Ross and Catrin: Blue car, beach audience and beautiful sunset Welsh wedding

Its such a honour to be part of someone's wedding day. To be a part of the preparations, seeing a bride and groom getting ready for the start of their new journey together. It brings back memories of our wedding. I love it! That buzz is just so awesome. From the start of this special day to the end, there were giggles, excitement and a few moments of madness involving car clamping and a lifesaving contest!
Ross and Catrin, two lovely Welshies, were such a total pleasure to work with. Every step of the way we smiled. They held their ceremony at a chapel in Bridgend, with their reception at West Farm, overlooking the beautiful Welsh coast line in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Ross and Catrin were keen on heading on down to the beach at Ogmor on Sea for some couple shots. Little did they know that the Welsh Lifesaving Championships were being held there and there were a 2000 people making the most of the beach. After an initial gasp and some serious giggles we seized the moment and made the most of the situation. Why not! It certainly made for some fun photos and we were so glad they enjoyed it as much as we did. Nothing like a large audience to bring on smiles.
Back to the farm we then went for the celebrations and to see a marquee full of beautiful flowers, details and personal touches, including a very funny seating plan. Each table was named after a different "pet name" that Ross calls Catrin.  Shooting away we were oblivious that there was a spelling mistake for the top tables name card, until the speeches. "Chicken Dipper, Bubble Butt, Sweet Pea, Babagnoush".. just to name a few. Check out the mistake later on down in the post.
At the end of their day the sky blessed them with a stunner of a sunset and they asked for some more couple shots, which we more than happily jumped at the chance. A perfect ending to a new beginning.
Thank you so much Ross and Catrin for choosing us to share in and capture your day. Huge thanks again to your lovely parents for helping with the clamping issue and for giggling at the Lifesaving Championships x o&c

Preshoots: Why we love them and why we hope you might too!

We've recently been doing lots of pre-shoots, talking to new clients about pre-shoots and why we love them so much.  Pre-shoot, pre-wedding shoot, engagement shoot, couple shoot.. lots of different names for a similar thing, BUT what's the point? 

We consider a pre-shoot a perfect chance for us to get to know our couples and for them to learn how we work before they have their wedding day. Many of our couples they are nervous about having their photos taken and feel uneasy in front of the camera. Having a shoot helps us show them how we work, the level of input we have in a shoot and the types of poses and style of photography we create all add to a better understanding for both our couples and ourselves.

A wedding is definitely not our "photoshoot", a wedding day belongs to couple and we are invited as the people to capture the day in all its glory, this including some shots with the couple. A pre-shoot does differ in the sense that it is solely based on taking time with our couple to capture photos of just them, but believe me when we say, we spend a lot of time having a giggle, eating sandwiches, having pints in pubs and chatting with a large amount of random hilarity!
We have made a concious decision to be real with our couples in every context of our work. When it comes to choosing a location for a pre-shoot we ask our couples to choose a place that is somewhere they want to go. Apart from a couple choosing a location outside of the UK we consider this shoot a part of their wedding package. (Although, we would be more than happy to shoot in a location other than the UK (wink, wink!)
To get the best from our clients we want their shoot to reflect them, whether it be a location of natural beauty,  a family home, or a location that they always fancied for a bit of fun.
As much as each of our weddings are different and personal to our couples, we want a preshoot to reflect that too.
We want to thank some of our most recent couples for kindly sharing some of their thoughts and expereinces from their recent pre-shoots. Chris and Jenny, Pete and Jak, Neil and Gemma, Nick and Hannah... thank you!  Seriously, we have had some much fun and cant wait for your wonderful days of celebration! Pete and Jak, we loved your big day and cant wait to share it with you, You guys seriously rock!  x x o&c

Chris and Jenny:  Blue sky, Blue sea, Green grass

 

Q: Where was your preshoot?   

A: Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire (minus the famous puffin)

Q: Why was having a preshoot important to you?

A: It was a nice opportunity for "o&c"to get to know us and vice versa. It was a lovely day too and we got a free sandwich!

Q: Do you have any pearls of wisdom you want to share when having a preshoot?

A: It’s a great intro to the whole wedding thing. We had ours around one month before the big day and was a brilliant way to start the countdown by enjoying doing something wedding related, rather than just the endless planning

 

Pete and Jak : Preshoot in a wood, with leather chair & lampshade.

Q: Where was your preshoot? 

A: Beautiful Pembrokeshire. Stackpole: Cheriton Bottom Woods & Bosheston: Lily Bonds 5 Arch Bridge.

Q: Why was having a preshoot important to you?

A: Our pre-shoot was such great fun!! A chance for us to be creative, dress up and play!

Having a pre-shoot was a great opportunity for us to get used to working with "o&c", and familiarise ourselves with their photography style.  We chose "o&c" for their relaxed, unintrusive style, (also coupled with their great personalities which suited us down to a tee) but without a pre-shoot we wouldn't have fully understood what was involved in a shoot.

As a couple we had never experienced being photographed, therefore we also ironed out how we would engage with one another (knowing we were actually in front of a camera) :) "o&c" were great at encouraging us to be ourselves and truly captured 'us'.

Q: Do you have any pearls of wisdom you want to share when having a preshoot?

A: By the time of our wedding we were relaxed and knew what was to be expected, and most importantly we had fun together. It was such a pleasure to work with"o&c"!

Neil and Gemma: Revisitng, reliving memories from their proposal

Q: Where was your pre-shoot?

A: Little Haven, where Neil proposed to me.

Q:Why was having a pre-shoot important to you?

A: We wanted to get to know Owen and Charis and feel comfortable having our photos taken ready for our big day.
 

Q:Any pearls of wisdom you want to share when having a pre-shoot?

A: I would tell other couples to just have some fun with it. Owen and Charis are absolutely lovely and really put us at ease.

Nick and Hannah: Parks, rabbits, castle walls and a good old coffee 

 

Q: Where was your preshoot?

A: In the historic  Roman city of Chester, which is where we were both born and grew up. Its such an important place to us and we wanted our shoot to represent that, which is why we went to a number of locations around the city from the Cathedral and Roman Gardens to our favorite coffee shop hang out called Harvest Moon that is decorated in a really funky way - thanks Tania and Dave for letting us take photos there :-). We were really blessed with a beautiful day that came in the midst of months of rain and snow!!

Q: Why was having a preshoot important to you?

A: It helped us get to know you guys as our photographers, and helped us to think about the kind of shots we would like to have on our wedding day.  We had a really fun day and it  felt like we were hanging out with friends rather than being on a formal shoot, which helped us be at ease and relaxed for the shots and get some really cool pictures.

Q: Any pearls of wisdom you would share when having a preshoot?

A: Embrace the suggestions and prop ideas during the shoot as it leads to a really fun unique and relaxed time.