St Paul's Wedding - Bright Lights, Big City
For a Midlands based wedding photographer getting the chance to shoot a wedding at some of the bigger Southern venues such as St Paul's Cathedral is a rare request so imagine our happiness when we met a young lady at the wedding fair at Nottingham Castle organised by Perfect Weddings who told us that she was planning a St Paul's wedding with the reception taking place at the RAF Club. Mrs Angelic's first words were "we want to do your wedding!"
Naomi and Michael popped over to see us a little later and subsequently booked us for their big day with an engagement shoot included. A year ago we met up at the RAF Club to do the engagement photos in and around Green Park, Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral itself and last week saw us back in London to photograph the big day itself.
Naomi and Michael had booked the 3/4 day package - from preparation shots to first dance - and also included one of our Vintage Photo Booths to finish the evening off and with all our kit in tow we travelled down to the RAF Club on Friday 14th October in readiness for the wedding itself on the Saturday.
Being a member of the RAF , Michael had arranged for a very smartly dressed Sword Party to be in attendance and a lot of fun was had getting ready - especially when the best man (Michael's brother) managed to get himself stuck in a lift for 40 minutes prior to the wedding. Thankfully Naomi was only made aware of this after he had been released!
The guests who had been staying at the Club were transported over to St Paul's via one of London's traditional modes of transport - a big, red double decker bus with Mr Angelic on board to capture the guests and their arrival at the Cathedral - whilst Mrs Angelic was transported over with the bridesmaids via London's other traditional mode of transport - a black cab. The double decker bus remained parked up outside the cathedral until it was needed to transport all the guests back to the reception and it was a magnet for tourists and school children who crowded around and on it to get their souvenir shots.
As photographers at St Paul's we had some very tight restrictions about what we could and couldn't do which meant that Mrs Angelic wasn't able to get her usual shots from the front however Mr Angelic did manage to get some through the ornate woodwork at the back of the OBE Chapel and it was then off outside to get those all important group shots.
Upon exiting the Cathedral we were greeted by a mass of waiting tourists who had congregated to see the bride and groom emerge and a big round of applause greeted the newlyweds as they walked through their sword arch, being stopped at the end of the arch for their kiss which generated another display of encouragement from the waiting tourists.
It was initally rather daunting for Mrs Angelic as she then took up her role as "loud-mouthed, bossy boots" to get the big group shot done on the steps at the front of St Paul's as there were hundreds of people about all, seemingly. with cameras pointing in her direction as she prepared the guests for their shot but they were all very obliging and moved out of the way when asked.
Naomi and Michael were extremely obliging when asked if they would like to have photos done on the Millenium Bridge and were rewarded by an impromptu "wedding march" by the buskers as we passed by and many well wishers passing on their congratulations.
Back at the RAF Club we were, once again greeted by the sword party and a wedding breakfast room decorated with games as table placements. From Cluedo to Scattegories all of the games were playable by the people around the table with the exception of Monopoly but we were already on Picadilly so we were living that particular game.
The speeches were a lot of fun - especially the ribbing that Chris, the best man got for his lift escapades. His speech definitely had a lot of ups and downs!!
Our day finally finished with the arrival of Craig to run the booth, bringing the Angelic Munchkins down with him for us to head on down to Devon for our half term holiday.
Many thanks to Naomi and Michael for inviting us to capture their big day. Congratulations to you both and may your futures be happy, healthy and prosperous.
