The one where the flowers were thrown out.

So, having decided I was happy to start shooting weddings and taking on paying clients, I suddenly became very busy. Aside from the wedding photography training there were a host of other things to organise and sort out.

Amongst the things I needed was a professional looking website, a business social media site, Insurances, to decide on what wedding packages I was going to offer and what to include in those packages. I needed to write up a legal contract to protect me and my customers, planning forms for each wedding etc etc etc, the list just seemed to go on and on. Having said that, I like order and organisation so I did enjoy that side of things.

I decided that my initial price point had to reflect my lack of experience. I decided to include a basic PhotoBox A4 book in the wedding package and I would supply all the wedding images on a DVD disk. As time has gone by a USB stick would now replace that but they were an expensive option back in 2011/12. My working time on the wedding day would start with shots of the bride getting ready and run, from there, through to the when Bride and Grooms first dance finished. Experience quickly taught me that the finish time needed a re think, but more on that in later posts.

At our pre wedding meeting Katie had specifically asked me to take a picture of her and Chas on this village monument.

My First Wedding

Initially my first weddings were booked in for April 2012 but, as it happened, a short notice booking meant I started in March of that year. Katie and Chas were work colleagues, although I didn’t know them that well. They had been living together for some time and already had a young family but had decided they wanted to be married. They lived in Bleadon, North Somerset and wanted to get married in the local church where they were members of the congregation. I organised a pre wedding meeting with them to discuss their wedding day and what their expectations were. Those pre wedding meetings were so important and I don’t think I shot one wedding without speaking to the bridal couple before their wedding. As time went on and I became more experienced I was able to offer lots of ideas they might not of thought of as well as being able to offer advice on how the couples day was going to run.

Looking back, Chas and Katies wedding was just perfect for me. The bridal party were going to get ready at home and then walk to the church for the wedding ceremony. Katie had booked the local village hall for everything after that and once again that was just a short walk from the church.

Chas pining a flower on his sons lapel and later removing some of the flowers from the church

An Early Lesson

I won’t go into too much more detail but the day worked out really well. I did get an early lesson about planning for the the unexpected, even when you think you’ve covered everything. As it was Katies local church she had permission, from the vicar, to decorate the inside with her own flower displays and she’d done a terrific job. She had planned to leave the flowers in the church after the ceremony so that others could enjoy them. They were off on holiday anyway and couldn’t do anything with them. We shot some pics, with the guests and families, outside the church after the ceremony and everyone except Chas, Katie, me and my wife Linda made their way down to the village hall. We stayed behind to get some shots in the church that Katie had asked me to take.

Pictures taken, we were about to leave and make our way to the village hall when we were approached by a church warden. She told Katie that she would need to remove the flowers from the church because it was Lent. Katie tried to argue that she had nowhere to take them and wouldn’t it be better to leave them in place to brighten up the church. The warden was having none of it so the four of us had to remove them all. They were then left outside the church to compost and a few bouquets found their way to some of their family. Chas tipped one pot over himself, soaking his suit trousers and we lost a good thirty minutes of valuable shooting time. Experience taught me that you’re always fighting time on a wedding day but you just have to go with the flow. Chas and Katie were quite chilled about it and didn’t allow it to upset their day.

All in all, we had a great day. We were seated with the guests for the wedding breakfast which was really nice. Once again, being fed during the wedding day is something I’ll cover in a future post. I’d planned well for the day which made up for my lack of experience. I got most of the shots I wanted and those that Katie and Chas had asked me to try and take. We’d left home at 10am and got home at 10pm. Tired and worn out but in a really good way and it left me looking forward to the weddings to come.

The first image in the post is of Katie and her Bridal party making their way, from home, to the church. The last image is the family making their way back home at the end of the day

All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2025 – All rights reserved.