Beddallweddings Blog

New Book

2010-12-13T12:34:00.002Z

With the year ending, my resolution is to treat this blog better and put up some content!

It looks like it will be a week watching the weather forecasts. Dramatic, large "Arctic weather" arrows on the TV this morning, designed to invoke fear, set to race down the country this Friday (?) Just in time for my last wedding of 2010.
Hoping they are wrong....

In the meantime I am redesigning my wedding packages for 2011 and as part of that I will be offering a cheaper - but nice quality - hardbound book as an option. A slim 14x10 inches hardbacked book, it offers a similar flexibility of layout design to the larger, more expensive Jorgensen albums. With custom layouts I have created to offer a flowing storytelling design, it is a very neat alternative to a grandiose wedding album. It sits nicely on a bookshelf. There to be reached down and looked at, rather than being buried away in a box. Here are some images of a sample book I have had printed..

Wedding Venue - Marle Place, Kent

2010-07-13T13:20:00.000+01:00

Marle Place, a lovely, privately owned, venue for a reception in the quiet Kent countryside near Tunbridge Wells. A real ' labour of love ' it is a great venue for a reception with both space for a large marquee and gardens that offer up lovely ' secret ' areas for guests to explore, featuring various pieces of artwork. Hard to beat on a summer's evening.

Wedding Venue - Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire

2010-07-02T15:30:00.002+01:00

Some images from one of my favourite wedding venues, Kirtlington Park, near Oxford. A Grade 1 listed Palladian mansion tucked behind the village of Kirtlington, I think it is a great location for a wedding day. Privately owned, and I believe only holding a limited number of weddings each year, it offers what I would call a more complete and personal service than many such locations owned by corporate hotel chains. Many of the grand house in England have been snapped up the large hotel chains and marketed as wedding venues but they often create a clean but sanitised experience, lacking real charm or atmosphere. Most cannot touch the 'real thing' feel that this venue provides.

Wedding Venue - Clandon Park, Surrey

2010-06-29T13:40:00.003+01:00

Some detail images from a National Trust wedding venue, Clandon Park, near Guildford in Surrey.

Katy & Paul, Clandon Park, Surrey

2010-06-29T12:55:00.001+01:00

Jorgensen Wedding Album Designs

2010-06-08T12:09:00.000+01:00

Having just completed a Jorgensen album design, I thought I would post both the recent layout and some I have created for wedding couples from the last couple of years to show how well they can create a storyboard of the wedding day.

Catherine & Nick, Hunton & Marle Place, Kent

2010-05-24T21:33:00.008+01:00

A hot summer's day came early last Saturday ( 22nd May 2010 ) in Kent for Catherine and Nick's wedding in the village of Hunton, with the reception at Marle Place.

Emma & Charles, St Albans, Herts

2010-02-10T08:00:00.004Z

Another September wedding. A church service - unfortunately no photography allowed - followed by a reception at the impressively located St Michaels Manor, in late summer light.

Claire & John, Wakehurst Place, West Sussex

2010-02-09T12:24:00.002Z

A sister site to Cambridge Cottage from the last post, the RHS's Wakehurst Place in West Sussex (a local venue for me) was the setting for Claire and John's wedding last October. A location with sentimental meaning for the couple, unfortunately the October weather didn't help highlight the autumnal kaleidoscope. One of those days that stayed cloudy and cold but it didn't dampen down the reception for those there.

Clare & Nick, Cambridge Cottage, Kew Gardens

2010-02-09T11:25:00.002Z

In common with many wedding photography blogs, this format allows the photographer to show more images from individual weddings than a website gallery allows. So following this trend, I'll kick off with this wedding from last September, at a fantastic venue I had not been to before. Cambridge Cottage at Kew Gardens in South West London is in many ways a photographer's dream venue.

Apart from very professional, friendly organisers/staff, the venue itself, although not big, has that key to good wedding photography - light! Granted this wedding day was a nice late summer's day, but the arrangement inside with large Georgian windows, that the bride and groom face during the ceremony, gives a photographer the opportunity to get nice shots. So many venues get this wrong, especially many large hotels that trumpet their features as the 'perfect wedding venue. At many of these the couple end up facing a large wall with horrible down lights above them, casting unflattering shadows on darkened faces. Large open spaces outside here and obviously the gardens themselves help with a relaxed atmosphere at the reception. Clare and Nick wanted no formal group shots at all, apart from a couple portrait. Here are a few shots from that day...

My style of photography

2010-01-21T14:52:00.024Z

To get this blog rolling, I thought I'd start by posting some favourite wedding images of mine that I think represent my style of photography - as it happens, all in b/w!

more to follow....

Who he?

2010-01-20T14:22:00.001Z

How to start a blog?

A quick bio.

I have been photographing weddings for over eleven years now. I shoot weddings in a 'photojournalistic style'. But what does that mean? My background was as a photographer at The Times for many years and it is that experience that guides my own approach. I still work for many editorial clients in newspapers and magazines ( www.martinbeddall.com ).

My aim is not to setup shots, but to observe and capture moments. These are the images that several years later, the bride and groom will treasure the most - capturing memories. Sounds a bit limp? There are no shots of the groom and all his ushers looking at their watches, of the bride photographed through the arm of the groom - unless this actually took place. Or of the bride in the foreground with the groom posing 100 yards behind, of rays of golden sunlight in b/w pictures, I could go on, the point is, what I see is what I shoot. What you remember, what you forgot about, what you missed, what actually happened.

So this blog? Hopefully this will become an extension of my website. I'll try to be blunt, to offer advice ( which will be probably be different to the advice in all the glossy wedding magazines - they are selling you their advertiser's products primarily ) and to use this blog to feature more of my wedding photography. Hopefully to also engage in debate about wedding photography from the prospective of photographers and their clients.

I'm starting to sound very pompous, so I'll end this post now and start.