The Inspirations: Jonas Peterson

March 7, 2012

The man himself

Jonas Peterson is a wedding photographer, originally from Sweden but now living in Brisbane Australia. I first became aware of his work back in 2009 when he exploded onto the wedding scene with a photographic style so daringly different and beautiful that people couldn’t help but stop and take notice.

Since then I’ve been lucky enough to feature his work on the pages of my blog again and again. However today I’m going one step further, peeling back the layers, peering behind that lens and talking to the man himself.

Hey Jonas, can you give us a little introduction to yourself – who you are, what you do, how you got into wedding photography and where you are in your career now?

I’m a wedding photographer based in Australia shooting a mix of international destination weddings and weddings around Australia. I left a long and successful career as a writer in advertising in late 2008 to shoot weddings, two years later I was named one of the top ten wedding photographers in the world by American Photo, the largest photography magazine in the world. It’s been a crazy journey in every way and I’m shaking my head on a daily basis. My life is amazing. Today I shoot about 50% of my work around the world, the rest all around Australia. Only 15% of my weddings are shot locally. I also teach workshops, the latest one was in Cape Town two weeks ago.

You used Flickr to share your images and talk to other wedding photographers (through the forum SWPB) a lot during the early part of your career. Do you feel this helped progress your career in any way and would you recommend people join forums/share their work in a similar fashion?

I still do. It’s a great way to connect with other photographers. Today’s world is so connected, we make virtual friends all the time and I’ve “used” that to my advantage. If we live in a world where word of mouth is everything, I need people to talk about me and my work. Common sense.

You must get a lot of emails from aspiring photographers wanting your help or advice. How do you deal with this and do you have time to respond?

Good question. I do get a lot of emails from other photographers and unfortunately I don’t have time to answer them all. These days I direct them to a site I have set up where I have answered over 3000 questions about my photography. You’ll find it here.

You hardly ever share photos of yourself (even your profile pictures you always have your head cut off!) Was this a conscious decision?

Yes and no. It started when I started writing a blog in 2004. I’ve used that image since the day I started blogging. I was writing anonymously and I found that people connected with what I had to say. We judge people as soon as we meet them and I realised that I wanted to connect with people BEFORE we met face to face. I don’t look like the Elephant Man or anything, it was just something I noticed.

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Best of Blogs – Issue 2 ~ Jonas Peterson

November 7, 2009

dec09_1blog

Being a real life published writer is such an amazing feeling. I can’t get over that rush I feel seeing my thoughts and ideas in print. I’d like to thank the wonderful Jonas Peterson for being this month’s guinea pig and of course all the guys at Photo Pro Magazine for letting me loose! If you’re in the UK, pop into your local WH Smith and check out the magazine in real life. It’s aces.

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Jonas Peterson Rocks Out

March 17, 2009

When newcomer Jonas Peterson emailed me a link to some his weddings this morning, I knew I recognised his name…I did a search and realised I’d featured one of them before as it had some kick as Australian Groom Style!  The other wedding he sent me (he has only ever shot two – quite unbelievable when you see how amazing these photographs are!) was that of Geoff & Cait – a totally rockin’ riverside affair.  He has still most definatly got the Groom, Groomsmen (and women!) thing down…

I am loving the soft feel of these images – I’m really into this almost angelic, vintage look right now.

For the slideshow of this wedding, clicky right here
Thanks for sending these my way Jonas – I’m looking forward to featuring more of your weddings in future!

Credit: Jonas Peterson

A Johanna Johnson Bride – Belinda & Joel’s Rainy Australian Wedding

May 13, 2011

Belinda & Joel’s wedding is exciting to me for a number of reasons. Not only was it sent over by one of my favourite dress designers, Johanna Johnson (Belinda’s dress and headband were by the designer) but the wedding was shot by photographer Marcus Bell, who has just been included in the top 10 photographers in the world by American Photo Magazine (alongside a load of other Rock n Roll Bride favourites including Jonas Peterson, The Image is Found and Our Labor of Love.) So needless to say, this wedding is a crash! bang! smack-you-between-the-eyes-with-awesomeness of a wedding. “Once I found my beautiful Johanna Johnson dress the inspiration came from there!” the bride told me. “I didn’t want to be a traditional bride with the big dress and veil or have my bridesmaids in all the same dress, I wanted the wedding to be unique and individual – to be me.”

The couple were married at The Plantation in Queensland. The planning wasn’t always plain sailing, but in the end the wedding went ahead without a hitch (despite a lot of rain…which I actually think looks pretty darn awesome in the photos!) “We live in Sydney and decided that because we both love Noosa so much that we should get married in Queensland,” the bride continued. “We booked The Plantation in Cooroy a year before the date and were very happy. A couple of months before our wedding we were advised by the plantation that our wedding may have some problems as neighbours surrounding the area were complaining about noise issues.”

“Three weeks before the wedding we were told that we should look for an alternate location for our wedding. Joel and I were devasted to say the least. We had planned and booked everything for this wedding a year ago and already had 80 guests flying from around Australia. I am so proud of my husband as he was on to every newspaper and website he could find to tell our story so hopefully our wedding could go ahead. We were featured in a local paper in Qld telling our story.

“To cut a long story short we talked to the neighbours pleaded our case and asked them to consider how we felt, after the matter was taken to court between The Plantation and the neighbours. We were so blessed that only 3 weddings were allowed to proceed and ours was the first. I think that this experience made our relationship stronger and I couldn’t imagine what I would have done without Joel’s help he truly was amazing. On the 12th of March 2011 I married my best friend in front of all our closest family and friends, we had an amazing day!”

So beautiful!

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Anthony & Stephanie’s Sydney Harbour Wedding

March 9, 2011

Anthony & Stephanie were married in November in Sydney and had the wonderful and exceptionally talented Jonas Peterson to shoot their wedding. When Jonas emailed me to let me know he had a new wedding to share with me he didn’t have to ask me twice if I wanted to blog it or not! Regular readers will know I am a big (massive, enormousness) fan of Jonas and his work so it’s an absolute pleasure to feature this gorgeous wedding on these here pages.

The ceremony took place at St Peter Chanel (“oh yes I had a designer’s name in the title of MY church HA” laughed the bride) in Woolwich, Australia. After the ceremony the guests were treated to a boat ride across the Sydney harbour to Aqua Dining – a restaurant with the quintessential Sydney view – for the reception.

Stephanie excitedly told me all about their perfect day, “Just that it really was THE most magical day. Especially the weather. Sydney’s weather had been really crapola the week leading up to the Sunday. After stressing about it for weeks prior, I resolved that the weather would be what it would be. And it was what it was….TRULY AMAZING.”

“On the day the girls and I arrived early to the church….(um who does that? The one time you CAN be late and I was 15 mins early) the sky was blue and there was not a cloud in the sky. The ceremony was just the right length, not too long and stuffy as church weddings can, be but also not so short you left the guests wondering when exactly during the mass you said ‘I Do’. As we are both musical theatre performers, we had our pick of singers. Friends we had worked with, admired close up and from afar. All the music was arranged by superstar musical director extraordinaire Max. Our good friend Amy sang “Love Is a Big Deal” as I walked down the aisle and a beautiful rendition of “My Romance”. The whitest black man I know, Cameron sang a John Legend song “Stay With You” as we signed the registry and then the icing on the nuptial cake were his lead vocals during the recessional. A Stevie Wonder classic close to our hearts, “As”. The biggest surprise set up by my husband was the support choir singing back up for Cameron. All of our dear friends who were singers stood up and sang joyously as we exited our designer church in full voice. It was the most glorious, reverent, romantic sound I have been privileged to hear.”

“It was then treat time for our guests. You know that lengthy, awkward time between a wedding ceremony and the beginning of a reception? Sometimes people go to the pub in their finery, others head back to the hotel room to kick off their shoes for a sneaky nanna nap before the drinking starts. Not at our wedding you don’t. I liked the idea of everyone travelling to the reception together. I think it keeps the whole day bubbling along and you can get to know some of the other small, select and privileged few that were invited (HA). So what did we do? Not cab charges I hear you gasp? Not a red, open-air bus for our friends and family did you say? Oh heavens no. We hired a lah-di-dah boat to transport our wedding guests to the reception, combined that with shut-up amazeballs weather AND free-flowing alcohol all on the most famous harbour in (I think) the world. Now tell me you don’t want to be a guest to THAT wedding!”

“My bridesmaids were the absolute bomb. Nicola (MOH) was a craft queen machine, she & Jay spent countless hours glueing and cutting out paper for the place settings whilst pluggin me with wine, theyhelped me shop for all the bridesmaids accessories, all 3 gals Nicola, Jay & Nikki audibly ‘oohed’ and ‘aahhhed’ at my dress fittings. Nic made a speech at my wedding that made me laugh and cry and her greatest feat was organising the most fabulous girly Hen’s weekend away in wine country Hunter Valley NSW. For myself and 10 other girls that we SWEAR we are going to uphold as tradition every year. Legend.”

“Ant and I are actors, so immediately people think that we are going to be “out there” and have crazy wild nudie runs during the reception. As appealing as that sounds, we are simple folk that like to put our own stamp on things. Many people get caught up in the details of their wedding day. Everything has to be ‘perfect’. Don’t get me wrong I’m as much a perfectionist as the next asian bride but I believe that your wedding day is about you and your soulmate, sharing a pretty important lifelong commitment to each other in front of the people you care about the most.”

“Our photos weren’t particularly “traditional” as weddings go, we just had fun and the brilliant Jonas cleverly documented it all. He really captured the essence of the day and the personalities of each and every person he snapped. It was pretty Rock n Roll for us. I feel like we manifested the things we wanted on the day, great weather, precious company, mouth-watering food and drink and copious amounts of love. We put it out there and got it all, right down to the last detail.”

Ready to swoon at the rest of the photos? Check them out after the ‘jump’…

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Monique & Lee’s 1920’s Powerhouse Wedding

February 8, 2011

Jonas Peterson weddings are like gold dust and I’m so honoured that he lets me feature so many of them (for those of you that don’t know the inner workings of blog-land, a wedding will generally go to one blog or magazine only, so being allowed to be the lucky one is really something when a wedding is as stunning as this one.)

Monique & Lee were married at Brisbane Powerhouse – a wonderfully urban and industrial converted powerhouse. It is now home to a theatre and a couple of restaurants and is right on the river. Stunning! Monique wore a gorgeous reproduction vintage dress from Le Luxe Clothing. “I never even set foot into a bridal store, let alone tried on a ”proper” bridal dress – I always wanted a vintage, flapper inspired dress but found it incredibly difficult to find one in my size – I’m an AU 14, and I’m pretty sure chicks in the 1920s had waists the size of my thigh! I spent months searching for one and really hit the jackpot when I found Le Luxe Clothing. Because it’s not enough for me to just have beads and sequins, I added a feather capelet by Ksubi, that I bought on ebay.” She chose not to carry real flowers, and instead created her own vintage brooch bouquet.

“The bouquet took a lot of work but it was worth it! It’s just a Styrofoam ball, which Lee covered in chicken wire for support. We gathered lots of vintage brooches, and he wired them onto the chicken wire. He looped the wire through the back of the brooch, and attached it by sticking the ends of the wire stick into the Styrofoam ball. He also glued some of them down with hot glue. We used some fabric to mask the messy bottom of the sphere, and the handle is just a thick bit of wood wrapped in the fabric. It was time consuming but easy (says me, who watched him work while I sat back with a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other) thanks to hot glue guns and a bit of patience (why he made it and not me!)”

To keep their wedding personal, the couple decorated the venue themselves and asked friends and relatives to help out where they could. “We didn’t have any fresh flowers. Again, for some reason I never really considered it. We had a cocktail-style reception, so we didn’t need centrepieces or anything, which let me have a bit more fun with the ”flowers”. I decorated using a combination of button flowers, newspaper roses, fabric flowers and paper flowers, stuck in old jars and glass milk bottles. I sourced all the flower decorations from some super talented people on Etsy.”

“There’s nothing more Rock n Roll, in my opinion, than being exactly who you are and standing by that. Which is why I think there is still something super Rock n Roll in uber traditional weddings,” Monique told me. “I’d never been to a wedding until my own, so I didn’t approach it with any preconceived notions about what a wedding should be. So I just made it about the things that we like. And while I know it was different, and unique, I very rarely felt we were planning a wedding that was really out there. We did (mostly) all the traditional stuff, but just tweaked it to suit our style. For example, I wear 20’s inspired clothing anyway, so I glammed it up several notches for the wedding.”

“Lee loves zombies and Transformers and explosions, so I vowed to ”fight and die by your side in the event of a zombie invasion or robot attack”. We approached the wedding as a big fat celebration of our love, not just for each other but for the people around us. And being a celebration, our main goal was to have a lot of fun. There was tequila, and dancing, and big rock god slides across the floor. I got so drunk I could barely cut the cake and sang until my throat hurt. And we had so so so much fun.”

“I’m 24, and there were quite a few people who felt I shouldnt be getting married at all, let alone in the ”alternative” way I did it. (Funny how some words take on such negative connotations at times!) I don’t know what it is about weddings, but I found that people aren’t shy in telling you that what you’re doing isn’t the norm, or that you’ll look back and regret not being more traditional. But I’m exceptionally lucky to have family and friends that stood by me and my ideas even when they thought I was crazy.”

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Daisy Chain – Eliesha & Joel’s Geek Chic, DIY Wedding

November 30, 2010

Like pretty much the whole of blog-land, I am uber smitten with anything Jonas Peterson produces, so when he sent me a super secret sneak peek of Eliesha & Joel’s wedding a few weeks ago I was literally jumping up and down with anticipation of featuring it. A gorgeous couple (hello geek chic fabulous – how much does Eliesha rock her glasses?!) a stunning location and awesome photography – how can you go wrong?! Oh and don’t even get me started on Eliesha’s floral head band…I literally die!

The ceremony took place at Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne. “My Dad built me a double doorway to walk through when I arrived at the gardens,” explained the bride. “I think the logistics of getting it there and set up almost killed him, there was bizarre deals being made with the council and nearby hotels, a couple of our bigger, stronger (more manly) guests had to have dust coats handy to assemble and un-assemble, but it looked so gorgeous, and actually getting to step through the doors, and seeing Joel waiting for me at the end of the aisle **big girly sigh** it was totally worth the hassle.”

“Joel’s mum sewed the flags posing as our “altar” – we like flags.  The best bit about the flags was Joel choosing the fabric – I’m pretty sure he secretly likes doing “girly” things – and it’s not as big a secret as he might like to think!”

Following the intimate ceremony (in which they included some really special readings; Litany – by Billy Collins, Us Two – by A.A. Milne and Oh! The Places You’ll Go – by Dr. Seuss) the wedding party headed to The Italian in Melbourne (an Italian restaurant surprisingly!) for the reception. The restaurant served an amazing selection of scrumptious Italian food as well as providing a unique but gorgeous venue for the party. “The actual venue itself is stunning– three levels and an outdoor courtyard, the decor is beautiful, simple and classic,” Eliesha continued. “We also kept the venue set up as a restaurant (ie. no super long tables, or all round 10s) – we wanted to try and keep the feeling that we’d all kind of just spontaneously decided to go out to dinner together – so the tables were a mix of 4s, 6s, 8s & 10s, just as they would usually be for a dinner service.” 

“I had fun doing the seating plan too – we both have big families (actually, not true, Joel has a big family, I have a huuuuuuge family), so most of our extended family members had never meet, as well as friends from work – and the last thing we wanted was segregation – so I mixed it all up in a massive way. This was a huge success.  I had people claiming they’d made new best friends, there’s some fairly risque photo booth photos of people who had never even spoken before and watching facebook over the next couple of days was awesome – all of our friends and family were suddenly adding each other as friends and sharing photos (and some fairly suss “in-jokes”) – I’m totally taking credit for the lot of it!”

Eliesha, who is a fashion designer, wore silk and linen dress with french embroidery by Akira. “Due to my job, I found out the other day that there was a pool going over what my dress was going to look like!” laughed the bride. On her feet she she wore clogs (oh yes, how amazing?!) by Gorman, which are something she actually wears and loves every day! ” I interned at Gorman when I was at fashion school and my first job “in the industry” was as at Gorman, as a temp, sketching, all day, every day and I’ve been wearing Gorman clogs ever since (my current every day pair have been on the go for about four years) – so now clogs are all of a sudden all fashionable and I’m like “hey, I’m totally on trend now” and think I’m cool – plus my clogs have been a bit of a running joke at work for awhile now – so it just would’ve been wrong to not wear clogs at my wedding  – and I was probably the only person who didn’t have deadly blisters by the end of the day – all in all – pretty damn happy about the choice of shoes.”

Her incredible flower head band was created especially for her by Flowers Vasette. Eliesha showed her florist some inspiration pictures and away she went. They chose the same flowers in the centrepieces, boutineers and bouquets to tie the whole look together. “My favourite flowers are white daisies.  I wanted our bouquets to look simple and fresh, like they’d just come of of the garden.  For the reception venue we had a vase of flowers on each rectangle table – lots of green, white highlights, same feel as the bouquets.  I don’t like things to look “arranged”. I went to Gaylene with the above – pretty vague, non?  She is magic.  The flowers were insanely beautiful.”

The couple went mad over their dessert table (in a good way!) “We didn’t really have a traditional cake. We did have an extremely cool cake topper on our dessert table though. It’s a giraffe and a squirrel and it now lives in our lounge room. We bought it from Etsy seller Melabo. We also had a giant tiered stand of  teeny weeny cakes from my most favouritest patisserie Brunetti. Lemon Meringue Pies are probably my favourite thing in the world (they were also my Grandma’s favourite thing in the world) and you can’t really beat miniature Lemon Meringue Pies, right?”  

“We also went a bit DIY on the ol’ dessert table. I hired/foraged for some jars and assorted other dessert holding devices and filled them with some of our favourite things – chocolate covered raspberries, milk bottle lollies, pretzels and my awesomely famous, top secret recipe chocolate chip cookies. Oh – and – just to make things even more interesting (or slightly odd, depending on your point of view I suppose) we both have a bit of a thing about m&ms being sorted into their respective colours.  Those little cardboard boxes = 12 kilo of m&ms – p.s. it takes approx 1 hour for 1 bride-to-be to sort 2kg of m&ms – you do the math!”

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Cassie & Loc’s Multicultural, DIY Wedding

November 22, 2010

I actually featured a link to Cassie & Loc’s gorgeous wedding in Thursday Treats two weeks ago as I’ll be honest, with most of photographer Jonas Peterson’s weddings, I figured one of the big daddy American blogs would have snapped it up to feature instantly (this dude’s work is in high demand!) So you can imagine my surprise and excitement when I received an email from the bride to not only tell me I’d made her day by linking to her wedding, but that she was a huge Rock n Roll Bride fan and that she’d love for me to feature them. Score!

I’m sure Cassie won’t mind me sharing her initial email with you all. It made my heart melt!

“I got married to my wonderful, lovely, insanely sweet husband Loc about a month ago.  While the sunshine that cames from that is still hanging around my brain, I was SUPER excited to see a link to our little wedding on your blog post for Nov 11.  When we got engaged in 2008, I started stalking a couple of blogs.  Seriously stalking.  One was Jonas Peterson, who when we first contacted him, hadn’t shot a wedding ‘formally’.  And the second was yours!”
 
“What resonated so strongly with me about your blog is the idea that being yourself, not your family, not your friends, and certainly not the bridal industry, is worth more than can ever be expressed when it comes to your own wedding day.  Because Loc’s family is Vietnamese, and my Dad Italian, needless to say our 40 people, out in the country wedding was not at all what either of our families wanted for us.  And I say ‘for us’ because through all of the bickering and heated discussions, I learnt that all of these ‘wants’ that came from our family, came from their love.  And we are lucky that in the end they accepted what we wanted for the day and had an amazing time.  And more than that, that day, that beautiful, sun-smiling, psychotically windy day, was filled with our love for each other.  And you’re totally right.  Jonas is a freak. An amazing artistic, life-capturing freak, whose photos are a gift to us every time we look at them.  Noone else can make us physically feel as though we are there again, looking into each other’s eyes, feeling insanely in love, and all that other mushy mushy stuff, that hallmark card stuff that was our day.

Anyway enough gushing, onto the awesome wedding details! The couple got married at Loc’s family’s house in Sunnybank, Brisbane, and their western ceremony and reception took place at Branell Homestead in Laidley, Queensland. For the Vietnamese tea ceremony, Cassie wore a red Vietnamese dress called an áo dài. “It wasn’t a full-on traditional bridal one, but was equally as beautiful with little embroidered flowers and beading,” she told me. “It was purchased for me by Loc’s best friend’s Mother as a wedding present. Mum made a little hair-slide of red paper flowers, and I wore a pair of my late Nonna’s favorite gold earrings.”

Cassie’s second wedding dress was made by her Mother from an original 1960’s paper pattern, bought from tiddleywink VINTAGE on etsy. “Mum and I made heaps of changes as we went, adding a lace bodice, waistband and pockets,” explained Cassie. “Making the dress with my Mum was a wonderful, though slightly stressful experience, scalloping the lace using water glasses, googling how to sew pockets beside inseam zips, messing around with neckline and armhole bias’ and a plethora of other tricky things for us ‘un-couture’ sewers!  It was really trial and error… one picked to pieces toile, and about four not quite right bodices, lots of swearing and unpicking!  But it is a beautiful, beautiful dress that means more to me (and my Mum) than any store-bought, dressmaker-made dress could ever be.  Mum stitched a little ribbon into the pocket of my dress where I tied Loc’s wedding band, along side my vows (hand scribbled because our printer broke the night before the wedding), a hankie from Mum, and a quick-unpick (I realise as I was unpicking the stitches on the back of my Dad’s jacket just before the ceremony that I forgot to unpick the same stitches on Loc’s jacket, so I brought it with me to unpick after the ceremony!)  Mum also made her own beautiful red vintage-inspired two piece suit for the wedding, and while she is quick to downplay her cleverness, EVERYONE loved everything she did.”

The couple chose not to have bridesmaids or groomsmen, favouring it just being the two of them up there. “All of our family and friends are so important to us, and our wedding so intimate that we felt we didn’t need to single people out in that way.  It was a really beautiful and special thing for the two of us to be standing up there, just with each other, in front of the people that mean everything to us.  The whole bridal party thing is a tradition that just wasn’t something we wanted!  My best friends pictured in some of Jonas’ photos were my unofficial bridesmaids, they picked their outfits the night before the wedding from their own favourite things.  Loc’s two brother’s and his best friends wore their own suits.  They all looked so handsome and beautiful, so themselves, that if we had tried to plan it or ‘style’ it, it absolutely would have felt forced, and not just all of us together, celebrating this awesome time.  My girls wore gumboots most of the day, it had been raining solid for almost two weeks before the wedding and we all had kick ass gumboots.  I’m so glad that even though the sun came out the girls were themselves and comfortable in their wellies!!!”

“From the moment we began planning the wedding, we knew that we wanted it to be about us and our love,”concluded Cassie. “Neither of us wanted a cookie cutter wedding, where you could replace the head of the bride and groom and it would look like anyone’s wedding from any one of a million wedding magazines.  And while a lot of the ‘weddingy’ elements have remained, every little part of this journey has been for, by and about Loc and I, and the family and friends that we love.  And really, the ‘traditional’ parts that remained happened because they suited us and our love, and our family.”

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The Price of Wedding Photography & How Much Should I Expect to Spend?

Julia Boggio Photography

October 23, 2010

This is a subject I have wanted to address on the blog for a while, but I’ll be honest, I have been a little afraid of bringing it up. I really do hope I don’t get lynched afterwards for talking about this unspoken subject but I really do think this is something worthy of discussion.

I need to make a few things clear first…

♥ I am a HUGE advocate of helping start up businesses. I often feature the work of brand new and up and coming photographers on the blog and this article is in no way intended to discredit or slag off newbie photographers.
♥ I am a true believer that a fantastic photographer can make even the most budget wedding look kick ass – more than the dress, the decor and the extra details. Seriously, while all these aspects are important it is the photographer that will capture these memories that will last a lifetime and I think this is the one thing that shouldn’t be scrimped on or “DIY-ed”.
♥ Everyone deserves to have a truly fantastic photographer to capture their day. Whatever your budget, I can’t stress enough how much I’d urge you to spend as much money as you are able to in order to get the very best photographer that you can afford.

I don’t want the fact that I have approached the subject of money, business and all that icky stuff to in anyway ostracise any readers of my little blog. However I do think that just how much you’re going to spend on photography is something that should be addressed. It’s something that all couples will talk about when they plan their weddings and budget but it’s a subject that is never spoken about on blogs or in magazines. Why is this? Well, people don’t really like to talk about money do they?

My reasoning behind this post is not in anyway to try and encourage you to spend more than you can afford or are willing to on your wedding photography, however I do want to make you stop and think if the service you are getting for the price you’re paying really is good value.

I have lost count of the number of brides I’ve had email me asking for photographer recommendations for under £500 and I’ve also lost count of the number friends I’ve spoken to who have recoiled at the fact that a lot of the photographers I know are charging £2000 + for “one day’s work” (seriously? do people still think photographers only work one day a week!? I was chatting to a photographer friend of mine about this subject who told me that after everything she has to do, her hourly rate is less than £20 an hour…and she’s not one of the cheaper ones!)

I know weddings are expensive things and that the thought of spending a couple of grand on a photographer is a lot for most people, but I can’t stress enough that I feel photography is really the one thing you should splash out on. If you can only afford £500 for a wedding photographer then great, but just be aware that the results that you get from a photographer who is only charging that much will most certainly be inferior to someone a bit more pricey – even if the talent is there. Someone able to charge more than this, will if anything have a lot more experience than someone still charging around the £500 mark.

If you are happy to pay under £500 for a photographer then fantastic – rock it out, but just be aware that for that price you aren’t going to get Jose Villa/ Jasmine Star/ Jonas Peterson/ Lisa Devlin… I hate to say it, but in this industry, you really do get what you pay for.

This is a subject that us wedding industry folk chat about a lot. The preconception by some brides is that in some way photographers are trying to rip you all off. While I’ll be honest, there are certain photographers out there who I think are ludicrously expensive for what they offer (and no I’m not naming names!) in the majority, the price you pay generally covers the quality of the service you are given. After that it’s just down to personal taste.

When I mentioned on Twitter that I was going to cover this topic, the response was positive if not a little wary…

“depends on your point of view!? Could provoke a witch hunt!”
“having a heated “discussion” with a friend about this very subject.He says price things lower-I’m saying don’t be too cheap!”
“haha brave!”
“wow! You are brave!”
“that should be interesting…”
“oooh sounds controversial”
“hope the amazing pics you blog already help people realise its worth paying for good photography”
“oowww that’s a can of worms on so many levels but i am sure you will do a great job!”

After reading this I hope you will all realise that my intention was not to be controversial or to even spark a debate on this matter – I merely wished to address a subject that I feel affects us all – brides, bloggers and of course photographers.

Therefore I wanted to get the opinion of a photographer and so I asked someone who is greatly respected in the UK wedding industry. Julia Boggio is regarded as one of the UK’s leading wedding photographers and has won many awards for her business acumen as well as her photography. She has had her worked featured in all the major UK wedding magazines and she is a regular columnist for the same photography magazine I write for, Photo Pro – and she was the one who actually got me the job so I owe her a lot! She also openly admits to being at the higher end of the market in terms of her pricing so I thought she would be the perfect candidate to address this matter.

I’d love to hear your thoughts (from photographers AND brides please!) on this subject in the comments section below.

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One Night Only – Beautiful Bali Wedding

June 4, 2010

I challenge you to find anyone who’s heard of Jonas Peterson and doesn’t love him. His meteoric rise to ‘rockstar photographer’ status has been quite frankly ridiculous but with the credentials and talent he has behind him,I can’t help but know that this success is nothing short of deserved.

So popular is Jonas now that I usually don’t even ask if I can blog his weddings anymore because more often than not they are snapped up by other bloggers quick smart but when I saw Sian & Barry’s beautiful Bali wedding I knew I had to give it a go…and what do you know, he said yes!

I was lucky enough to even get chatting with the couple all about their awesome wedding too. Hella bonus! The wedding was held in the beautiful Villa Pemutih, Padang Padang, Bukit Peninsula, Bali. The couple actually live in Dubai so they decided to employ a local wedding planner to organise most of the legalities and details for them. They really wanted classic local dishes for the food to had a local Indonesian Buffet by a local company, Bali Catering Company including some of their favourites – Gado Gado, Beef Rendang & Fish Curries. The same company also supplied all the cocktails which helped to keep the wedding intimate and relaxed. “We didn’t want to over complicate things, it’s Bali after all” the couple told me!

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Intense. Elation. Ridiculous.

October 21, 2009

As soon as I laid eyes on James & Rebecca’s Melbourne wedding I knew I wanted to blog it. However with photographer Jonas Peterson so in demand by wedding bloggers I thought for sure that someone had beaten me to it. So imagine my elation this morning when I received a tweet from Jonas who asked if I’d like to be the first to blog them…Well of course!

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The Wedding Tree

July 18, 2009

I am so over the moon to be the first blog to bring you this amazing wedding. Paul & Cassie’s day really couldn’t be anywhere but Rock n Roll Bride though surely? From her cute cute dress by Carla Zampatti, to their kick ass tattoos – from the simply sweet ceremony site (just plastic chairs and autumnal leaves) to all the adorable personal touches (I am crazy in love with their thumb print wedding tree ‘guest book’.) There is in fact nothing I don’t love and I could go on with a big old list of everything I am swooning over right now. However it’s probably better for me just to share the photographic joy oui?

Shoes:  Witchery
Cake:  The Welsh Lady
Cupcakes:  Carousels
Decoration info: 
The wall/window decals, the owl figurines, Cassie’s hair flower, the paper forest animal masks, the noodle box tags, the clay “love” & “forever” tags on bottles all came from Etsy 
The mexican day of the dead dolls were found on Ebay.
The white lanterns and fairy light halo were from the glorious Ikea.
For the Vintage bottles, milk bottles, medicinal bottles the couple scouted Paddington Antique Markets.
All the pinecones, leaves and tree branches were collected from neighbourhood walks.
The Candy Buffet was a DIY job, the couple collected misc vases/jars & purchased the candy, lots of candy.
The cute tableclothes & yellow gingham table runners hand made “with love” by Mom
Wedding Tree, Wishing Well/Bird Cage, Guest Book, white chocolate candy apples made by Cassie

Thanks to the wonderful Jonas Peterson for the Rock n Roll Bride exclusive!

Credit: Jonas Peterson

Wild at Heart: An Elopement on Safari in the Masai Mara

Ann-Kathrin Koch Photography

October 10, 2019

I can’t breathe. This may just be one of my favourite weddings we’ve EVER FEATURED. Yes, in all my 13 years of writing about weddings I’m not sure a wedding has stolen my heart quite like this one.

Aaliyah and Gabriel had exactly the wedding they wanted – on safari in the Masai Mara over the course of a four day trip. Aaliyah is from Burundi, Gabriel is Tunisian and they both grew up in France but met, fell in love and now live in London together. They wanted to have a wedding that focused on them and the incredible world around them, no fuss, guests or details. So, they decided to elope.

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Thursday Treats: I Did It!

October 22, 2015

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Hampus Öberg

Last week I spoke at and attended Way Up North, Europe’s first major summit for wedding photographers in Stockholm, Sweden. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, but also one of the most incredible.

Being in a line up of astounding photographers such as Jasmine Star, Jonas Peterson, Andria Lindqusit, Fer Juaristi, Ed Peers, Erin & Ben Chrisman, James Moes, Samm Blake and Nessa K isn’t something I would ever have dared to dream could happen to me. In fact, just thinking about it now makes my head spin.

I was going to write a lengthy article about everything I took from those two days but ironically (since I was speaking about the power of blogging!) the words just wouldn’t come. Not wanting to miss anything important out I felt paralysed and found it impossible to even begin my post.

So let’s just say that it was wonderful. I didn’t expect to learn so much from the other speakers (not being a wedding photographer and all) but I did. So much. I faced my fears… I laughed… I even cried a little bit. If you want to know just how amazing it was… well, you’ll have to come along next time.

To Cole and Jakob, who organised the whole thing, THANK YOU. Thank for you asking me to be involved, thank you for believing in me, thank you for your kind words before, during and after.

Way Up North 2015, you were a life-defining moment. I will always think back to those two days with astonishment that it happened, joy that I faced my fears, and exhilaration at the enormity of it all.

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Hampus Öberg

Meanwhile, on the internet…

Weddings & Weddingy Things

♥ Planning viral wedding proposals is actually a job
Summertime swimming love story shoot
President Obama crashed a wedding
Gorgeous DIY Nashville wedding
Edgy, moto-inspired wedding

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Big Bear Photo Co.

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Are Brides Who Wear Glasses Any Less Beautiful?

August 18, 2014

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Brewery wedding

Watch any teen movie from the past ten years and you’ll recognise this cliché. In order to get the guy, the heroine, who starts off an ugly duckling, first needs to be transformed into a beautiful swan. Whatever the premise of the film might be, the classic movie makeover formula is tried, tested and invariable. Her hair is tamed, ‘sexy’ clothes are donned, make up applied, glasses removed… How exactly she’s going to see the man of her dreams without that vital accessory never seems to be a concern.

I started to ponder this phenomenon recently while watching The Princess Diaries (don’t judge, it was a rainy Sunday afternoon!) As Mia’s glasses are viciously snapped in two by her stylist, I wondered if that also meant she’d be frame-free if she ever got married. Well, of course she would, I reasoned, she’d be a princess by then, and princesses don’t wear glasses.

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Daisy chain wedding

If you wear specs yourself, then whether or not you’re going to have them on your face at your wedding will undoubtedly be discussed at some point. People will start to innocently ask you about contacts or laser treatment. Yet if it’s your groom that’s bespectacled I doubt he’ll get the same questions. When men wear glasses they’re considered dashing, smart and sexy. Girls, on the other hand, are always encouraged to remove their frames in order to look their most beautiful.

Wearing glasses does not make you quirky, geeky or nerdy, it just means your eyeballs do not work as well as other people’s. It’s not right to judge anyone, either positively or negatively, for this unavoidable deformity. Tattoos and piercings are considered by many as beautiful, and what we choose to wear says a lot about who we are. I expect that the majority of you would be in agreement with me that self expression is sexy.

So why is it so hard for the movie and wedding industries to find beauty in a girl’s choice to wear glasses instead of contacts?

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Eclectic bric-a-brac wedding

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Ask Me Anything…#2

Made U Look Photography

June 25, 2013

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People always say there are no original ideas. It’s true, everything is a rehash of this or an offshoot of that. I actually did this once before but my babe Emma Case posted this Q&A blog post the other day and I really enjoyed reading it so I wanted to shamelessly rip off the idea and do it again! Thanks to everyone on Facebook and Twitter who asked a question. In fact I got so many of them that I’m going to split this into two parts and do another post same time next week. If you have any yourself, be sure to pop them in the comments and I’ll try and include it as well!

Enjoy…

I have been messing about with tags on my blog but then someone said that they make no difference to SEO so I got confused and stopped. Are tags useful in blogs and if so, what for?

Ugh SEO, yawn! I’m no expert, but I’ll try my best to explain it… Basically anything and everything you put on your blog will, in some small way, add to your searchability. So, if you tagged every post with ‘vintage wedding photography’ the likelihood is that Google will start to index you for that term (alongside every other frigging wedding photographer in world who’s done the same).

The real function of tags is to index things within your blog and to provide a better user experience for your readers. For example, if you tagged a wedding with ‘vintage wedding’ and a reader enjoyed that post they can then click the tag to view other, similar content.

So in a nutshell yes and no… but mostly no. They’re not designed for SEO benefits but may well contribute to the overall ‘SEOness’ of your site.

The key thing to remember is that you’re blogging for your readers, not for Google, and everything you do on your site should enhance the experience for them. I keep my tags super simple as it can be very easy to go overboard (and, goodness, doesn’t that look spammy at the end of a post?!) and do more harm than good.

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I’m a photographer and would love to be a successful one. How do I get those more alternative clients when I’m starting out? I love everything that’s out of the ordinary and would like to make it my business…

There’s no quick answer to this one I’m afraid but authenticity is key. The holy grail is that the couples that book you do so because they connect with something about you (and hopefully it’s not just because you’re cheap when just starting out!) Really spend some time working on how you present yourself online. Use your personality and your quirks (alongside your amazing photography of course) to sell yourself.

Instead of saying “I really want to shoot alternative weddings” think, “I’d really like to shoot people I connect with”, because, really, that’s what it’s all about. We all present ourselves in very different ways online and some of the most successful photographers are the ones that have very distinct personalties. Look at Jonas Peterson, Jasmine Star, Emma Case… each of these guys have cornered a very specific demographic of client. Why? because they’re attracting couples that are just like them. There’s no point trying to do what they do though, you have to market yourself towards your ideal client.

Look at some of your favourite wedding photographers and see how they do this. What are they blogging about? What are they saying on social media? Where are they getting featured? What is it about them that their clients are connecting with? People with similar interests will naturally be drawn to you. If you try to be something you’re not it will always be completely obvious and will likely just put people off.

Wedding photographer Hannah Millard recently did a really specific and targeted Facebook ad campaign and the results were astounding. She stipulated that the ad was to be shown to engaged people in her desired area who had also ‘liked’ the Belle and Sebastian fan page. The ad graphic also mentioned that she was a fan. Weird right? No, it’s actually genius.

Firstly Facebook ads are priced on a sliding scale depending how many people see them, so by being super specific about her demographic it didn’t reach a huge number of people (maybe a few hundred) making it really affordable. Secondly the people who saw the ad were instantly drawn to it because alongside offering something they were looking for (a wedding photographer) it mentioned something they instantly connected with (a mutual appreciation of Belle and Sebastian). She booked seven weddings through this advert alone (and had a bunch more enquiries which she couldn’t do because she was already booked) and it cost her less than £100.

Obviously I’m not saying you should go and put a Belle and Sebastian targeted ad on Facebook right away. The reason this worked so well for Hannah was because she wasn’t trying to be all things to all people. She really drilled down, got super specific and spoke directly to the kind of client she wanted to work with.

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It’s Good to Cringe

Devlin Photos

May 23, 2013

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Recently, a good friend and photographer showed me some images that he had shot a few years ago. He told me that he was cringing while putting together the couple’s album because they had waited three years before coming back with their selection and meantime his work had, in his eyes, improved a lot. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the images and the couple were clearly still very happy with them if they were investing in an album. Of course they were not the images he would shoot if he did their wedding today but I told him that I think it’s good to look back on your old work and cringe a little. It shows that you are progressing, evolving and developing.

When interviewed on Rock n Roll Bride, Jonas Peterson said “You will never find your style, your style will find you” and certainly ‘finding your style’ is one thing that a lot of photographers, artists and designers seem to struggle with, especially in the early days. However I believe that this constant quest to define and refine your style is one of the things that keeps us in a state of creativity. If we didn’t, our work would surely become stale and dated and we’d probably get very bored. I have been earning my living from taking photographs for over twenty years and I have yet to think “this is it… this is exactly how I’m going to shoot every picture from now on”. I go through phases of being in love with a certain lens, filter or technique but it is never the only way I shoot. By constantly playing and experimenting, learning rules and then breaking them, I’m forever progressing and changing. Any creative should grow with their craft and I very much see it as a journey. The path may be unknown at times but isn’t that all part of the adventure?

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Is Vintage Photography the Dance Music of the Wedding Industry?

Lisa Devlin

January 22, 2013

Lisa Devlin Vintage Wedding Photography 027

There are obvious fashions in weddings just like with clothing, interiors, food and just about everything we consume. However if you want to maintain any kind of longevity in the industry is it wrong to appear to be too much of a particular trend?

I actually get asked about this quite a lot as I guess it could be perceived that I am part of the fashion for vintage toning on wedding images. Ironically, this toning is something that I started doing when I switched from shooting weddings on film to digital a couple of years ago. I have always tweaked the colour on my images, whether it was toning black & white prints or cross processing print film in the chemicals for slide film and vice versa. I like to find out how things work and then mess with them. In the 90s I worked for the experimental Blah Blah Blah magazine and the art director, Chris Ashworth, used to always prefer the images that would normally get binned. He liked to to push the boundaries of everything. At the time, I was simultaneously working for a number of teenage pop magazines so it was utterly liberating to be able to do something creative and definitely my favourite magazine to work for.

So I guess it was inevitable that when I finally embraced digital technology for shooting weddings, I would start to seek ways of messing with the colours again. I have always been passionate about old photographs and all they represent in our social history, so if Photoshop was going to give me the ability to experiment, then I was going to! I looked for ways to recreate those faded tones that old colour images have. At the same time the kinds of wedding dresses and decor items that were gaining popularity we’re also very vintage, and so suddenly it was a ‘thing’.

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Thursday Treats: Blogcademy Dreams & Writing Online

November 15, 2012

Photography Credit: Caught in Creativity 

Waaah! Yesterday was insane! I spent most of the day plonked in front of my computer, staring at my screen in disbelief as tickets for The Blogcademy in London sold over and over again. It was so thrilling to see that you guys are just as enthusiastic about this little baby of ours as we are!

Unbelievably we are sold out already! In less than a day!!! Gala, Shauna & I feel so incredibly blessed to have such a strong and supportive team of readers and fans around us so thank you thank you thank you for believing in our dream and coming along for the ride. We can’t bloody wait!

In other news, this week as been so good in terms of the weddings being published. Here are some of my favourites from the other wedding blogs that I like to stalk…

Weddings & Weddingy Things

Autumnal circus inspired couple shoot
♥ Why I’m not hiding my disability at my wedding –  awesome
Muppets wedding cake! So good.
Cute London wedding planned in four months
♥ Wisconsin handmade wedding
♥ Rustic farm wedding

Photography Credit: Ben Blood

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Thursday Treats: 27th September 2012

September 27, 2012

Photography Credit: Devlin Photos

Hey there! Have you forgiven me for the lack of Thursday Treats last week? … Oh you forgot all about it already? Good good! But just in case, whatdayafink of that photo up there? Yep, that’s what I was doing while I was away… helping to style that baby up. Beautiful huh? More of this will be hitting the bloggidy soon!

Today I’m off to The Big Smoke to be interviewed on camera (eeek) and to meet the amazing Nanette Lepore at her Notting Hill store. I’m equally nervous and excited about both events, and I have a funny feeling I may be heading home with a rather light wallet and some rather heavy shopping bags (sorry Gareth).

In other news… OMFG I can’t believe it’s just two weeks until I fly to New York for The Blogcademy. Where on earth has the time gone?!? Holy moly I better dash, I’ve still got my presentations to plan!

Weddings & Weddingy Things…

♥ Glorious Indian wedding
♥ Wedding photographer Jonas Peterson got married. And it was epic.
♥ Bohemian summer inspiration
♥ Cinco de Mayo wedding
♥ This glam garden party wedding is my fave wedding-one-another-blog in a long time! (+ part 2) Isn’t Emily the coolest bride!?

Photography Credit: Lara Hotz

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