My Wedding Photography Story – Part 11

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A detail shot. These images used to work well for a book cover. I’d usually shoot one with a bit more copy space to the left.

Into July 2013 and the wedding of Frank and Tina. We were back at Arnos Court Hotel in Bristol. Unfortunately, as far as outside wedding shots were concerned, it rained pretty much all day. Other than the bad weather though, another lovely wedding day, that ran quite smoothly for me.

The Groom, Frank. Luckily we managed to get outside for these shots prior to the rain. Getting the groom to put his hands in his pockets was a posing tip I picked up from the Lovegrove Wedding book. It’s not just for weddings though. It works in all sorts of situations.

Tina and her bridal party were getting ready at the hotel in the main bridal suite. I mentioned in a previous blog what a great room this was for light and it didn’t disappoint this time. Luckily, it’s also a large room as there were six in the bridal party, plus hair and make up artists.

The ceremony room at Arnos Court Hotel. One of my favourites.
The registrar hands Tina their wedding certificate.

The ceremony room had been beautifully decorated by Tina, she organised all the details for the wedding and did a great job. We were a a bit restricted by the rain for shots after the ceremony but the hotel did have a large conservatory which was helpful for me.

A little trick I picked up from the very first wedding I shot. This one worked particularly well.

The wedding breakfast was in a large room within the hotel. It was quite dark for shooting in and I was forced to shoot at a higher ISO than I would have liked. A high ISO results in grain running through the images. the higher the ISO the more noisy the images become. Back in 2013 Photoshop wasn’t that great at dealing with grain. These days, running the original images through Topaz and then photoshop, the grain is repaired with no problem at all.

Frank had two Best Men for the wedding. They performed a double act for their speech and did it really well. The had the whole room in hysterics. Everywhere I turned my camera people were wiping their eyes from laughing.

With the breakfast finished we moved on to the speeches. I have to say, from all the weddings we shot in those three years, and since, the speeches here were the funniest we ever heard. I found myself laughing along with everyone else whilst trying to concentrate on getting my pictures. There were literally tears of laughter wherever you looked in the room.

It was really useful if the venue had a nice staircase I could use to show of the Brides wedding dress
I love this image. After taking the dress shot above I sat with Tina and we spent ten minutes sharing a pint of orange juice and lemonade her Father had bought me. Much as she was enjoying her day I think Tina was just grateful for some quiet time. Everyone wants the bride and grooms attention on their wedding day and it can be exhausting.

It was quite late in the day by the time the wedding breakfast had finished. We left shortly after, having shot a few first dance images.

Our last wedding of 2013. I was still really enjoying photographing weddings and I felt I was moving in the right direction. The bookings for 2014 were coming in thick and fast, the majority from recommendations. I’d moved our price up a band for the following year and reviewed the package we offered. With the business seemingly moving in the right direction I was looking forward to the weddings ahead of us. I’ll be blogging on an eventful 2014 very soon.

A selection of favours for the wedding guests.

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

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