D&P Photographics

I get a buzz on wedding days as they feel just like Christmas morning.

I get up around 7, although I am usually awake before due to the anticipation of the day ahead. First order of the day is a nice Cuppa tea - mmmmm, which my lovely wife, Dawn, makes for me.

Then the boring stuff, yes it’s dreaded camera cleaning time (although I do like it - sad I know). With the camera sparkling it’s off to my studio at the bottom of my garden where I have spent many happy hours snapping away – tall, short, large and small - they are all lovely in their own right. Time to pack away the studio kit ready for the evening reception - lights, stands, background and all other sundries, which are tightly squeezed into our little ford fusion. At least I get the seat without the roll of backdrop paper poking me in the ear, which is stretching from back to front and across the passenger seat. You should see my wife Dawn, bless her, it’s like she is doing a limbo dance under this thing all the way to the brides house. The Mcds breakfast is even more of a challenge for her - not to mention her coffee.

So with our destination safely stored into the good old tom tom - off we go. We usually get a couple of miles out of Banbury before we get on a little single track road. Funny, wherever we go we always seem to find one! Then yes, you guessed it, it’s into reverse and back we go to where we came from, our tom tom recalculates our route and off we go again. The funny thing is half the time we know where we are going, but we still use the sat nav - why do we do that?

We arrive on time (of course) to the bride’s house to photograph the bride, bridesmaids and all getting ready. This is where the magic begins - the excitement is in the air, bless them, we love to see people so happy as it makes all the hard work we put in so worthwhile.

Things are already busy with people coming and going. We get to meet the brides mum and the bridesmaid’s. Dad is floating around in the background - I think he is just waiting for the pub to open.

At this point Nick arrives he is our trainee I call him my Saturday boy to my amusement.

We are all happily clicking away, then Dawn gets roped into helping the girls get ready by tying up the laces on the bride and bridesmaids dresses and all those girly things she loves to get involved with, bless her. I always seem to get lumbered with making the tea - still at least they all get a top notch cuppa.

I keep my eye on the time as it goes so fast on the morning.

The makeup artist arrives ready to do the brides make up. The photos while the bride having her hair and makeup done are simply stunning.

“Nick, enough take the camera off me, turn it around and take some images of the bride”. (I know I know it’s an old one but I bet you gave a chuckle).

Seriously though, makeup time is one of my favourite times at the bride’s house.The makeup girl always positions the bride in the best light for doing the makeup, which also makes for the best exposure on the images. Some of our best shots are done at this point.

With the bride all done up, looking like a princess it’s almost time to go. The limo is waiting so the bridesmaids and the brides mum all pile in - Nick also goes with them to take pics on the way (for some reason, I think that’s one of Nick’s favourite parts of the day!). I never understand how this works - I am the boss yet he gets to go in the limo with mum and the bridesmaids - I may have to rethink this one!

The limo goes to the church and then back for the Bride and dad - oh yes dad, where is dad ? - nowhere to be seen. At this point I have to leave Dawn with the bride while I go to hunt out dad at the pub. Sure enough there he is propping up the bar, and back to the house we go. Phew, at least the limo isn’t back yet. So dad does a superman style change and we are back on track. We do the images of dad and daughter just about to leave the house - dad looks so proud with his ruddy face nerves or alcohol I’m not sure. The bride looks surprisingly calm all things considered.

The limo is now back for them so it’s time for Dawn and I to hot foot it to the church, to get there to greet the groom and best man, before dad and daughter arrives. This time finding the church is no problem as it was only 5 minutes around the corner.

We find the groom and best man nervously pacing around at the front of the church. We say a quick hello to the guys then we seek out the vicar to introduce ourselves. This is probably the single part of the day I don’t relish - we find that some vicars are not, shall we say, photographer friendly. Fortunately this week the vicar is a pretty chilled guy with a relaxed attitude towards us (unlike last week but I won’t go into that one now). So anyhow this week we get a prime spot at the front of the church to do our thing and the Saturday boy (oops sorry Nick) at the back of the church with his favourite telephoto lens.

But before that it’s back to the groom and best man – they also have two ushers who are busy seeing people to their seats. We do the usual shots of the groom looking quite twitchy, then a couple of shots of the groom and best man. The vicar comes out of the church as its 1oclock - time for the service to begin, so we have to get the guys inside as they are in danger of seeing the bride arrive as she should already be at the church. With the guys safely inside the church, Dawn and I head down to the church gates with the vicar to greet bride and dad. I sense at this point the vicar is getting a bit stressed as they are running late and he has another wedding after this one. Still at least he only has only one day left to work then he gets the week off (well I never see them working in the week anyway).

Anyway, at the gates the limo is in sight with the bride and dad now looking somewhat more nervous than when we saw them at the house. We take a few pics of them walking up the pathway and coming into the church. By this time the church is packed and eagerly awaiting the brides arrival. Nick is already in place by the font at the back of the church. Dawn and I now take up our places at the front and the service begins. The church shots are easy for us as we are limited with the use of flash. We can usually only use the flash about six times during the service, but we can still shoot without flash during most of it.

I love to watch the congregation during the service. In fact the vicar was very patient I have to say - what with the children acting like the church is a play ground and people chatting. In fact, I am sure I herd the passing of wind at one point with a wave of giggling to follow (I didn’t chuckle promise, and no I didn’t do it this time).

With the service over and pics of the signing of the register done its outside for the dreaded posed shots. Don’t get me wrong we love doing the posed shots, but it’s at this time all the congregation seem to disappear, so we enlist the best man to round up the lucky subjects. It’s also at this point, unknown to us, we find out that someone in their wisdom has hired another six highly-professional photographers all armed with top quality compact cameras which came from last years Christmas cracker. Funny I swear they are all from some secret photographic society where to be a member you must be female aged between 50 and 70, wear flowery frocks and must be named Aunty Mary, Maud, or Flo or something like that. Mind you they are clever, I have to say, they are highly trained to let you set up the group shot then jump in and snap. We have a plan for this one her name is Dawn she is trained to spot this kind of opportunist snapper I know when she spots one as I hear “that woman is standing in my way again” from behind me.

So we get through the posed shots ok, well about 80% of them and that’s not bad considering. I have to mention the last shot this is where I take a group shot of absolutely everybody at the venue. It’s at this point Aunty Mary realises that even she can’t take a snap if she is in the line up. So she sheepishly comes over to me with her tail between her legs (or rather camera between her legs) and asks “when you have taken your shot would you take one with my camera for me”. Well I say “yes sure, I would love to” - that makes my day! Well group shots done and Aunt Mary is now happily skipping off to the bar in the knowledge that she has that final group shot of absolutely everybody (well actually everybody’s feet).

Anyway it’s off to the reception to get the Studio set up. Its 2.30, now with no food since Mcds, but we have to get the studio set up. Dawn gets her table set up and we are all set for the evening. All the guests are called in for the wedding breakfast – it would make more sense to be called the wedding meal or dinner but because it’s the first meal as a married couple they call it the wedding breakfast. We go to the bar and order some coffee and a sandwich, out come our laptops to back up the images so far and to process a few to display on Dawn’s table. With this done, we have a well earned half hour break - time to slip off those new shoes – ahhh bliss!

We go back to our table, now in a little adjoining room, so we can hear the proceedings. Coffee is just being served so I go in the dining room in readiness for the speech and cake cutting shots. I love doing the speech shots – I also record some video. The beauty of that is my Nikon SLR also does HD video. No one realises that I am recording video - they think I am just taking images, but when they see the video they are usually very pleasantly surprised. The speeches vary from wedding to wedding - I do find they can be very amusing. I think the most shocking yet funny opening line was by a best man earlier this year he started with, “Good after noon ladies and gents, I have to say that I was worried that I was going to forget my lines today, but I have been to the bathroom and done them”, with this he snorted the back of his hand. Well there was an awkward silence for a few seconds then thankfully a burst of laughter from the crowed. I threatened to use this line at my daughter’s wedding, but I don’t think I should - I think she would string me up - he was a brave man.

Again it’s back to our table to backup images once again. The only images to get in the bag are the bride and grooms first dance. We continues shooting most of the night –guests, dancing, kids playing ect. Meanwhile, Dawn and I start the studio. By this time Lisa, my daughter, has arrived to help Dawn with the printing. The first thing I have to do is get Lisa a huge mug of some fresh and very strong coffee - trust me you don’t want to work with Lisa if she hasn’t had her coffee fix - but that’s another story Bless her.

It’s a bit slow to start, but it soon gets going with a steady stream of customers viewing the images from the day and having their photos taken in our studio. It’s about 10.30 now and the guests are starting to get, well for want of a better description, a bit pi***d. We are all feeling the strain now, not to mention killing feet, back, legs, and all the other pains. So we decide to call it a day but all in all it’s been another very successful day for all.

For the bride and groom it’s nearly the end of a perfect day and the start of hopefully a wonderful honeymoon and life together.

For us it’s the end of yet another very enjoyable wedding and the start of another week’s worth of processing and preparing the package for the happy couples return.

Happy Days

By Paul Foster dpp

With thanks to all from Paul and the team:

- My wife Dawn

- My daughter Lisa

To all

 I have created this blog for all users of my web site.

Any one who knows us knows just how much we have put into this site and our photography.

To say we are passionate about photography would be an understatement,

Over the last 4 years we have had the pleasure of working with some of the most wonderfull people there are,

And for that we thank you guys, you know who you are.

Happy days

PS watch this space