce spectacular, atmospheric conditions that make for stunning photography and it is a delight to work at this time of year! There's certainly several photographs from this wedding that will make it into my portfolio! :)