It’s raining it’s pouring, forget about the old man and his snoring, you’re getting married and it’s going to be a wet wedding. The bright burning sun that you’d planned for hasn’t been delivered but don’t let that ruin your wedding day.

Let’s face it you’d probably fail a polygraph test if you’ve planned a summer wedding and you said that you wouldn’t be upset if it rained, but there’s a pretty good chance that it will. 2012 saw one of the wettest years on record with almost 13m of rain according to Met office figures, with the most rain falling in June. Surprisingly February and March have seen the least rain fall in the two previous years.

Moving your wedding to the beginning of the year won’t guarantee that you won’t have any rain either and if there is one certainty with a wedding in the first quarter of the year, ‘it ain’t gonna be sunny is it’. So what do you do? Be prepared for any eventuality – pray for sun plan for rain

Wellies
If the rain is intermittent you’ll get chance to be outside and get some pictures in the beautiful grounds of the venue. Don’t forget it’s likely to be wet underfoot so take some wellington boots to wear under the dress to keep the wedding shoes clean and respectable. Nobody will see the wellies in the pictures, unless of course you want to make a feature of them.

Umbrellas
If you look out of the window on the morning of the wedding and it is raining I’m sure you’ll be able to find a brolley to take with you but do you really want a mish mash of colours and styles appearing in the pictures. Rather than take a chance and using that old golf umbrella and the one you got free from the bank, make an investment in a set of white or clear wedding umbrellas that will look great in the photos or look for something that will match the colour theme.

Run for Cover
The wedding photographs are an important part of your future memories so when booking a venue consider whether or not there is a private area with a nice backdrop or somewhere outside that has a covering that the photographer can take you for some bride and groom shots?

I recently came across a video in which the wedding photographer had managed to stage a scene with the newly weds celebrating underneath umbrellas. He managed to ‘get the shot’ but at what cost – it was a truly miserable day and the bottom of the bride’s dress must have been soaking by the time she got back inside.

The most important thing is that you enjoy yourself and if you plan ahead I’m sure you will.

Yes the photographer got the shot but do you really want to be out in that kind of weather on your wedding day?

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Last year African Fashion Week grabbed the headlines, opening the gateway between Africa and the Fashion world. Here in the UK London Fashion Week is ‘the big one’ and when you think of Fashion Week you’ll probably think of Paris, Milan or New York, it’s unlikely that you will prefix Fashion Week with the name of the historic spa city ‘Bath’, but it’s happening.

From Saturday 13th – Sunday 21st April Bath in Fashion will be taking hold of the city with some pretty exciting events, including exhibitions, installations and even a talk from Michael Bush the man that dressed Michael Jackson yee hee.

Coming from Bath’s cooler sister city Bristol I didn’t want to miss out on Bath’s ultimate happening so when Total Guide to Bath asked me to cover the event how could I Refuse. I got really excited about taking pictures of the event and in my excitement this weekend I took advantage of the first warm and sunny day of the year and headed into the Bath shopping district Southgate for a pre-event shoot.

I realised that this ‘little’ city is up for it, from professional models to a young guy wearing his granddad’s braces there were some fashionable folks looking for fashionable times, and they’re coming, it’s time for Bath to make the headlines.

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Reportage wedding photography is very fashionable at the moment so take a look at my credentials as a reportage photographer.

In principal this is slightly different from my typical wedding or portrait photography but I have applied some of the same principals as photographing a wedding when on a recent assignment to the Rec, the home of Bath Rugby club.

It was a cold grey day, but a number of fans had made the journey to watch the open training session held by the club before the their 40 – 25 win against London Welsh. I’ll be honest I’m not a fan of Bath Rugby club so the win didn’t really do it for me but I did get chance to take some pictures of the autograph hunters and the details of the day.

Have a look at the shots below, although if you’re looking for inspiring wedding photographs, this blog might seem as though it isn’t for you, however, if you look closely you will see some similar techniques to those employed in my wedding photograph. The reportage style capturing people unaware is a key part of my photographic style, you’ll also notice some detail shots that help tell the story of the day.

Although one thing that I hope will be different is the weather.

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Having met the cutest newborn ever, I’m looking forward to the next trip to photograph little baby Rosa. She was a bit tired on my initial visit but hopefully she’ll be in better spirits for her first full portrait shoot.

Rosa’s moma and papa got married just over a year and a half ago on bonfire night. Without going into too much detail, fireworks must have happened at some point because two became three and Rosa entered the world in February this year. It really was great visiting the new family of three at home surrounded by baby bottles, flowers and cards all celebrating the new arrival.

Spending time with the beautiful baby girl was difficult because she was exhausted (much like her parents) but I can’t wait for our next meeting so that we can’t get some lovely images and document the exciting first moments of her life.

For those of you planning a wedding, you had better start planning a little further ahead, marriage, first home and a baby seem to arrive in quick succession.

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When taking pictures I want to do one of two things and sometimes both – create a beautiful image and tell a story. Some pictures have both great beauty and narrative. Some are either one or the other but look a bit deeper and you might see more.

Beauty means different things to different people. To some beauty is caught in a moment, an expression that tells you everything about the way the subject is feeling, a reaction or the lines of age displayed on a face. To others beauty is a nail extension or a spray tan. It doesn’t matter, whatever beauty means to you is what counts – we can’t all be vajazzled by the same things.

Equally, a story can be told in many different ways. Take a wedding for example, which is the perfect opportunity to tell a story through a series of images. A story unfolds, from capturing the bride getting ready, walking down the isle, saying I do, to cutting the cake. But documentary photography isn’t just a collection of images, a single photograph tells a story itself. That’s what I enjoy about photography, I love to study an image, to really think about what’s happening in the moment. The moments of life pass so quickly, photographs allow us a rare opportunity to slow life down and study a stolen moment.

To illustrate what I mean take a look at the images below. I went to Shropshire to photograph Kevin who is a pigeon racer, there isn’t anything classically beautiful about the images but study them and you might find something that draws you in and if you don’t somebody will – Kevin, his friends, his family, other pigeon probably will.

The image of Kevin holding the bird looking back at the camera has draws me in. I think there’s a certain beauty in the narrative. He’s sharing the moment with me the photographer and you the viewer, studying us to see if we understand what he can see in his hobby, his passion – he’s sharing himself with us.

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The First dance is romantic, after that it starts to get a little crazy and the good times roll, so don’t stop me now cos I’m having a good time.

“I’m a shooting star leaping thorough the skies, like a tiger defying the laws of gravity, I’m a racing car passing by like lady Godiva, I’m gonna go go go, there’s no stopping me” is the sound coming from the dance floor. Wedding guests with arms linked, legs kicking, singing along to the sound of queen bursting from the speakers… “I’m having a ball don’t stop me now”.

Hours ago, a seemingly civilised groups of people were making small talk across a table with friends, family and sometimes strangers as they tucked into a carefully considered three-course meal at the wedding breakfast. Shortly after, this same group of people sat and clapped politely as they encouraged the newly weds to cut the wedding cake, promptly followed by the first dance. I’m sure you will have witnessed how difficult it is to get people onto the dance floor to save the bride and groom from the solitary act of the first dance

That all changes, as it becomes hard to get people off the dance floor at the end of the evening. As the night grows old and darkness falls, it’s all change, the alcohol is flowing and it’s party time. The once restrained group of people enjoying a social event are now a menagerie of party animals, woof.

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The mid-point of the wedding day, the speeches. This is part of the day that many look forward to, although it can be quite nerve racking for three people: the father of the bride, best man and the groom.

As you will imagine, I’ve seen and heard a lot of speeches, some brilliant, some funny, some touching but none that I would call bad speeches. Of all public speaking this has to be the warmest crowd you will ever be faced with, your career doesn’t depend on it and it’s unlikely that you will get heckled. I suppose there’s some pressure on the best man to entertain but it’s unlikely that he’s going to get booed off stage.

Having said that, if you aren’t confident about public speaking you probably will get nervous. This is the middle part of the day, once the ceremony has finished and the wedding party have all made their way to the reception, thoughts turn to the speeches, yikes! Nerves kick in and the appetite drops. The lovely food that has been carefully considered for the wedding breakfast hardly finds its way off the plate on the usual journey to stomach via fork and mouth for fear of what’s going to come off and out of your fork and mouth later.

My tip to anyone in this situation is to avoid looking for Dutch courage, although it might seem like a good idea to settle the jitters, alcohol probably isn’t the answer. I recently heard of a wedding where the best man f’d and jeffed his way through the speech after indulging in one too many glasses of bubbly.

The best advice is to follow tradition and use a traditional format to help you get from start to finish. When I got married good old Pat & Bill Derraugh helped me with the format of the speech in their book, ‘Wedding Etiquette’. Failing that if you’ve got a good set of lungs and can hit the right notes take a leaf out Tom Fletcher’s book. Tom Fletcher, the lead singer from the pop outfit McFly claims that he isn’t comfortable with speaking in public so decided to sing it rather than wing it. However, if you can’t sing you might want to give this some very careful consideration!

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Day nine of 2013, 356 to go. Not much has happened so far but it’s time to start focusing. Those of you getting married this year will no doubt have a lot of planning ahead of you - you’ve booked a venue, the dress has been ordered but the flowers haven’t been decided, you don’t know what your doing about the stationary or the cake yet.

Not to worry, get yourself off to a wedding fair and soak up some inspiration and speak to as many exhibitors as possible. The vendors are there to sell and you’re there to buy but you don’t have to rush into any snap decisions. Take the advice from these guys, they’ve done this before and most of them will have a vast amount of experience that you can learn from.

The big question is which show to attend. I’m trying to decide that myself. It’s always worth going to some of the local wedding shows, that’s the easy part but looking ahead and further afield I’m torn between two shows at the start of March. The National Wedding Show is a big one and it looks as though they’ve got lots to offer again this year on 1 – 3 March. On the 2 – 3 of March is an event that I haven’t seen before, the London Wedding Emporium (LWE). LWE is set in Brick Lane and the agenda is creativity, fun and individuality.

Decision time, 40 days to go – better get cracking.

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