Edited to add – And this morning, two days later, the Telegraph catches up with the news …

This was something a little out of the ordinary for us, in that Andrew’s initial email was along the lines of “How do you two feel about three hours coverage of a small wedding in town on a Tuesday?”.   Our initial reaction was “Not excited, actually”, because enquiries like that usually boil down to a couple wanting a pro for a short time at the lowest possible cost to cover the important bits of the wedding that they don’t really trust Uncle Bob to get right.  However, once Andrew filled us in on the wedding plans, we realised that this was definitely our kind of gig, and that’s just what it turned out to be.

We met Emma and Andrew at one of our own favourite hotels, The Rookery in Smithfield, then after admiring Emma’s Calvin Klein dress went for a leisurely walkabout taking in the market, St Pauls and the wobbly bridge.  That much was planned, but bumping into the other bride and groom on a photo shoot wasn’t!

The four of us then cabbed it over to Chelsea Register Office to join Walter and Godfrey, their two witnesses, for a really intimate ceremony in the Harrington Room, as used by the likes of Jagger and far more other slebs than you could possibly shake a stick at.  It’s a great place to get married in but a pig of a room from a photographer’s point of view on account of the weird lighting mixed with indirect daylight, but I digress.

We’d just about done the customary post-ceremony pictures outside on the steps when Emma’s sister added to the fun by making a surprise appearance complete with bag full of rose petals, after which we did a few quick portraits in the street down the side of the register office.  All pictures in the bag, Emma and Andrew then jumped into a cab and headed off for a celebratory glass of champagne at Kettners while we headed home thinking they weren’t the only two who’d had a great afternoon.

A wedding like this really does have a lot going for it, but we knew that already.  What we didn’t know was what we’d actually manage to get from just three hours coverage of  a walkabout, a simple ceremony and a quick  location portrait shoot.  It turned out to be the best part of 200 pictures we’re happy with, about a quarter of which are in this slideshow …

It would seem that Rev Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, is concerned that “too many modern weddings have just lost their way”.  That of course is exactly what many of its long-time fans keep saying about the Church of England, but that’s beside the point right now.

What amuses me greatly is that he goes on to say that weddings have ” … become a threat to marriage itself,” then argues that “the idea of self-sacrifice is lost when the ceremony is specifically designed to be all about ‘me’, about being a ‘princess for a day’”.

Now normally I wouldn’t comment on the wafflings of some cleric, however elevated his position or profound his pronouncements, but I can’t let that bit about “when the ceremony is specifically designed to be all about ‘me’” pass by.  Yes Canon, it’s true – some weddings are indeed all about a woman in a big frock being a little princess for a day.  But what is also true is that sadly many C of E wedding ceremonies nowadays are far more about the vicar and/or the churchwarden than they are about the couple getting married.

One thing’s for sure.  If I had a crisp tenner for every wedding photographer in England who in any given year tangles with more self-centred church personnel than self-centred brides, I would be a very happy bunny.

Amiee and Ryan’s Humanist wedding in deepest Suffolk made the most of a venue which takes just four bookings a year, and it was big on some really personal touches.  Just for starters, the place names and that cake with the stars on were designed and made by the bride, and both the flowers and the bunting were down to bridesmaids.

The venue does its own catering, one highlight of which was an awesome home-made chocolate cake served in enormous portions as one of the deserts.  Check out that mind-change and plate-swap sequence in the slideshow …

All of the pictures from this wedding will be online in Aimee and Ryan’s gallery by noon Friday, but to see them you need login details which you can only get from the couple.

We’re overdue for another “How To Be A Wedding Photographer” post and there is one on the way now, but meanwhile here’s a novel use for white kitchen cabinet doors …

Ann’s just noticed yet another story about them on the BBC News website.  A pound to a penny says that before much longer, a lot of venues will be under pressure from either their neighbours or their insurers to ban them …

As you may be aware, it’s common for couples to want an “everybody” shot, by which they mean one of themselves with everybody who’s turned out for their wedding.  However, trying to get a worthwhile picture of a hundred or so people from normal eye-level when both photographer and subjects are standing on the same level is a singularly pointless exercise.

What the photographer needs is height, and within reason the more of it they can get, the more faces will be visible in the resultant picture.  The means by which that height can be gained depends primarily on the venue, but the most common one is an upstairs window, failing which it’s usually a quick go on the stepladder they use for changing lightbulbs.

Now one particular venue in Essex has spotted another opportunity to apply the Ryanair principle.  They are no longer prepared to let their stepladder be used, apparently on Health and Safety grounds.  Instead, they are pleased to allow the shot to be taken from a handy upstairs window, as is the norm at countless places.  What’s different here though is that they want £25 for opening the window.

Seriously, if you want your everybody shot there, it’ll cost you £25.  Apparently that’s to cover the cost of a staff member accompanying a photographer up the stairs, unlocking the window, opening it, standing there for a few minutes, then closing the window, locking it and going back downstairs.

Ridiculous though that is, its introduction doubtless came as no surprise to the local Essex photographers who had only just got over being invited to pay £45 a time for photographing a wedding there …

This was our first visit to Mangapp Manor, a very well-run wedding venue near Burnham on Crouch at which you get married on a pontoon at the end of a jetty on the lake, with your guests seated under cover on the bank.

Stacy was big on details, most of which she made herself, including the amazing seating plan based on Penguin books, and she also organised a delightful selection of vintage crockery and teapots for the afternoon tea-party in the marquee from Me Old China Hire.  Flowers were by Re:Creation Flowers.

After the tea-party came the first dance, followed by a bouquet-throwing for which Ann was in the right place with the right reactions to get that sequence of pictures of it in the slideshow, then the cutting of the cake – or what would have been the cutting of the cake if there was one to cut.  Instead we had both cupcakes from Lola’s Kitchen and a macaroon tower from Laduree, followed in due course by a leisurely hog roast on a lovely summer evening …

The slideshow of all the pictures from this Mangapp Manor wedding is now on the clients page of our main site, but to see it you’ll need to get the login details from the couple.

We’re by no means anal about this kind of stuff, but we can’t get away from the fact that if a bloke gets it right, it does look better in a picture.  Both the groom above and the one below have got it right, in that their shirt cuffs are showing about 2cm below their jacket sleeves.

What doesn’t look so good in a picture is when a guy’s shirt sleeves are way too long, and we see this effect …

Or worse.  And we do see worse than that from time to time.  So, what’s the cause and what’s the cure?

The cause is almost invariably shirt sleeves that are too long, as opposed to jacket sleeves which are too short, together with the groom not being aware of the potential problem.  He never finds out about until it’s too late, because he hasn’t tried The Wedding Shirt on beforehand, because he doesn’t want to crease it and besides it’s the same size he always gets, so it’s bound to be right, right?

Wrong!  There’s no way of telling how long the sleeves will be on two shirts of the same nominal size from two different makers.  And if the shirt’s hired, the problem’s likely to be worse because suppliers of hire shirts know that (a) a gentleman needs to show about 2cm  of shirt cuff and (b) it’s very common for a bloke to have one arm longer than the other so it’s best to cut longer.

So if that’s the problem, what’s the cure?  Simple – it’s something most blokes have never heard of …

Armbands do exist, and they are not just for jazz clarinettists or piano-players in bordellos in amateur dramatics productions.  They’re cheap, and they solve the problem!

In February 2008, Ann and I were two of the first four Brits to attend Foundation Workshop in Dallas, the most intensive workshop in the world for wedding photojournalists.  That was originally the brainchild of the uber-talented Huy Nguyen, who we met for the first time the previous year when we organised a rather exclusive workshop ourselves in downtown Richmond and brought him over to lead it.   Two of the attendees at our Richmond workshop were David Pullum and Anil Tohani, and in due course they became the other two Brits who did Foundation Workshop in Dallas when we did.  While we were in Dallas, we met and became friends with ace photographer and all-round nice guy Joe Dickie from Minnesota.

OK so far?  Good.  Well, last Thursday morning, Joe Dickie woke up in Minnesota and discovered that thanks to The Volcano, he had no hope of flying to Ireland for the Indian wedding he was booked to photograph the preliminaries of on Friday evening, followed by 8 hours coverage of the ceremony and reception on Saturday.  At 4.18 our time, he posted to that effect on a private forum that I’m one of the moderators of.  Less than four hours later, David Pullum and Anil Tohani had arranged to drive 6 hours, hop on a ferry, then drive 3 hours to Shannon to cover Joe’s wedding for him.

Meanwhile, Huy Nguyen posted that he was stuck in Moscow where he’d just done a workshop, and it didn’t look like he’d be back in Dallas to shoot a wedding on the Saturday.  By 9pm our time, Joe Dickie had arranged to fly to Dallas and cover Huy’s wedding for him, while Huy worked out the logistics involved in flying from Moscow to Dallas the long way round.

It’s really nice when the network works like this, but boy, are we ever glad that we decided a few years ago that we’re no longer interested in flying to a wedding …