Bridesmaids play a pivotal role in weddings, not only through their support but also in enhancing the visual harmony of the event. Their attire is a reflection of the wedding's theme, the bride's vision, and contemporary fashion trends. This guide delves into the various aspects of bridesmaid attire, offering insights into styles, colors, fabrics, and accessories to help create a cohesive and elegant bridal party look.
Candid wedding photography is a style that emphasises capturing genuine emotions and interactions as they naturally unfold during the wedding day. Unlike traditional posed photography, this approach seeks to document the authentic atmosphere of the event, resulting in images that reflect the true essence of the celebration.
No matter if you're six months, a year, or even five years out from your nuptials, you're probably knee-deep in planning already. With the average UK wedding cost in 2023, inclusive of the honeymoon and stag and hen parties, coming in at around £30,000, it's understandable that budgeting for your celebration can seem daunting.
This styled shoot helped showcase the best of the South Wales wedding suppliers alongside the best of Herefordshire Wedding suppliers. We all came together and made a really good team which resulted in a fantastic shoot and a cracking set of images and footage. As a South Wales wedding photographer, I love building relationships with local wedding suppliers and I am so happy to recommend every single person involved in this shoot to any bride. Don’t forget to click on all of the links to their pages, at the start of every paragraph their name or business name is underlined and you can click on it which will take you to their relevant sites.
As a South Wales wedding photographer, I have had the pleasure of capturing countless love stories across this beautiful region. With a passion for creating authentic, stunning images, I've compiled a list of my favorite South Wales wedding venues that not only provide the perfect backdrop for your special day but also bring out the best in my photography style. Let's explore these enchanting locations together!
Quite often I get asked about how I shoot both photo and video as one person. I have been to a lot of fantastic South Wales wedding venues shooting both photo and video and on this occasion I attached a go pro to the top of my Nikon camera whilst walking around the dance floor at this awesome wedding in Kidwelly, Camarthenshire.
One thing I have noticed about the industry lately is that it is divided between those who are doing it as a passion and those who are in it for purely the money.
Neither is set in stone as a good or bad thing but it brings me on to my first tip: how much should you spend on wedding photography?
This is a tricky subject to cover as there are so many differences in prices and of course budgets. I guess one of the things to keep in mind is that like with anything of quality in life you have to pay a premium to get a good product. There are also however some very talented people within a lower price bracket that are doing this as a side hustle or in the infancy of their business.
I won’t discuss specific figures, but my rule of thumb is to set yourself a budget you can afford and book someone on the top end of that budget. If the most you can afford is £500 for a photographer then find one that charges £500. (It isn’t that simple, my other tips will come into play as well)
Also, give your photography budget a higher percentage of the overall wedding budget. It is more important than the chair covers and favours!
I won’t give too much of my opinion away on pricing here as I feel that there are too many variants but I will say that some of the best in the business, not only at taking photos but in the way they connect with their clients, what they bring to the wedding day in terms of personality, the whole process of becoming a part of your life from when you’ve enquired till long beyond the wedding day, the care, dedication, passion, and heart that they put into their business and each and every wedding, those people are the ones that charge the most money. Some of them are in the luxury wedding market and are priced a lot higher than the average.
The point I am trying to enforce here is that however much you think you can afford for wedding photography, pay the top end of it and find someone who cares about your wedding as much as you do.
I guess most of you are thinking the obvious; with your eyes duh! Let me break this down a bit further for you and give you the best of my experience and advise here.
A wedding photography portfolio is not just a bunch of photos. It is a whole digital identity for that photographer. Do they have a website, as well as Instagram or another social media platform you can find them on? Social proof is a huge part of a portfolio these days. Are they active on social media? Are they posting about different weddings on a regular basis? This shows you that they are indeed established within the wedding industry.
On their website, how is it laid out? Is their work easy to find? Does it look consistent in style? (So similar colours and tones rather than one lot of bright and airy photos with not much colour, then a bunch that look like they’ve been puked on by Crayola and look super dark and moody)
Does the website look like the Instagram profile? Similar work? Also, read the copy on their website. You’re not buying someone’s photos, you are buying them as a person as well. No one wants to hire someone to spend a lot of time on their wedding day if they’re not going to gel and get along! Website copy should showcase a photographer’s personality, and tell you a bit about who they are, and what do they bring to the table for you other than knowing how to take epic photos? This information should be easy to find, and nicely presented and they should have taken the time and care to build a nice-looking website. Why? Because if they took the time to sell themselves to you as well as their photos then they are more likely to care about doing a good job! Behind-the-scenes content, blogs and a visible price page are also a bonus.
Ultimately like with pricing there are no wrong or right ways, I just suggest that if you like someone’s work you take a look at them as a person as well to see if you feel that you might connect with them.
Would you jump into a relationship with a stranger? You’re more than likely going to want to date them first and get to know them. Not all the information you need is on their dating profile. The same applies to a photographer. Yes they should make it really easy to know a lot about them with not too many clicks once you’re on their website. If you’ve seen the work, read the copy, seen the price and decided to get in touch with them, then have a chat on the phone or a zoom meeting with them! It gives you a chance to ask some questions without the really boring back and forth of email conversations (that is so last century).
When someone enquires with me I love having a chat on the phone and finding out about them as people, a back story to their engagement, the wedding plans, the name of their pets and kids, and lots of other cool stuff. It helps build rapport. That is, in my opinion, the most important part of my business. My relationship with clients. And in your search for a photographer, I think you should make it a big tick box in your list of priotities as well. Think about it, you are going to spend the majority of your wedding day with this person.
Other suppliers, you get a glimpse off, an hour or two with the make-up people, an hour or so with the catering people but your photographer is there for the whole lot. It’s important to establish a rapport, know that they’ll answer your text messages and questions, and know that they are invested in your wedding emotionally when the big day arrives because your memories matter.
Also you want to know that they’ll get on with your family and friends on the day.
Don’t be mistaken, I’m not saying you need a full life history of this person, it is easy enough to know you click with someone quite soon into a conversation. If you’re digging their portfolio and you’ve clicked on the call, get that contract signed!
We’ve all seen the adverts about a certain product doing as it says on the tin. The same goes for wedding photographers. I believe trust is at an all-time low right now, with a few bankrupt elephants in the room, companies hiring third-party photographers, and a few other spooky wedding stories that would make your wedding cake curdle.
Let me let you in on what you should ideally be looking for. Once you’ve established your photographer has a certain way of working and doing things, based on what they’ve written on their website, compare that to the reviews. For example, they claim to be candid, unposed, non-intrusive. Are their reviews reflecting the same? The most common sentence used by my clients when leaving me a review is how I delivered photos that they didn’t notice me taking of them and captured memories they didn’t imagine would even be in the gallery. Guess what, I claim to do exactly this. Another one of my bold claims is that I am the life of the party. Most of my reviews touch on the fact that I got on really well with their guests and family and was a right laugh on the day.
I’m not saying that being a right laugh is a prerequisite of being a good wedding photographer, I am just merely pointing out that if they claim to say or do something then check the reviews that match up to that claim. Also, try and see that the promised delivery timeline of their galleries is spoken about in the reviews. If they claim to turn it around within four weeks are you seeing various people complaining that it took double the time?
Another small tip is to check multiple sources. Not just kind words on their website, check google or Facebook. I say that with an offer of a pinch of salt you should take it with as I know a lot of us don’t tend to have our reviews pages visible too often unless it’s on our website but you get the idea. Nothing is a better endorsement than word of mouth from a happy customer.
I have many more tips and tricks of the trade, but I fear that this blog might be edging on the side of war and peace-type literature. Find me on Instagram, search for my name with the word photo and you’ll see me on there. Don’t be shy to send me a DM and ask me for advise.
Alun and Aimee decided to get married in St Fagans museum in Cardiff on a very sunny August afternoon.
Being that they live in Aberystwyth, surrounded by some of Wales’ most stunning beach and countryside landscapes, it was a surprise at first to learn they had chosen to come all the way to Cardiff to get married.
That is of course till you see where they got to say their vows and held their wedding party. St Fagans Museum in Cardiff not only offers those who want to soak up Welsh Heritage, history ad culture a fun and educational day out, it offers some of the most beautiful scenes imaginable to get married in.
If you were contemplating having your own wedding here, then the Italian Gardens alone should be enough to have you (and most definitely your photographer) foaming at the mouth with excitement. Honestly this place is so beautiful I felt like it was wedding photography on easy mode when I went there. You literally cannot take a bad photo there!
The gardens themselves offer genuine authenticity towards what a typical Italian garden would look like.
All in all it was a wonderful day for Alun and Aimee and their family and friends to enjoy. The only downside to the day and this location was a lot of walking from one place to another in the searing heat of summer, but when you’re presented with the beautiful scenery that the museum has to offer, it is difficult not to enjoy walking around the famous grounds of St Fagans. And if you’re quick enough to ask, there are usually buggies available to transport wedding guests to the ceremony venue from the main entrance to the museum.
This wedding was a great celebration of love, coupled with a gorgeous venue that not only added to the romance but offered the best of all of Wales under one (I would say roof but we were outside) place!
Sometimes it’s a traditional wedding with all the usual trimmings and traditions and sometimes it’s a complete handbrake turn in the other direction and breaks with all tradition.
Everyone is completely different in their approach to planning a wedding, although I have noticed in the last year that a lot of couples are doing their own thing or at least booking venues that give them more control on choosing their own decor, bringing in their own choice of caterer and just doing things in a less copy and paste style.
I photographed a wedding recently in Bath, Somerset that broke with almost all traditions and it was actually so much fun! They opted for a hand-binding ceremony carried out by a celebrant. The ceremony itself was on a hill at the top of the campsite overlooking the green countryside of Somerset with nothing more than hay bails to sit on for the guests, either side of a home made isle down the middle.
Sports day style games made for a lot of fun
The entertainment was also pretty out of the ordinary. We’ve all seen lawn games but have you had a wedding reception where they used the whole campsite field to hold a traditional sack race and limbo contest? It was SO much fun!
In limbo: the groom is on his knees trying to beat the limbo stick
There were some traditional elements of course, the bride arrived, walked down the isle to reveal herself to her groom for the first time, confetti was thrown after the ceremony, there was a first dance, and of course a wedding breakfast. But even with these traditional wedding elements thrown in, the simplistic nature of the celebrations took away a lot of the stress involved in planning and made for a very enjoyable party by all involved.
The guests were able to help themselves to their own drinks and snacks, the marquee provided seating with tables and a dance floor for the evening’s festivities and a short guest list of only immediate family and close friends made for an intimate and enjoyable affair. Sometimes, less really can be more!
Confetti fight!
First dance in a marquee at a camping wedding in Somerset
Loving stare
a loving glance after the ceremony
When planning your wedding you’ll most likely be looking for a wedding photographer. Then at some stage you might consider a videographer.
Until recently the idea of the same person being able to do both was unheard of.
I’m happy to say that I have now started to shoot both photo and video as one person.
How does it work? During the wedding day, as I’m taking photos (mostly candid and unposed) I’ll quickly switch to video, record a clip, then switch back to photo mode and carry on shooting video.
The video on offer is a highlight film of around 3-5 minutes, making it easy for me to achieve the necessary video clips needed for the highlights whilst still capturing the important photos.
Also, the ceremony and speeches tend to be very popular video highlights but not so much for the photo side of things. So more footage can be captured of these elements to add some good meat to the bone of the wedding highlight video.
The “hybrid” package has quickly become my most popular recently and it isn’t hard to see why. My clients get both photo and video and only have to hire one person.
What do you think of hybrid wedding photography? Let me know your opinion after watching my hybrid video highlights on the home page then fill out the contact form once you’ve decided which package to book!
