That’s Pete of Engage Wedding Video with his trademark Steadicam rig filming Philippa Pippendeker doing a little piece to camera before the main players arrive, while his number two does a little pondering to himself.

Philippa was there to do interviews with the guests for Wedding TV and vox pops for the wedding video.

After a ceremony during which no photography was allowed, bride and bridegroom were treated to the full-on multimedia experience during the recession.  There’s a couple of seconds between this shot of Pete doing the backwards walk (above) and the one below for which I closed up to him while we both backed past Maria, who’s there on the right lining up for the supporting cast to come past her.

So, after 9 years and nearly 400 weddings of our own, we finally got a camera crane at a reception!  There’s at least £25K-worth of very high-tech carbon fibre and electronics in that one piece of kit, driven by a very skilled operator who managed to keep it clear of both the top of the cake and the table centrepieces.  Not pictured here are the two guys who were shooting HD video segments at the reception to add to the footage shot on the ordinary video cameras.

It wasn’t a huge wedding (160 guests), so we were fascinated to see how three stills, three regular video and two HD video people could actually work together at a gig like this, although that obviously depended on both the couple and their guests being up for it – which they certainly were on Saturday.

Given that our own clients very rarely engage a videographer, it was a most interesting wedding and our thanks go to Maria for giving us a go on it. In addition to enjoying ourselves hugely we also got plenty of cool shots, a few of which I hope to be able to blog in due course.

These pictures are from Katrina and Phil’s foodie wedding earlier this year at Auberge du Lac, a Michelin-starred restaurant with the most laid-back kitchen I’ve ever been in during the course of a wedding reception.

Top picture’s the start of plating the foie gras and chicken liver parfait with home-made grenola and Sauternes jelly starter, and middle shows the first few mains of roast rump of beef with a fricasseée of girolles, peas, potato and lettuce about to go out.

Bottom is upstairs in the pastry kitchen with the last 20 desserts ready to go out.  It’s raspberry and elderflower terrine with fromage frais ice cream, raspberry compote and raspberry cream, and very nice it looked too!

Wedding Suppliers
******* is an exclusive venue aiming to offer a service second to none, we will not accept any incompetence

Photographers
Photos are to be taken during the welcome drinks and then after the Wedding breakfast if the couple have requested it. It is not acceptable for you to take the bride and groom away from their guests during their meal to take extra photos.

Our one and only wedding there got off to a fine start when the bride turned up early to get ready and the proprietor bollocked her for not taking her shoes off before walking into the marquee to see what it looked like. That, and the fact that I was eaten alive by insects and spent the next 24 hours smothered in antihistamine cream, explains why this place has been on our “No Thank You” list for several years now – even without The Rules!

Desserts ready to go out to Emily and Paddy’s wedding breakfast at Ramster, three and a half hours after their ceremony in this same room …

two of the bell ringers are keeping an eye on the ceremony while the other three discuss last night’s TV. The carpet is absolutely typical of church towers in England.

It’s dragging on a bit now, but the organist down below is engrossed in his Daily Telegraph. Note the fan heater under the bench and the “Oh no, not you again” doormat

Eventually though they spring into action, and it must be said that these guys were actually very good. That’s their “music” on the whiteboard pictured below

That’s why it pays to make your instructions to the caterers as clear and concise as you can!

as they are known in the business are what the celebrant runs through immediately before the procession, and here’s the crib sheet used by yesterday’s vicar.

In case you’re on a lousy monitor at work and you can’t quite make it all out, that’s welcome bride, belters of hymns (and indeed they were, starting with I Vow To Thee My Country), flash photography, mobile phones off, confetti, collection and silence.

Whilst at Grays Inn for Emma and Mark’s reception, I was fascinated by the cloakroom in which the barristers hang their robes, from which here’s a couple of pictures. The short medium and long are spare robes presumably for visitors who forgot theirs, but otherwise everybody has their own hook. “Master” is the traditional form of address (even if they’re ladies?) and I did spot a Chambers, but alas no Bates …

Certainly not the finest pictures ever taken behind the scenes at a wedding breakfast, but I was on my way to the loo and there’s not a lot of light in there anyhow.

As it’s 900 years old, Leeds Castle isn’t really designed for efficiency in the modern sense, so nowadays the courses are plated up in the nearest space to the banqueting hall which is off-limits to the guests. Hence these pictures of the components for 100 starters in one of the bedchambers as people start to take their places for the meal.