It’s the time of year when some people are looking forward to gathering their friends and family for a wonderful celebration, often involving a delicious meal, special clothes and even gifts for some….and of course, as if you hadn’t guessed, I’m not talking about Christmas, I’m talking about winter weddings! Long gone are the days when everybody was married on a Saturday in the summer; although there are still plenty of those (and with good reason). However, more and more frequently I’m finding that people are choosing to get married on any day of the week and at any time of the year…and why not?! We are lucky enough to live in a country where we have the benefit of 4 different seasons (sometimes all in one day!) and each of these seasons has something wonderful to offer.
I know a lot of couples that have chosen winter weddings so that they are genuinely not going to be worried about the weather on their big day; as they are not expecting the weather to be good, it is not a concern for them, which makes sense. Another very good reason for a winter wedding is that family and friends are often gathered together for the festive season, and it can be useful to tie these visits together with double celebrations, and also some people like to have a wedding in January or February, just to start the New Year off with something exciting to look forward to!
I am photographing 2 weddings in December this year which are to be held in modern city centre venues. These venues don’t have much outside space in terms of landscaped grounds, but if this was important to the bride and groom we could always pop off to a local park for a few minutes, and to be honest, they wouldn’t have chosen a city centre wedding in the winter if grounds were that important to them! Therefore, my focus is always on capturing the inside of the venue, and the warm, cosy atmosphere, with little pockets of light, and cool interiors and backgrounds to play with. The only real limitation with indoor winter weddings can be trying to capture huge family groups, but I have plenty of additional lighting and there is always a lovely little spot to be found for the family and bridal party group photos. Variety really is the spice of life when it comes to choosing how to spend one of the most wonderful days of your life, and I, for one, am very happy with that!