Ever wondered what a wedding is like from a Grooms perspective? Over the next 12 months Simon, one of the founders of The Bridal File will regulary blog about the preparations for his & Laura's big-day preparations!

A picture paints a thousand words.

19/01/2012 10:48:26

Well, after the venue, the next most important thing to us seemed to be the wedding photographer.

I've always considered myself quite 'arty' and do quite a lot of camera work myself, so had a fair idea of the style of photography we were looking for - nothing too formal, and definately a good selection of photographs in which the subjects have no idea they are even having their picture taken. Laura agreed. Which is fortunate.

So, we had a browse around the internet, and found a couple of local photographers who had some fantastic pictures on their websites.

The first one we met with was not particulary inspiring I have to say, and seemed to concentrate more on selling us a selection of photo albums post-wedding that were bound with everything from leather, to albino aligator skin (maybe not, but to give you an idea). Now don't get me wrong, the albums were lovely, but that's not why we were there. I felt a bit like if you go to a car dealership to buy a new car, and rather than answering your questions about the engine the salesman spends all his time trying to sell you chrome door knobs. Frustrating.

On the second meeting however, we hit the jackpot. Nicky invited us to her place in Bristol and we sat in her living room with a nice cuppa and answered questions about our big day whilst we browsed through her incredibly impressive portfolio of previous weddings. I think both myself and Laura knew straight away that we liked Nicky, and most importantly could imagine her fitting in to our big day - after all, she is effectively a guest at our wedding, so we felt this was important as I'm a firm believer that a photographer gets the best photos when everyone is at ease with them.

Unlike our previous encounter, Nicky showed us some albums but there was no pushyness, and more importantly she said we could go back to her whenever we like after the wedding to arrange this side of it. Which is good, and I think a very good idea. After all, wedding days are bloody expensive, so in the run up you might not be so keen to spend hundreds of pounds on a stunning album of the events of your big day... but a month or two afterwards, when your bank balance starts to go black again, you would be far more likely to shell out a bit extra on something special.

Amusingly, Nicky was sporting a rather impressive broken foot at the time, and after assuring us she would do her very best not to break any bones in the 3 months before our wedding, we were sold. We left feeling good that one of our 'biggies to sort' could be crossed off the list and above all confident that Nicky will make our day look as stunning in photos as we hope it will be on the day.

As a footnote, just a bit of a congrats from myself and Laura as Nicky herself got married just a couple of weeks ago :)

Check out Nickys profile here - http://www.thebridalfile.co.uk/wedding_photographers/city_of_bristol/nicola_jane_photography.html - and if you are getting married, I'd highly recommend giving her a call.