Julie and Craig's Keavil House wedding

If you are visiting my blog for the first time can I quickly point out that if you click on any of the photo spreads it will open up a larger gallery style viewer where you can scroll through and see all the pictures at a much better size. This is not only a busy time for weddings right now but also for future brides and grooms searching for their wedding photographer and I’m a great believer in the adage that a photographers work should speak for itself.

Before telling you a little about Julie and Craig’s wedding at Keavil House Hotel let me quickly bring you up to date with some of my latest news. As mentioned above we are now in the heart of the wedding season which is great as I love weddings and I can’t get enough of them! I’ve also had several Engagement shoots as well with couples whose weddings I’ll be photographing later in the summer. I’ve taken three of the couples up Calton Hill within the last few days which is a superb location for engagement shoots including shots with Edinburgh Castle and the famous Edinburgh skyline as a dramatic backdrop. I’ll try and blog one them for next week so you can see what I mean.

I’ve also been squeezing in a few commercial shoots for the likes of OK Magazine, Shieldhill Castle, Oxenfoord Castle and Malmaison Hotel. Again I will no doubt blog some of these in the near future. My Make-up artist has been on the road promoting my Million Dollar Make-over photo experience package that I told you about a few weeks ago, so we are off to a good start with that. I am also about to pioneer a brand new, exciting idea in the weddings arena which I am really looking forward to, but more details about that in due course.

Okay now for Julie and Craig’s wedding. As you may know, for many decades wedding photographers in Edinburgh have had a morbid fear of crossing over into the Kingdom of Fife to photograph weddings. This all stems back to the early days of photography when of course the only way to cross from Edinburgh to Fife was via a small ferry that operated from South Queensferry long before the arrival of the Forth Bridge. Due to the infamous Firth of Forth mist, known as Haar, photographers found that by the time they had reached the opposite shore their equipment was so damp and wet it would not perform adequately and in many cases it would not work at all! Thus a strong dislike of crossing over to Fife grew amongst the early photographers which subsequently developed into superstition that has continued down to this day. Personally I have always loved the prospect of working in Fife as one of my first ever magazine shoots was over in the East Neuk of Fife and it proved such a hit that it lead to several more successful and profitable commissions. So when Julie and Craig booked me for their wedding in Fife’s Keavil House Hotel I was delighted!

I have of course photographed weddings at many beautiful venues throughout Fife but this was my first time at Keavil House. I was looking forward to it very much as it is always exciting when working at a new venue for the first time. A few weeks previously I had come through for my pre-wedding recce and earmarked many locations in their lovely gardens that I would use for group shots and the bride and groom session. However as it rained on the day itself we didn’t get opportunity to use any of these so I had to utilise my back up plan.

When I arrived about an hour before the ceremony it was a very light drizzle. Craig and his bestman didn’t mind popping outside for a quick couple of shots and then I took them both together with Craig’s usher into the main suite for a couple pre-wedding photographs before heading back along to the entrance for the arrival of mother and bridesmaids and then bride and father.

The three bridesmaids and Julie’s mum arrived soon thereafter and I had opportunity to photograph them outside the suite as the rain was currently holding off. By the time Julie arrived things had changed and it was chucking it down! I ran out to grab a photograph of the wedding car as it rolled serenely up to the hotel entrance and I also paused Julie and her father in the back for a second for a photo, too. Brolleys were at the ready to get Julie into the suite without getting too wet and when ready I did a more formal style photograph of her with her father just before we headed in and down the aisle.

The ceremony as usual seemed to fly by with plenty of humour and personal story in the Humanist service. Lots of natural photographs of all the key moments as usual and likewise with the signing of the register. As the photographer I’m usually granted permission to set up a couple of posed shots of the register signing which is nice to do as the couple get all the photographs from the day on their DVD so it’s good to have a great variety. Once I had taken the shots I wanted I ran around to the rear and grabbed the shot you see in spread five of all the guests getting their group/register photograph. I really like this image as it is such a happy moment for the couple and guests alike and captures the atmosphere of the event perfectly.

The family group photographs we did inside as it was still raining and following these we did likewise with the bride and groom shots. As I’ve mentioned on previous blogs I always use my portable studio lights for wet days so even if confined indoors for the entire day we still get superb, striking photographs from our bride and groom session.

The speeches were before the wedding breakfast which we of course photographed as usual and then following the meal I just worked unobtrusively around the periphery of things looking for photographs that captured the mood, fun and excitement that is an integral part of the wedding reception. We then concluded the photography coverage with the cutting of the cake ceremony and then first dance. All in all another fantastic wedding and a happy Edinburgh wedding photographer who manages to return home successfully from Fife ;)