After shooting 7 pre events for Nav and Priya, the bigday had come! With their Sikh wedding falling on the start of Spring, the weather couldn’t have been better. Bright blue sky’s made the London wedding look like it was summer but, in reality it was cold!
The day started off with Priya getting a wedding morning present from Nav which was a scratch card of their picture and a little note. The smile that was on her face from that moment carried on throughout the day. With the brides portraits being taken in her marquee which then followed with her family photos, thankfully, I think this was the only time that week that her dog decided not to frantically bark at me.
Their Sikh wedding ceremony took place at Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Alice Way, Hounslow. The Groom arrived in style with a horse while the brides side waited patiently for the lads to finish up their dancing. The wedding ceremony took place in the main gurdwara hall which is beautiful to shoot in!
After the ceremony had finished, I took the couple for a quick shoot outside the Gurdwara and then ended up in a packed park around the corner from the brides residence. Using different angles/lenses I was able to compress the background to get rid of any distractions.
At this point, our goodluck had stopped and it started to rain a little when it came to the dholi so all the goodbyes were done from the house. It was quite a tight space with the bride having a big family so it made the shooting conditions a bit challenging especially with the fact that my second shooter had no where to shoot from.
After an emotional dholi for the family, everyone looked forward to the next day to get the party started! The couple held their wedding reception at the Radisson Edwardian, Bath Road. A beautiful wedding venue with a lovely lobby area. A beautiful venue teamed up with a wild crowd and not forgetting Kudos Music's very own Rajeev B on the decks, it was a party that I knew was going to be entertaining.
Apart from the packed dancefloor throughout the whole night, the brides brother and his mates decided it was a good idea for the 15 of them to get into 1 lift to head up to of their rooms. 15 drunk blokes in one lift was an accident waiting to happen so yes, you guessed right, the lift broke down and the fire brigade had to come and save them. Unlucky Mani.
Nav and Priya came to me wanting every bit of their wedding captured because they valued photography and knew how much it plays a crutial part to their wedding memories. They decided they wanted a destination shoot in Austria and with this actually being my first destination shoot, I was super excited to get started. The first day consisted of searching for locations. Me and my assistant hired a car and drove from Salzberg down to Berchesgaden which is a nation park that borders Germany.
Must I say, the drive was easily the most beautiful journey I’ve ever taken. The surrounds were insane. We saw emerald green rivers flowing right besides us to heading in between huge snow covered mountains.
Having done our research, we knew exactly where we wanted to go check out for potential shoot locations and with the time of the year, most of the locations were empty due to no tourists visiting the area in winter.
Once Priya and Nav had arrived, we headed to Gollinger Wasserfall for our first shoot. We thought it was an extremely clever idea to start shooting on active railway. This was until police turned up, shouted at us in a language we didn’t understand, so we packed up as quick as we could and left the scene before we got arrested.
Fast forwarding to my favourite photo of the shoot. We actually wrapped up shooting on the last day and were heading back to the hotel. On the drive back, where the roads were pitch black, we turned a corner and looked up and saw a ton of stars in the sky which was a view I don’t think any of us had ever witnessed. I knew I had to get a photo of this so we jumped out the car and took a few minutes to get the photo I wanted. I assure you, every star and shooting star you see in the image is real and not photoshopped!
