anna & joe

I don’t shoot weddings often - partly because they require extreme forward booking, which is hard to do at the best of times. They are also incredibly high stakes, in many senses, and it’s a certain sort of couple that wants a candid, fly-on-the-wall approach that I provide.

However Anna approached me through my website a year ago, asking if I’d consider shooting her wedding at Chiddingstone Castle in Kent - home of many spooky tales and a huge ancient Egyptian collection. She is relaxed and stylish, and her husband Joe hates photography. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I like to meet couples before the day, and we had a short “pre-wedding” session at St Dunstans in the East, a ruined church in the centre of town. Anna & Joe have been together for years, and are funny and self-deprecating and a pleasure to be around.

Their wedding was similar - blessed with sun and reasonable temperatures for a beautiful and intimate family service in the castle grounds before drinks, a big sharing meal, some moments of quiet and socialising and then Huge Tune dancing.

Weddings are exhausting for everyone, and trying to capture every important moment (which is every moment) in challenging lighting is an exhausting day at work, but if every wedding was like this I’d shoot one every weekend. Anna’s bridal party and family were kind and welcoming, and I even snuck in a plate of seafood pasta in the deserted castle tearoom. Great food, great weather, great craic. I even joined friends at a kareoke bar in London afterwards, with a fresh pizza from the evening van under my arm.