What a wonderful day!

Today was my first ever wedding shoot. To say that I was nervous beforehand was an understatement. It was made worse that the couple were friends of my neighbour and I didn't know anyone at the wedding (my neighbour was only coming to the evening do and I didn't cover the evening do).

But it was definitely my best ever photographic experience - I had a blast! Julia and Ian and all their friends and family were lovely and it was a real pleasure and honour to be part of their joyous day. Unfortunately I can't share with you any photos as I thought it would be unfair to put them on here until the B&G had seen them. They won't be seeing the photos until Sunday next week so there will be a delay of a week before I can make them available on here - and on simonbutlerphotography.com and flickr.

But suffice to say, despite spending most of the last 3 weeks worrying that I wouldn't be up to the job and would balls up Julia & Ian's special day, I managed to get lots of photos that I was very proud of. I just hope J&I like them too. And some of them were a bit of a fluke really. While taking the formals it was very sunny - thank you wedding gods! - but although this made for some great back-lit photos, it made viewing the camera display nigh-on-impossible. I could just about make out the histogram and for each shot it seemed like I hadn't clipped the highlights. But I couldn't be sure. And I didn't have time to find a shady area to take a look. So I charged on with each shot and just hoped that they would be OK. And thankfully, when I got a couple of seconds to check after I'd taken the formals and before I was going to take the bride and groom only shots, I discovered to my huge relief that they were all perfect, just how I wanted them to look.

And the formals actually passed off without too much difficulty - another thing I had been worrying about. I had a difficult couple of minutes right at the beginning rounding up everyone for the group photo but Jsaon, the best man, and Byron, the bride's son, were a fantastic help and they sorted everyone out. The rest of the formals were a doddle really and thankfully everyone stayed where I wanted them to.

Yes, I made mistakes - for example there were a couple of times I went from inside to out, forgot to reduce the ISO and took a couple of white photos and next time I will pay more attention to everything in the frame (I've just spent most of the last hour cloning out the same sign and light from most of the formals) - but I really, really enjoyed the experience. I went from knowing no one at the wedding at the start of the day - I had only met Julia and Ian once before the wedding - to being almost part of the family by the end. I was joking with the guests, getting some great reactions to my photos and having a ball. I think a lot of the reason why this happened was because of the really lovely people that were at the wedding; it was a privilege to be with them all this afternoon. But I like to think it was because I was a pretty good wedding photographer too.

I enjoyed myself so much that on the way home from the venue I was even thinking of quitting my job and starting my own wedding photography business. But by the time I got home, reality sank in and I remembered that I have no other bookings at the moment so I will be going back to my normal work on Monday. But perhaps I can do a few weddings a year for some pocket money. Would be lovely. So watch this space.