I was invited to a seminar held by another wedding photographer. We're not in competition - his starting price is £3,000 - but he was a very nice chap and one piece of advice he gave was: 'Write a blog'.

So here goes... a little bit of story behind the headlines.

Nervousness. Everyone has some butterflies on wedding day. Bride, groom, parents, even yours truly. But have you ever wondered how the vicar/priest/archbishop feels? Beneath their aura of calm comes this story from a minister in the USA:

'I thought you might enjoy the stress from a different perspective, the minister's! Bill and Sue (not their real names) were getting married down at the coast of North Carolina and they asked me to officiate. I wish I had insisted on a wedding coordinator. Low key but not too low key. There will be a Unity Candle ceremony where at some point in the wedding, the couple each take one candle from a stand holding three candles - two lit and one unlit - and they light the single unlit candle.

Music starts. Out we go. Moments later music plays "Here Comes The Bride" and the Bride enters, coming down the aisle. At this point everything is in motion, nothing can be changed, we are committed!

I begin my welcome. I notice the Bride's mother is giving FRANTIC looks around from side to side. Looks continue. Not that I or anybody can do anything, I discretely look left and right to see what the problem is. NONE of the Candelabras are lit! NONE! What about the Unity Candles? You got it. NOTHING LIT and we are now roaring toward a unity candle segment with nothing lit. What can I do?

I say "Let's bow for a word of prayer". As I pray, I hear the world's largest churchmouse walk from the area of the piano player and singer, going behind me and walk over to my left where the unity candle is. Heavy church mouse walks back. I say amen.

I discretely look to my left and LO AND BEHOLD -THE UNITY CANDLES ARE LIT!! The ceremony proceeds. I fight an urge to wipe sweat off my brow. I have often wondered how many people noticed the candles were unlit and then suddenly lit.

Did I notice any pictures being taken during the ceremony? Are you kidding? I was focused on the wedding (my second). You could have set a flashgun off 6" from my face and I wouldn't have noticed.

Now what were you folks worried about with the cameras? See what it's like up there behind the pulpit!'

(Quoted with permission of Lee Dawson HLD.Photography@gmail.com)

But it's a competitive world and I know people like freebies, so the marketing team at Bloke HQ (that's me) has decided to offer all customers a session of special effects to help steer them away from the 'free album' types. Up to three hours of personal time will give you some really special images to add to the full colour collection you'll get as standard. And then you can make prints of them to your heart's content, as many as you like, as big as you like, and heck, you can even put them in an album too. Now that's what I call versatility :-)

I can also recommend the hibiscus syrup :-)

The Fabergé Egg. Some of you may know of these fabled creations. Created for the Russian Tsars around 100 years ago, they sell for several million pounds each. And so when someone I know said 'I'm restoring a Fabergé egg, can you take some record photos of it?' I was extremely honoured!

As Fabergé eggs go it was rather a tiddler - just 15mm high - but I hate to think what it was worth. And being very shiny black, white and (real) gold, it took two hours until I was satisfied with the lighting. But we got there, and the enameller then had a perfect record of the egg to work to.

The grapevine appears to be working well!

Murder at the wedding. I hadn't seen anyone brandish a gun during the reception before, but I guess there's a first time for everything!

I'm always 'on duty' so it seemed only proper to run up the stairs and capture the miscreants red-handed...

In fact nobody got hurt - it was a clever murder mystery laid on by the witty actors Cabaret Direct :-)

Applying effects tastefully takes care. I've seen many examples of black and white photos that lack punch simply because the maker didn't care enough to make them as good as possible. And naturally, the better the source image, the better the results!

'We’ve been to a couple of weddings this year, and watching the photographer is fascinating.  One was a nightmare – he had thousands of pounds worth of stuff but didn’t seem to be framing anything (he also had his assistant stand in front of us so we couldn’t take photos, we had to split up) – when the proofs came out, it was all blown-out highlights, and he’d chopped heads/feet off.  Awful, and about £1500 as well. 

Bloke says 'Unbelievable. How do they get away with it?'

I'm surprised. Weddings take a lot of planning, so I thought that anyone getting married in 2008 would have booked their 'tog' by now. Not a bit of it! Since the New Year there's been a new enquiry almost every day, and three bookings in three days! Already I've had to turn two couples away - even Bloke can't be in two places at once. The next wedding isn't until February but I'll be building up my strength for the onslaught!

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