This December wedding in Orleans House, Twickenham, was my third in the year.  The first two in bright sunshine, this third one in that kind of brittle, wintery light that ebbs and flows beneath the clouds.  A far cry then from Dubai, where Simone and Dave live these days (and will be currently, as they go through these photos).  In fact, the wedding took place in a small window that they could both fly over for — and Dave almost didn’t make it.  Luckily he did though, because weddings do tend to be a little one-sided without one of the bride or groom.

It was a lovely, intimate wedding, as they always are in Orleans House.  Take a look.

NB.  Click to enlarge the photos as you move through…

Now that the photos have gone live on the Cad & The Dandy site I can finally blog about the shoot here — which, obviously, I’ve been itching to do for a while now.  This was a fashion shoot with a difference.  No models.  All the people in front of the camera are customers.  Both James and Ian, owners of The Cad & The Dandy, wanted to brand their website to make it approachable, and not have it give off that rarefied air of an exclusive club you’re not invited to.  So no icily chiselled models in immaculate poses customers can’t relate to.  I think they got it pretty spot on.  But, of course, that did present more of a challenge for the photographer.  Ie., me.  Because you’re not working with models you have to work harder to put everyone at ease, communicate what you want, and create an atmosphere where the photography is almost a by-product of the mood of the day.  Stylish, real, authentic — anyone can have this.  A balance between keeping the feel relaxed yet nodding to the fact that a great, bespoke suit can be a form of theatre in itself.  I like to think we did it with some aplomb..

NB.  Two of the customer/models have blogs themselves.

This is Winston’s: Le Vrai Winston

And this is Theo’s (who, incidentally, won Hacket’s London Sartorial Man of the Year with a Cad & The Dandy suit — hats off to you, sir): Giant Beard

Oh and I, myself, will be sporting a Cad & The Dandy suit for my wedding in the Spring…

Art Direction and general force behind the scenes: Lydia Hargrave.

Makeup: Sandra  Bermingham

Assisting: Gabrielle Robbins.

Special guest appearance by Pandora the cocker spaniel.

I’m not entirely sure how to look back on 2011.  The dust still hasn’t quite settled on it yet, and to be honest, it was quite an amazing, bewildering year.  In my second full year as a professional photographer, I photographed weddings in five different countries (UK, Spain, Croatia, France and China), had a six-page cover feature in The Photographer on my work, and, I think, improved right out the wazoo.  On a personal note, I also got engaged, which has made me very happy and giving me an insight into how daunting it is to organise every one of these weddings that I shoot.  On top of that, I tripled the number of weddings from the previous year and shot everything from family walks in the woods to pin-ups to a great day photographing the revellers in Hyde Park for the Royal Wedding (which was like a patriotic Glastonbury).  I love the diversity being a photographer allows you.  The loose, umbrella term for what I do is Environmental Portraiture — which basically means if it’s people, and not in a studio, I’ll photograph it.  So I get to be a fly on the wall for so many varying situations.  It’s almost impossible to pick out a highlight from the whole year (beyond getting engaged), but I suppose one moment does stand out, and that was walking around the giddy party crowds in Hyde Park, loving the access my camera gave me and realising my job is also my hobby.  That’s a pretty incredible position to be in, and I do realise how lucky I am.

Here are the photos…

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s stag-do, but with a few desiccated brainpans and the odd absentee, comes the more sedate second day of Claire and Sheilen’s wedding weekender, with a walk over the Dragon’s Back (longer and windier than almost any of the party expected), finishing with a BBQ on the beach at Shek O for sunset.  I wasn’t asked to photograph this day, but if I’ve got a camera on me it kindof feels wrong not to, really.

So here a few low key shots of another lovely day.  The wedding itself will be posted on Sunday..

It’s a brave man who invites a photographer on to his stag-do.

And it’s an even braver man who okies that blog.

I’ll be blogging this Hong Kong wedding weekend in three parts: Pt.1, The Stag Do; Pt.2, The Picnic; and Pt.3 The Wedding — which will go live on Christmas Day.

They were all great days and it was a real treat to have Hong Kong as the backdrop for the photos, as well as seeing Claire again and getting to meet the marvellous Sheilen.

Here for you is the day’s slow descent into alcoholism (by way of lunch at an insanely good restaurant — so out of the way you can only get there by charting a boat — some surprisingly adept wakeboarding, and the most confident appearance in a mankini since Borat).

Chris and Lauren’s wedding was a perfectly pitched mix — a small, intimate wedding in grand surroundings.  The opulence of a Catholic church was followed by drinks and bowl food in the imposing grounds of Chiswick House, and yet the entire day was as relaxed and easy going as the couple themselves.  The reception was in small greenhouse in the gardens, which is very much in the same design as the larger, neighbouring greenhouses of Kew Gardens, which movie trivia buffs (me) will recognise as Heaven in the original Bedazzled with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.  And if it feels like I’m shoehorning that fact into this wedding blog, I pretty much am.  Go and rent Bedazzled.  It’s brilliant.

Now back to the wedding and the photos….

*NB.  If you click on the photos they enlarge.  Like magic.  Or encoded algorithms.

I know.  I have been remiss.  I haven’t posted a new wedding blog in god knows how long.  (Although, okay, it wouldn’t take too long to find out.  I could just look at the date of the last entry.  But that’s not the point.)  And today isn’t even my Wedding Wednesday.  You must be completely disorientated.  But at least you’re sitting down.  At least I assume you are.  I mean who reads a blog standing up?  Unless of course you’re peering over the shoulder of your colleague, because they’ve just alerted you to this new blog and you don’t have time to get to your own desk in your mad rush to look through the latest wedding update.  In which case, I hope your colleague is fragrant, and standing there is a pleasant experience for you.  Perhaps you’re not even that interested in this wedding blog.  Perhaps you’re only feigning interest in order to stand close to your fragrant colleague.  In which case, good luck!  Unless of course, your fragrant colleague is using this blog to source ideas for her own upcoming wedding.  If that’s the case, back off, fella.  She’s taken.  Seriously.  What are you thinking?

So but anyway, this blog chronicles of Mark and Freya’s big day, who got had a very London wedding, starting off in Bishopsgate before getting married in Stoke Newington Town Hall, before taking an old wedding Routemaster to Beach Blanket Babylon in Bethnal Green.  While doing A LOT of smiling.  I said at the time of posting that Bradley and June’s wedding would take some beating for the sheer beaming happiness of the bride and groom.  Well, Mark and Freya gave them a run for their money.  Not, admittedly, that there’s a prize at the end of it.  Nor an object way to gauge the qualitative levels of happiness.  But still.  It was very smiley…

In fact, here it is.

*If you click on the images they will enlarge…