Dorset Wedding Planning : Helen & Ian

Helen & Ian will marry at Milton Abbey a month or so from now. They lucked out on the venue; it’s utterly fantastic. I lucked out on the client front; they’re utterly fantastic too. Their venue search took them from their Hampshire home progressively East until they discovered this pearl in the oyster of rural Dorset. Having discovered their dream venue they searched online for a Dorset Wedding Photographer. Had they settled on a venue back across the border they’d likely have searched for a Hampshire Wedding Photographer and that might have seen me hovering around the peripheral margins of the radar, despite the fact that I fly anywhere, or drive more often than not as the case may be.

We met up on the weekend at Milton Abbey School to discuss their wedding day plans in more depth and to get familiar with the environment, try out some backdrops in advance of the wedding day, engage in a little camera related aversion therapy and the like.

The room Helen & Ian will marry in. They'll be facing an inner wall, East facing windows behind the assembled guests. Don't mind me, I'm just making notes here.

I think the right trip of the tych deserves its own space. On reflection, that should be third tri of the ptych...

Coming to think of it, I really like the first one too...

"What are we supposed to do?" "Whatever feels natural to you. Get married." I really like the middle one as well but you get the message by now, and it's not the medium.

Abbey doorway for group shots. Check. Keep a look out for posted signs on the door. Uncheck; add to action points.

Helen didn't fare well from the outset in the Maintaining a Serious Stare contest. That's not a weak attempt at a witty caption by the way. It's a description of actual process.

In preparation for the wedding day we worked on a series of signature expressions for Helen, which come the time I'll trigger through utterance of key phrases. "Pretend I'm not here." "Really, I'm invisible." "Angry look! Angry look!"

For Ian, I tuned the custom function dial on my camera to the control frequency for his corrugators. Click... 1. Click... 2. Click 3. Really, it works; I'll demonstrate the process in reverse...

Click... 3. Click... 2. Click... 1.

Helen will have a professional hair artist in attendance for bridal preparations.

Despite my best efforts to foster the resurgence of an Edwardian style of wedding photography through my work (retro is all the rage, don’t you know?) I keep encountering clients that have difficulty buying in to just how serious a game this is. I thought I’d give it one more try with Helen & Ian before conceding to all that natural spontaneous happiness malarkey.

Well that lasted well.

We're possibly getting somewhere now. Not quite, but going in the right direction.

I give up.

Big group shot background. Check. Backlit by Sun. Check. Lashings of Edwardian starchiness. Uncheck; add to action points.

This is Helen startled by my rapid fire sequential encroachment. I don't actually do this on wedding days, but if this is as thrown as she looks by the camera we're on to a winner.