Rachel and Jonathan are busy people, very busy people - and they live in Bristol. Like a lot of my brides and grooms, they live and work outside of the north of England, but come back to get married, and do all their research, and often their bookings, via the internet. We first caught up at their wedding venue, Headlam Hall near Darlington, with Rachel's mum and we seemed to make a connection and so I was delighted when they said they wanted me to be a small but important part of their wedding day at Headlam Hall on Saturday 8th of August 2009. We have kept in touch by e-mail and telephone since, and I know they have planned my kind of wedding.....
Chilled out, relaxed, a great happy day of celebration with their closest family and friends and with a photographer that will blend into the background and capture all the fun and happiness of their great wedding - with a minimal interuption for those 'must-have' formal photographs, which I aim to complete in about 15 minutes. The rest of the day will be spent capturing nice, natural, contemporary photography of their day. So, it was great when they visited Rachel's home in Durham recently to grab an hour to walk around the city withg them, the cathedral and river to talk about the big day and to take some photographs.
Pre-wedding portrait photography is all about bonding, and creating confidence in my ability to produce the kind of photographs they wish for, on their wedding day with no hassle, or stress, and so that on the day, we're not strangers. Which is just what we did - and we had a laugh or two as well and made some nice photographs too, from which I will frame their favourite and take it to the wedding with me as we are so close to the date now. Enjoy the photographs ... DIRK VAN DER WERFF
