Kathryn and Dominic’s wedding managed to be both normal and different, in that the basic format was the standard village church and tent in the garden – but this one had both piper and gospel choir, plus the smallest bridal car we’ve ever come across in the shape of a beautifully restored 1967 Fiat 500.

It’s also one we’ll remember for a very long time because of the quality of the light, both at the church and at the reception.  I have no idea why anybody would put purple gels on some of the lights in a church behind an altar covered in a bright green cloth, but they did and we have the pictures to prove it.  I can tell you though that the London African Gospel Choir are amazing, and that the church organist’s feet are the most beautiful part of his body.  Apparently.

The gel fairy had run amok at the reception too, particularly on the uplighters along the wall behind the top table – and this in a marquee in amongst trees with the sun going down as the meal progressed.  Any wedding photographers reading this will understand only too well why there was therefore a fair amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from Ann’s office while she was colour-correcting most of Kathryn and Dom’s pictures.  There are certainly times when it’s so tempting to take the easy way out and convert to black and white …

Whatever, a great day seemed to be had by all, and the slideshow of all the pictures from it will be online tomorrow Monday.  To see them though you’ll need the login details, and you get those from Kathryn and Dom.

Chiemi and Ross actually got married in Japan earlier this year, and this event was their chance to celebrate with friends and family who couldn’t make it to their actual wedding.  As usual, the groom had it easier than the bride when it came to getting ready, only in this case perhaps rather more so than usual.

Ann and I now have some understanding of what’s involved in the wearing of a kimono, but alas we’re still no wiser as to the original purpose of the beautiful sandwich-carrier worn on the back.  Unless of course that was the purpose …

When the few shots from the drinks reception come up in this slideshow, note the guest in the orange dress.  Nobody rumbled that she’s the soprano from Opera On The Run who, together with the two tenors masquerading as waiters, provided the entertainment for the grown-ups during the meal (the kids had their own).  And entertaining they are too: these guys take no prisoners, and boy, are they loud.

The slideshow of all the pictures from Bury Court Barn will be online by this evening (Thursday), but to see them you’ll need the login details – and you get those from Chiemi and Ross.

Kathryn and Mike got married at Islington Town Hall and held their reception at The Priory Bar in downtown Clerkenwell, a cool place with funky decor and, from a photographer’s point of view, even funkier lighting – like yellow on one side of the area used for the meal and a mix of white and purple on the other.

Luckily, only one of us was in the loo when Kathryn did an impromptu bouquet-throwing outside which resulted in one of the neatest catches ever seen.  I’ve included most of the sequence in this slideshow, with the bouquet itself circled for clarity.

The slideshow of all the pictures from this wedding will be online on our clients page by 7am EDT Monday, but to see them you’ll need login details, and you get those from Kathry and Mike – not from us!

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 …

I never knew that there was a Greek Orthodox cathedral in the middle of Golders Green, but there is, and that’s where Katy and Paul got themselves married.  Well and truly married, in fact, with not only the business with the crowns and the three-times-round-the-altar routine which we’d seen before, but also with the serial ring-swapping and the ribbons and the writing on them, which we hadn’t.

From the church, the couple black cabbed it to the Apex Hotel in London Wall to check in, which is where Ann and I met up with them again for the short walk to Coq d’Argent and a few quick pictures on the way.

It was good to be back with the lovely Laura and the team again, this time for a reception which was rather more eventful than usual, which explains why there’s more than the usual number of pictures in this slideshow.  And no, we didn’t know that any of that was going to happen any more than the couple did!

If you’re planning your own wedding and are worried that the reception might seem a bit staid and dare I say it boring, we should soon have contact details for the gorgeous young lady who successfully overcame her obvious shyness to do such a truly magnificent version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive”, so you only have to ask …

The slideshow of all the pictures from Katy and Paul’s wedding will be online tomorrow Tuesday, but to see it you’ll need login details – and you can only get those from the couple.

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 always knew that Anna and Jon’s wedding was going to be a bit different.  They told us when we first met them that they would be doing their own thing for the ceremony, that the catering would be based round a VW camper van, and that some of the guests would indeed be camping.  They even told us that they were hoping to have mariachi music,  but until the ladies came dancing up the hill last Saturday afternoon, our couple had no idea at all that they were also in for Morris dancers.

During the course of the afternoon one of the guests made a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt at sabrage, which was undoubtedly down to him using his dress sword instead of a sabre, and we’ve now seen quinoa on a menu at a wedding.  We learned that there is a cider apple called Port Wine Of Glastonbury, and we now know that the three sheep who accompany Cuckoos Nest are called Milly, Molly and Mandy.  Tentipis we’ve had before (at our previous wedding, in fact), but never guests changing into fancy dress for the evening.  Anna’s also the first bride we’ve worked with who has a Barbi pink cover for her iPad.

One other highlight for us was working with the Rev Kate Hill again.  Kate’s an inter-faith minister and celebrant, and in fact is the only person we recommend to couples who want a truly personal wedding ceremony.  Her website’s here.

All the pictures from Anna and Jon’s wedding will be online in their gallery slideshow tomorrow (Saturday), but to see them you’ll need to get the login details from the couple themselves – not from us!

What with the stars of the show over from their home in Taiwan and various family members from abroad either staying or passing through, Juliet’s mum and dad’s house must have seemed like a cross between a hotel and an airport lounge last week.

Rising above what chaos there might have been on the day though was the totally unflappable Kit Hall of Slap Artists, who as usual did a superb job with hair and makeup.  Juliet’s dress was by Jenny Packham, the tents were by The Stunning Tents Company, and the catering was by Jacaranda, who remain one of the few outside caterers with whom we’ve ever been impressed.

On a purely personal level, one highlight for me was the young lady playing the gu-zheng so beautfilly.  I first heard the instrument years ago on a Vangelis album called China and was much taken with the sound, although until last Saturday I had absolutely no idea what it was called or what it looked like!  I now know that a gu-zheng has 21 strings, all tuned by ear, and that the bridges of the lower ones tend to move while it’s being played, which no doubt makes things even more interesting when you’re learning the instrument.

Incidentally, there are a few shots towards the end of that slideshow which I’ve funked up with a cross-processed look, but as usual the clients get those as well as the plain vanilla version, not instead of.

All the pictures from this wedding will be online by late Friday afternoon, but to see them you’ll need to get the login details from Juliet and Andre, who as I understand it are in the States this week, then back in the UK, then in Greece, then in the UK again before Andre flies home to Taiwan and gets back to work while Juliet and young Rafaela follow him in due course …

Sarah and Jason booked us just one week before their wedding date, which from our point of view made no difference to anything at all but got us back to Farm Street Church again sooner than we expected to be!

This was the first time we’d seen champagne served to the guests in Mount Street Gardens straight after the ceremony, and it seemed to work very well indeed. It was also the first time we’ve done much in the way of pictures on that side of the church on a really sunny afternoon, so we now know that the light in that area can be really tricky: basically it’s red on the church side, green on the trees side, and you go from full sun to full shade between the two …

While the guests made their way to Soho in a Routemaster, I hopped in a cab with the couple while Ann followed in another one with the bridesmaids, and we ended up with the entire bridal party plus parents walking the last few blocks to Kettner’s.  On the way, Jason’s dad stopped to snap the happy couple waiting to cross the road, I grabbed a close-up of him doing just that, and in so doing spotted the “Sexy young blonde babe” notice in the doorway behind him.  Hence the setup shot of Sarah with the novel background.

The reception was a bit different too in that it was drinks and bowl food followed by informal speeches, cake-cutting and the first dance – and the arrival of the best man fresh off his delayed flight from Australia!

The slideshow of all the pictures of Sarah and Jason’s wedding will be online by noon tomorrow Wednesday, but to see them you’ll need to get the login details from the couple.

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.