The one with the Videographers.

October and the wedding of Tom and Sam, my first professional booking although by this time we’d shot ten weddings. Sam had booked a small wedding venue in North Somerset which was part of a carp fishing lake complex. The venue had two barns, at right angles to each other. The main ceremony room was quite well lit with natural light but it was quite narrow with the desks, the registrars were going to use to run the ceremony, very close to the rear and sidewall.

I’d visited the venue prior to the wedding and I was already concerned about how little room I would have to take the ceremony shots as I was going to be right on top of Sam and Tom. When we entered the room we found two videographers, Sam had booked to record her day, had set up two cameras on large tripods at the back and the front of the room in prime positions. The videographers were news to me and my initial reaction was ‘Oh no, what am I going to do here’.

Negotiations begin

Fortunately the main videographer was quite a reasonable guy and willing to negotiate positions. We ended up with a deal that gave us prime spot at the back of the room and he would keep the position they’d bagged at the front, as per the image above. Looking back pragmatically, even if I’d had the extra space, I would have been struggling with anything but a wide angle lens. Not the best for portraits as they can distort peoples features, but there was nothing I could do. Just another wedding day experience for me.

The registrar was quirky here as well. It was usual for us to organise post ceremony/register signing pictures but, after we had finished, she insisted on posing the Bridal group for the guests to come forward and photograph. Actually she did a pretty good job, as per the image below.

A relaxed rest of the day

Sam had organised buffet style food for her wedding breakfast. That meant she could control the amount of time we had between the end of the ceremony and everyone sitting down. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about this as you’re at the mercy of the Registrars timetable. They can attend up to four weddings, or more, on a Saturday and you have to fit in with them and the venue timings.

I used to try and negotiate a 1 1/2 – 2 hours gap with the bride and groom at the pre wedding meetings. Sometimes though you were left with just an hour. With things always running late, sometimes it was tough, especially with afternoon weddings, to get your bridal and group outdoor shots before you lost light towards the end of the day. We had plenty of time here though, which was a rare treat. Enough time in fact for me, the videographer and for Sam and Tom to have some time to themselves and go for a drive in the vintage car they had hired.

All in all, a nice wedding but not a favourite venue of mine. It closed down the following year.

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