To shoot a great wedding, you have to be sharp, mentally fit and on top of your photographic game.
Time is in short supply on a wedding day. You must balance the brief against the clock, the light, the location, the guests, the couple and the weather. If you’re not careful, the wheels can easily come off.
I thrive on that pressure, but it’s also wonderful to spend time on a more relaxed interiors shoot - to have the time and space and latitude to get things just right.
This made my recent ‘Wedding Journey’ shoot at The St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, London an absolute pleasure. I’d been asked by the hotel’s Special Events Department to come along and shoot some interiors for some new PR material and their upcoming stand-alone wedding website.
The hotel was prepared with fantastic wedding detail and prospective wedding clients were shown around, bubbly in-hand. It gave them a real feel for the breath-taking architecture and plush interiors where guests were first welcomed back in 1873 when the hotel was called the Midland Grand.
As well as spending a long time shooting interiors, I also had the opportunity to integrate portraits of our gorgeous model, Emily Steer, dressed in the sumptuous wedding couture of Mirror Mirror Bridal. With the sun streaming through the windows the rooms came alive, showing off Sir George Gilbert Scott's Gothic fairytale style in all its 5-star splendour.
Even if you don't plan to get married there, pop in and enjoy a bite to eat and take a peek at the staircase (my wife loves that it’s where the Spice Girls filmed their first video Wannabe in 1996). It's one of my favourite places in town - and like nowhere else in London.
Click on any photograph to enlarge....
