Clare & Nick, Cambridge Cottage, Kew Gardens

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...