Scheduling Tips for your Wedding Day

We're quite often asked by our couples how they should best schedule their day.

How long is your ceremony?

Once you have booked your ceremony time there are several things that need to be thought about. Firstly how long is the ceremony going to take?  If you're getting married in a church then it can last up to an hour depending on how many readings you're having and if you're going to have a communion, a big choir and an orchestra then your ceremony could easily take an hour and a half.

However, if you are having a civil ceremony in a hotel or register office then these tend to last about 25 minutes. We've been to some some fast track register offices where the ceremony has only taken 10 minutes!!

Once your ceremony is over all your guests will want to come over and congratulate you.  We usually leave you to chat with them for about 10 minutes whilst we're setting up for the Formal Groups and then we'll start organising the Groups around you.  

How long do Formal Groups take? 

When we photograph Formal Groups we usually take about 20/30 minutes but again this can all depend on several situations. If your ceremony is at a church it is a lot easier to keep track of your guests as they can't disappear off to a bar or off to their hotel room for a 'quick freshen up'.  We have lost valuable time on some occasions where one of the guests has gone off to their room and this can mean that a good number of the photographs have to be delayed until they return.

Another consideration is how many Formal Groups are you going to have?  We have a standard set of Group photographs which we discuss with our couples and use as a starting point.  They cover most situations at most weddings but extras can always be added in - especially if you have someone who is visiting from a faraway place who you rarely see.  Just remember that guests don't like to hang around for dozens of pictures to be taken.  They prefer to just have a few and then disappear for a chat and a drink.

The main consideration for Formal Groups is keeping everyone in easy distance of where the photographs are being taken and having good ushers to help your photographers get all your guests ready for the next Group photo.

The more people in a group, the longer the shot will take to organise.

Travelling Time

After the Formal Groups have finished you will want to relax with your guests and have a drink and a chat with all of them and if you were married in a church or register office then you will need to consider travelling time for yourselves and all your friends and family.  Plenty of time needs to be allowed for families to get to your Reception venue because of traffic or the possibility that some guests may have stopped off on the way for a cup of tea...or a burger - it's happened - believe us!

Portrait Session

After you have arrived at the Reception Venue your photographer will probably want to take you off somewhere  for your private Portrait Session.  You should allow 20 or 30 minutes for this if you can, especially if your venue has stunning grounds and interiors and you want to get the best photographs you can.

Checking Your Reception Room

About 15 minutes before you and your guests are to be seated for the meal and speeches you will normally be asked to go in and check the room to make sure that the staff have got everything right and that there's nothing missing from your tables.  This is worth doing - we have had incorrect menus on tables, guests placed on the wrong tables and favours put in the wrong place which all needed sorting out before the guests were invited to take their seats.

How to Enter Your Reception Room

Another consideration is whether or not you are going to have a Receiving Line before your Wedding Breakfast.  These can really take a lot of time especially with a large number of guests.  You should allow a good 20 minutes if you have both sets of parents, Best Man, Chief Bridesmaid and yourselves in the line up.

If you are short for time in your wedding day schedule or your meal is late in the day and your guests are hungry, the quickest way to get you in is for your guests to simply be shown into the room, to find their seats and then for you to be announced by either your hotel's Wedding Co-ordinator or a Master of Ceremonies.

A compromise is to have a Receiving Line that only has the bride and groom in. If you restrict your exchanges to "Lovely to see you, thank you for coming" ...or something equally brief, even a large number of guests can be received surprisingly quickly.

Speeches and Cake Cut

Your caterers and photographers (and Master of Ceremonies if you have one) will want to know whether you are having speeches before or after the meal and whether you will be cutting the cake after the meal or before your First Dance.

In conclusion 

We normally suggest that our couples allow a good 2 hours, plus travelling time, between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of their meal.  This means that they can have a really relaxed time and not feel rushed.  Your guests will not get bored if you have a little longer - some of them will not have seen each other for months or even years and they will all find plenty to talk about.

Our recommendation is that you plan to have a little too much time, rather than too little...a wedding in a rush is not nearly so much fun as one that you can savour.

by Jacqui Dunster

2 December 2013

Penton Park - new elegant Hampshire wedding venue

There is a fabulous new wedding venue near Andover in Hampshire. It is called Penton Park and is a privately owned elegant country house in beautiful grounds and looks as though it is straight out of a Jane Austen novel.

The approach to the house is a long driveway and the frontage to the house has plenty of room even for a horse and carriage.

The entrance to the house is very elegant and makes for wonderful Arrival photographs.

The grounds are substantial with over-hanging trees and plenty of sky which makes for some great sky-scape wedding portraits.

Penton Park is South facing so would light up well if the sun was out as a great background for portraits, group shots or reportage.

There is a path running along the outside of the house which would be very useful for outside portraits or group shots in the event of muddy conditions.

With over-hanging trees and great architectural elements, Penton Park has some fantastic outside wedding portrait opportunities.

The front of the venue has a substantial pea-shingle parking area...

 ...which is ideal for Arrivals wedding photography with over-hanging trees and the architecture of the house in the background.

The interior decoration of Penton Park is exquisite and makes for fabulous inside portrait and reportage wedding photography.

Penton Park has a wonderfully homely feel to it, which is no surprise in that it is actually somebody's home when it is not being used for weddings.

Even though Penton Park is privately owned, you can have your reception and your photographs actually inside the house.

If you want to live out the fantasy of getting married in a Jane Austen novel, Penton Park might be your perfect wedding venue.

The interior decoration, the chandeliers, the mirrors and fireplaces with the gorgeous smell of burning wood make for a wonderful atmosphere.

The staircase is a fabulous place for bride portraits with its wooden banister, plants and authentic wall paper.

The staircase looks fabulous in both colour and black and white wedding portraiture.

Wooden floors, dado rails and authentic window shutters all go to help to transport you back in time. There is a baby grand piano and a full size snooker table which are both available for your wedding and help to recreate the sights and sounds of an era long gone.

It is very easy to feel you've been transported back in time, to a time of elegance, of country estates and fabulous dresses...to feel you've stepped into a costume drama.

If you want a Jane Austen themed wedding or just a wonderfully elegant period wedding venue with fantastic grounds, check out Penton Park, we think you'll be very impressed.

by Steve Dunster

Hampshire Register Offices - contact information

The general number to call to make an appointment at any of the following Register Offices is 0845 603 5637 but the local number for Hampshire Register Office is 01962 861855.  You can also book an appointment on-line at www.hants.gov.uk/registration

Aldershot

30 Grosvenor Road, Aldershot GU11 3EB

Email: aldershot.registrars@hants.gov.uk

Alton

4 Queens Road, Alton GU34 1HU

Email: winchester.registrars@hants.gov.uk

Andover

Beech Hurst, Weyhill Road, Andover SP10 3AJ

Email: basingstoke.registrars@hants.gov.uk

Basingstoke

Goldings, London Road, Basingstoke RG21 4AN

Email: basingstoke.registrars@hants.gov.uk

Eastleigh

Eastleigh Library, 1st Floor Swan Centre, Eastleigh SO50 5SF

Email: winchester.registrars@hants.gov.uk

There are no ceremony rooms at this location.

Fareham

4 Osborn Road South, Fareham PO16 7DG

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

01329 289195

Gosport

High Street, Gosport PO12 1BT

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

There are no ceremony rooms at this location and this is a part-time office.

Havant

1st Floor Havant Library, Meridian Centre, Havant PO9 1UN

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

There are no ceremony rooms at this location and this is a part-time office.

Havant Plaza 

Civic Centre Road, Havant PO9 2AX

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

This is a part-time office.

Lymington

Lymington Library, North Close, Lymington SO41 9BW

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

There are no ceremony rooms at this location.

Petersfield

Petersfield Library, 27 The Square, Petersfield GU32 3HH

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

There are no ceremony rooms at this location.

Portsmouth

Mildam House, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3AF

Direct Line:  02392 829041

Ringwood

Ringwood Gateway, The Furlong, Ringwood BH24 1AT

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

Romsey

Romsey Town Hall, 1 Market Place, Romsey SO51 8YZ

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

Southampton

6a Bugle Street, Southampton SO14 2LX

Direct Line:  02380 915327

Totton

Totton and Eling Community Centre, Civic Centre Building, Library Road, Totton SO40 3AP

Email: fareham.registrars@hants.gov.uk

There are no ceremony rooms at this location.

Winchester  

Station Hill, Winchester SO23 8TJ

Email: winchester.registrars@hants.gov.uk

Top 10 Photography Tips for Wedding Guests

For any keen photographer, a wedding is a target rich environment, a seemingly endless supply of photo-opportunities of happy people in great clothes at lovely venues. In fact anybody with any imaging device understandably seems to get caught up into the magic of the day and sooner or later just has to take a picture.

As professional wedding photographers we bring a lot of cameras, lights and lenses because we have to get the shots, whatever the conditions. But when we are guests at weddings we bring a only a small compact camera each and no lights...we get some great shots and can still enjoy the wedding. We encourage you to do the same.

Here are some tips as to the most appropriate equipment to bring, how to get the best shots, how to work well with the other photographers at the wedding and also how to balance the sometimes conflicting demands of "getting the shot" and enjoying the day.


1. PRIORITIES - Enjoy the wedding - it is more important than the photography

2. ETIQUETTE - Work nicely with the other photographers. Be aware of who has their camera up and where they're shooting towards. If somebody is shooting wide, don't jump in front of them. The golden rule is: always shoot from behind the professional photographers

3. EQUIPMENT - Our advice is always don't bring much and never bring a tripod and never bring lights. Regarding focal lengths, you're better off having a wide angle zoom than you are with a long lens. Wide angle lenses are short, light, less obtrusive, create some great drama and keep you close to the other guests. Wide angle lenses can let you capture some great reportage shots showing how groups of guests interact and you don't need to be far away from them. Long lenses can encourage you to stand off from the action which isn't so good if you're a guest.

Don't forget that this is a wedding and you are a guest. Your highest priority is to enjoy the day. You're not on an assignment. You don't have to take everything from every angle for the entire day. Chill and take some nice pictures when you feel the urge.

4. Phone-cameras - are amazing quality, easy to carry, light weight and unobtrusive.

5. Tablet-cameras  - on the other hand are a pain. They are big and look dreadful in other people's pictures, many times obscuring a subject in somebody else's sight line. The quality of the camera in a tablet is no better than that in a phone, so our strong recommendation is to leave the tablet at home and shoot with a phone.

6. Point-and-shoot cameras - are great. They are small, usually have good quality and are unobtrusive and usually come with a useful amount of zoom.

7. Bridge cameras - are a little bulkier and heavier but can be quite useful at a wedding with good image quality and usually quite a big zoom range.

8. Micro 4/3 or Mirrorless compacts - are very expensive but small, light, unobtrusive, excellent image quality and have all the sorts of controls easy to hand that most professional photographers come to rely on. It is these sorts of cameras that we would normally take to a wedding as guests.

9. DSLRs - They are big. They are heavy. They are noisy. They are valuable and they have many accessories. Guests with DSLRs are best if they bring a minimum of equipment. Some guests bring big accessory bags full of stuff which is heavy and bulky and doesn't look good in other people's pictures. Even if you just go lightweight, with no flash and a wide angle zoom, it is still a bulky camera with it's big camera strap that you have to find a safe place for during the meal.

10. WHAT TO SHOOT  - Don't necessarily try and shoot what the professional photographers are shooting. They will have gone to some bother to expose the shot in a particular way, often with careful consideration of balancing the various light sources and compositional elements. You'll never match that because you won't have the same equipment, you won't know the exposure and you won't have the same angle. Instead look for your own opportunities where the lighting is more favourable to the equipment that you have...you may well then get a better quality image of something that the professionals didn't see because they were shooting something else.

For example, the professional may well shoot portraits into the sun. This gives soft lighting on the subject's faces and creates a great rim/separation light on their hair and shoulders. But they will probably have used manual settings and possibly lights in order to make sure the faces are not silhouetted. If you try and shoot the same thing with your bridge camera set to auto and no lights, the bride and groom may be nothing more than dark shadows.

Instead, turn through 180 degrees and shoot some reportage of guests waiting for their turn in the group shots. With the sun behind you, your camera set to auto will do much better and you will get some shots that the professional won't because they were pointing the other way.

SUMMARY - enjoy taking photographs but don't forget to enjoy the wedding, don't bring much photographic gear, always shoot from behind the professionals so you're not in their shot, shoot your own compositions rather than those of the professional and don't shoot with a tablet....and oh yeah...don't forget to charge your batteries.

These are the recommendations we make from the many wedding guests we've seen at many weddings and noticing what seems to work best for them. We think these tips may be of some help to you next time you are a guest at a wedding.

by Steve Dunster

When Love Is At The Heart Of A Wedding

Most weddings have had months of detailed planning and there are usually so many gorgeous clothes and details and buildings and decorations...that it can keep two experienced wedding photographers very busy.

Amy and Richard's wedding was no exception.

Amy looked stunning in her amazing wedding dress, the venues were lovely and the details were gorgeous.

Most couples, of course, have a deep love for each other but it is not infrequent that this is privately held between them and on not on display except for the most fleeting of moments during their wedding day.

Occasionally though, we get a couple like Amy and Richard...who are so happy together that throughout the whole day, whenever they were together, they were so happy that it was as though nobody else existed.

When they looked into each other's eyes, nothing else in the room seemed to matter.

So despite the amazing arrangements they had made for their lovely wedding...their greatest part of their wedding...the brightest memory we were left with...

...was not their stretched limo, not her amazing wedding dress, not even the speeches that tugged at the heart-strings...

...but how obvious it was to us all...as to just how much they loved being together. 

by Steve Dunster

The Wedding that Brought the Sun Back Out

The sun is welcome at any wedding but at Steve and Lucy's wedding it was particularly welcome.

Steve and Lucy were married on 6 April 2013 in the New Forest Wedding at the Balmer Lawn Hotel. 

The previous week we met them at the Balmer Lawn for a location visit. The weather was grey and starting to rain. This was no surprise to any of us. It was the end of a very long and grey Winter which came after the worst Summer we could remember and the onset of Spring was so late it was looking as though we might have a second dismal Summer.

One week later and the weather couldn't have been more different. It was warm and sunny with pretty white clouds. There were no leaves on the trees but other than that it could have been Summer.

We didn't know it then but their fabulous wedding was to herald the start of one of the best Summer's we've had for years.

Lucy had her Bridal Prep in the Bridal Suite of the Balmer Lawn Hotel.

The room had an awesome four poster bed.

It was the perfect place to get ready for her wedding. It had plenty of space, great atmosphere and lovely view across the lawn and cricket pitch.

It was so nice to be shooting in the sun again, we'd almost forgotten what it was like.

The week before on our location visit with Steve and Lucy we had walked down to the little stream across the road from the hotel. At the time we thought it unlikely that we'd bother to walk there on the day because it was muddy, the trees were brown, the sky was likely to be grey and the route was covered in donkey poo. We referred to it as "Donkey Poo Walk" and we wrote a blog post about it: Donkey Poo Walk and the Return of the Shetty

On the day though it was perfect. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the clouds were white and the water twinkled its blue reflection of the sky. It was just like Summer, apart of course for the lack of leaves in the trees...but also in the Summer, this particular stream in the New Forest would have been full of kids in bathing suites and inflatable boats. These sorts of portraits would have been very difficult in the Summer.

The sun coming out made the guests as well as the bride and groom even happier than they would have been.

It was a photographer's dream come true, the sun even lit up the venue.

Come the end of the day, the sun still wasn't done casting its magic.

It was as though the sun had been locked up for so long and that on the day it had at last been allowed out to play, it was going to make the most of every last second.

We had the most wonderful sunset shoot with Steve and Lucy.

The sun was magical, right to the very last moment. A wonderful blessing for a wonderful couple.