Kat & Dan's Greek, Cotswolds Wedding

Well this was a wedding of a few 'firsts' for myself.

This was my first wedding down south in the beautiful and scenic Cotswolds here in the UK (Although, the 3 hour drive there nearly isn't as lovely!), as well as my first wedding with Greek traditions such as the Stolisma which was a lot of fun to capture (and nice to film something I haven't experienced before!).

You can watch the highlights film here:

The wedding was taking place at both a church and then afterwards a local bar/restaurant with an events room. Luckily the are literally next to each other, which made the running around with tripods and camera bags a bit easier, hah!

With the bride prep taking place about 15 minutes away, and a tight turnaround time between going from bride prep to the second venue for the stolisma, and then over to the church for the ceremony, it was important for me to get to the church very doors for those all important drone and general shots. I think I started recording these at about 8:30am, and luckily the sun was just coming out.

Once I'd captured these images (yes, there was a lot of waiting for the crows to fly out of the Church!), it was time to drive over to where the bride and co were all getting ready for some bride prep footage.

The photographer for this wedding was the very talented James Fear, and after a few conversations about how I need to get a chiropractor (back tends to hurt come 4pm, hah), we got to work getting some awesome bride prep and dress shots!

When everyone was finally ready, myself and James were capturing some really nice moments of Kat's dad seeing her in her dress, when Kat's brother came into the room and informed us that the wedding car was stuck in the mud outside. Again, this is another first for me, but I spent the next 15 minutes desperately trying to help out by pushing this car, but it was honestly well and truly stuck in the mud, the tyres weren't even visible on one side they were so deep! Myself and Yasmin (@yasminbridalmanchester) tried as best we could, shoes and bottom of pants covered in mud now, but in the end the AA had to get called out.

Silver lining? This meant that I was able to get from the bride prep location and drive the 15 minutes back to the church and set up my cameras, tripods, meet up with the groom, the vicar etc without constantly looking at my watch/rushing myself.

This is usually one of the most stressful bits when solo shooting, but this car incident gave me the extra time I needed, phew! But before the church, was the stolisma! A Greek tradition that was a first experience for me, but lots of fun. The bride will enter a room with her family and friends in it, and they will take turns essentially 'dressing the bride', dancing, and even a violinist (@stringz.official) playing some great music.

After this, I had to leg it over to the church (I absolutely got my steps in here and it wasn't even half way through the day!) and after making sure the cameras and audio recorders were set up - it was time to roll!

This beautiful church was the lovely Holy Rood, Ampney Crucis, and after the ceremony, the photographer James Fear put everyone through the usual confetti and group shots. I love a good confetti shot! Group shots aren't particularly something I film much of really, because it's just people stood still like mannequins looking at something else in the distance, so it can look a little odd on video where movement is key, but given the weather had turned I made sure to get some nice shots of the couple.

Like I said, the weather was against us now for the rest of the day, so we weren't able to get many portrait shots, but as we headed back to the venue we got this beautiful rainbow, which on your wedding day has to be a sign!

From here on, it's a pretty standard day really. Lots of mingling here with guests who want photos with the newlyweds, so I will sneak around and get those candid moments of people hanging out, hugging, laughing etc.

Then we've got a bit of a wait until speeches. The speeches at this wedding were so lovely, and it's well worth watching the highlights film (top of the blog!) for some speech writing tips if you need them!

After speeches theres more mingling whilst the room gets turned around for the night do, which was incredible!

Kat and Dan had a great DJ and a brilliant Sax player, both of them got the party started on the dance floor (after cake, of course!). I was able to capture some Greek dancing and moves here which was great as I'm someone who LOVES to film the evening reception!

I stuck around later than I normally would, because the dancing was non-stop and SO GOOD, then finally it was a lovely 3 hour drive home!

...and here's the final video: