As Alisha and Grant's wedding reception was taking place at Stourport Manor, it made a great deal of sense for Alisha to get ready there in the morning (the other huge benefit for me at least was that the Manor was only a 6 minute drive from the church)
I'd spent around 5 hours before the ceremony with Alisha and her bridesmaids. Alisha was ready in decent time which allowed me to capture these gorgeous images of her dad seeing her in the wedding dress for the first time. His reaction really says it all! (There's a few more words further down)
After the father of the bride reveal, it was the bridesmaid's turn. We were pushed for space upstairs so opted to do this near the hotel reception instead.
When I got to the church, the vicar said I could do pretty much whatever I wanted (within reason) which was a literal god-send. I've been to church weddings in the past where the person conducting the ceremony says 'you can take three photos and you cannot move' so this approach was a welcome change! As the church aisle was quite long, I chose to use a relatively long lens (a 135mm f/1.8) to get some more intimate shots of Alisha walking down the aisle with her dad. This worked better than I could have ever hoped for - I was able to stand on a small step at the front of the church and look down the aisle over Grant's shoulder. The result is that I've been able to capture a field of view very close to what he'd have seen as Alisha entered. Imagine being able to look at your wedding photos and seeing almost exactly what you saw on your wedding day. The temptation to buy another camera to use this longer lens more is real... but cameras are £4,000 and I'd use it once or twice per wedding. And that my friends, is why photography is an expensive endeavour!
Location: St James Church Hartlebury.
Keywords: Pure documentary wedding photography (25).