This week I went to Brighton to photograph models frolicking on the beach in designer dresses – I even had permission for one of the lucky ladies to run into the sea wearing a particularly beautiful, ethereal number – but alas it was snowed off. Who’d have thought it, snow at Easter? Crazy.
Still, me and Amy – a photographer friend of mine – decided to go regardless and have a little jolly. Eat too much, spend too much, walk too much and drink too much tea (wild!) But, of course, we couldn’t go to Brighton and not shoot at all. That would be wrong just to relax on a mini break(!) so I set about to find us a couple to photograph and up stepped Julia and Matt.
So their story went something like this – childhood classmates re meet through the power of Friends Reunited and get married. How sweet. They got married last summer in a lovely ceremony in Julia’s home town of Brighton. They spent big on outfits with a bespoke Gresham Blake suit for Matt and a divine Joanne Fleming Design dress for Julia. So, why , when they were married so recently were they so keen to Rock the Frock? Because they made the biggest mistake they could have made and scrimped on their photographer.
Your weddings are your days and you have every right to spend as little or as big on your photographer – as you see fit. Just consider before hand how important photographs are to you and your families, your future grandchildren and great grandchildren and so on. And of course on a different note if you truly want your photos to survive for generations you must get them printed! I’m sure if in the future you handed your great grandchildren a DVD they wouldn’t know what to do with it and gaze at it much like I gaze at my parents’ music collection on cartridges. (There was a great article on The Huffington Post this week that everyone should read that is currently doing the rounds. Read it here.) Anyway…I digress…
The thing with these two that really got me thinking was that they started the day – the actual wedding day and their shoot with us – at her mother’s house that the family has owned since the 1960s. A beautiful Victorian, 4 storey townhouse, full of relics and fabulous truly vintage furniture, memories and photographs. In particular, photographs of the lady – Julia’s grandmother – whose foresight it was to buy the house, fill it with gorgeousness and even inspire Julia’s 1930s esque look on her wedding day. Julia told me, as she saw me looking at her grandmother’s photograph, how she inspired her and about how glamourous she was. Clearly the photographs are very important to the family and are treasured possessions. So why wasn’t it till after the wedding that Julia realised how important photographs are to her? After she felt her heart sink.
Costs running away with them clouded had their judgement. Totally understandable and totally a decision they will regret for the rest of their lives. Post wedding, photographs are probably the only thing that will increase in value – particularly in sentimental value so be wise and save for your photographer. Cut back on other things. Choose a photographer that you love and have fun creating your family heirloom – just as your ancestors pre mobile phones and digital photography did.
Here are some of the images I shot in and around their wonderful home town…
Enjoy!
Jordanna x
