If the point of a blog post is to display how a couple enjoyed their day, this has to be the easiest selection I’ve ever made. I dare you to find a shot where either Charmaine or Olivier look anything less than over the moon. And why not, their wedding was a cracker.
I’ve photographed many things and a lot of people in my time, but this commission really reaffirmed the reason why I shoot weddings. I’m not a huge fan of set-up shots and overly arranged schedules. I like to have a broad outline and then see how the day rolls. A wedding day should feel genuine, emotional and happy - and when each of these is supplied in abundance, it's a home run.
My only real fear was movement around London - route as follows: park at the ICA (scene of the wedding breakfast), then nip to Notting Hill (for bridal preps), over to Soho Square (for the ceremony) and then back to The Mall and the ICA. I needn’t have worried - I have never seen town so quiet on a Saturday.
Charmaine and Olivier live in Singapore, so apart from one pre-wedding meeting at the venue our contact was all email and Skype. Each time the app fired up, smiling faces would appear and we chatted about this and that, always going totally off-piste from wedding logistics. Their brief to me was just capture the day. Perfect.
I like these guys enormously. They are full of life and enjoyed their day to the max. I remember thinking ‘am I getting all this?’ - is the palpable feeling of fun going to come across enough in the final set. Personally, I think it does. And if anybody ever publishes a book entitled ‘How To Enjoy Your Wedding’, these two are a shoo-in for the cover.
As usual, below are a just a few key moments from their wider selection...
