A Melville Castle wedding

Well I have no more weddings at Melville Castle this year but no doubt will have many to look forward throughout 2012. There will be a new team in place in the new year and this beautiful wedding venue will be taking bookings once again for weddings and events.

Lynne and Alasdair booked me for their wedding at the beginning of 2011 and their original wedding date was May 2012. However, when the Aurora Group made the decision to pull out of Melville Castle at the end of this year they moved some of the wedding dates they had booked for 2012 forward into 2011 and so Alasdair and Lynne ended up tying the knot several months sooner than they had planned. Although that of course generated a lot of frantic work and effort for them, in the end it was such a fantastic wedding I’m sure they didn’t mind one little bit!

Lynne and Alasdair had booked me for just about the whole day, starting with pre-wedding photographs through until the first dance. When they booked me they were both living and working up in Aberdeen and came down to Edinburgh one weekend to do some wedding organising. After using the internet to search for and then compare wedding photographers in Edinburgh they finally narrowed down their shortlist to three and thereupon had made appointments to meet with the three of us over the weekend. Unknown to me at the time I was the Edinburgh wedding photographer who had the first appointment on the Friday afternoon with the other two photographers scheduled for the Saturday. However, Lynne and Alasdair phoned me later on the Friday evening to say after meeting and chatting with me and looking through my albums they had cancelled their meetings with the other two photographers for the following day and were going to book me. Well I just LOVE clients like that! :)

I was due to start the photography from 12 noon at Melville Castle. So I duly arrived in good time to find I was actually there ahead of the bride! It’s not often that happens! lol Lynne had gone into the city to get her hair and make up done and ended up running a little late. She arrived at around twelve thirty and we went down to the bridal suite where upon I began doing some dress, shoes, flowers and other detail shots. As Lynne had already had her hair and make-up done there wasn’t opportunity to get this type of 'getting ready' shot but instead that gave a little extra time which I used to do some pre-wedding bridal portraits. If you read my blog regularly you will be aware that I am currently competing in the Society of Wedding & Portrait Photographers - Photographer of the Year contest. Each month the SWPP runs a monthly image contest across the main wedding and portrait categories where all professional photographers can enter one photo per category. These are then judged and the results announced the beginning of the following month. So far this year I have managed to win awards in one category or another every single month, which I am absolutely delighted about! One of the photographs from Lynne’s pre-ceremony set scored me a 'Bronze' in the Traditional Portrait category. Little did I know at that point that I would end up entering four more photographs from this wedding with all five of them winning awards! (The categories I entered were Weddings Traditional, Weddings Photojournalism, Weddings Contemporary, Monochrome and Traditional Portraits)

The first photograph in today’s blog is the one from the Weddings Traditional category. All the other shots today are all reportage or photojournalism shots, as I promised last week that I would use more of this style in my next blogging. I did a tiny bit of cheating with the girls on the staircase photograph as I quickly asked them to pause for one second when they had all reached the perfect spot so that I could see all their faces at the same time in the picture. Strictly speaking this doesn’t classify as a photojournalism image as the SWPP contest rules are quite rigorous and state that a 'photojournalism' shot must have no intervention whatsoever by the photographer. Knowing this of course meant I wouldn’t try and enter this particular photograph into that category but it wouldn’t stop me shooting it nevertheless as it still is good Storybook photography. All the remainder of today’s photos definitely do fit the photojournalism criteria and as you study them you will see how none of them have been staged, faked or re-created. Personally, I never try to re-create or stage a supposedly storybook moment as I believe to a discerning eye you can always tell that it isn’t really authentic. On the other hand a truly genuine spontaneous moment is absolutely priceless!

The second to last photo shown in this blog is the shot that won me the award in the Weddings Photojournalism category. It occurred a split second after the first kiss and capturing it was purely down to experience and timing. As the ceremony is progressing towards its conclusion most wedding photographers are readying themselves for the first kiss photograph. You never know for sure at what exact point this will occur as every officiate differs as to when they will utter those immortal words "You may now kiss the bride". Some of them never say them at all which makes things all the more harder for us! lol You also never know for how long the first kiss will last. Some couples will linger their kiss for several seconds which is great for us photographers allowing us to shoot several photographs possibly getting both full length and close ups. For other couples, particularly if they are feeling quite nervous, the first kiss can be the briefest moment imaginable and then we have to really be on our toes! So you’re doing your best trying to anticipate when the moment will come and then of course making sure you are in the right place at the right time and fire the shutter at the perfect instant. This happens very fast and there is a natural tendency for a photographer to instantaneously check the back screen on his camera to see if he caught the moment or not. However, from experience I have noted how on many occasions immediately following the kiss the couple will share a warm, intimate gesture which is often more emotional than the first kiss itself. This may be an embrace, a touching of heads or the whispering of some private words. For this reason I never lower the camera but instead am more alert than ever. I think the shot here from Lynne and Alasdair’s ceremony really illustrates the rewards of this and shows the difference between simply a nice wedding snap and an award winning image. It has captured the full gambit of emotions - happiness, joy, contentment, love and excitement that the couple have for one another and that they are feeling at this exact, precise second. This instant in time lasted for literally a split second and will never ever occur again. I can tell you it is exceedingly rewarding capturing these never to be repeated, fleeting moments and one of the reasons I love my job so much!