Category: Blog

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The 3 Hour Wedding

I started to photograph small intimate weddings when the Covid restrictions would only allow 25 or 50 guests and there was no option to go to a reception afterwards. 3 hours of photography coverage was enough to cover everything, and I found that I really liked doing them, so I kept them on as an option when the restrictions were lifted.

Elopement Photography

Some people refer to small weddings as elopements, but elopements tend to have very few people there, sometimes just the bride and groom, the celebrant and the photographer. I have often been the witness too and the couple have asked a passer-by or the hotel coordinator to be the other witness!

Intimate Wedding Photography

A lot of couples don’t want to have the huge wedding experience, with 150+ guests and photography and videography all day. With the popularity today of Civil Ceremonies rather that Church Weddings, there is a trend now for weddings in held in restaurants or on farms and family homes where the photography of the main elements of the day are enough for the couple. 

Short Wedding Day Photographs

I like to arrive about 30 minutes before the ceremony is due to begin and start with some photographs of the groom and his party. Then I move on to where the bride is waiting and take some portraits of her with her family and bridesmaids.

The ceremony takes around 30 minutes and couples often have a greeting line with their guests afterwards. A lot of photographs are taken during this period when there is lots of movement and emotion, especially during the brides entrance, the readings, the vows, the newly married couple’s exit and the congratulations from families and friends.

After the Wedding Ceremony

Afterwards the guests will head to the drinks reception and I will gather the two families for the formal family photographs. This takes about 20 minutes to complete and then the families can relax while I take more casual photos of the couple and their guests enjoying the party.

When I have about 40 minutes left of the 3 hours, I will take the bride and groom and the wedding party off for some photographs and I will finish off with some romantic location photographs of the bride and groom together.

At the end, I grab any last photographs the couple would like with family and friends and let everybody get on with the party and dinner.

I will deliver a “Sneak Peek” selection to my couple within 48 hours and their full set of edited images will be ready in around a month.

I have added 60 photographs from a total of 430 edited images that I delivered to my couple

Click here to see my Best of 2023 Wedding Photographs

Click here to see my Winter Weddings in Ireland Blogpost

Small Wedding & Elopement Photographer for Cork and Kerry

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After the craziness of 2022, when we were still catching up with all the weddings the were postponed and rearranged due to Covid, 2023 had an air of normality about it. 

Guest numbers were back to normal, dance floors were full and greeting lines with guests after the ceremony were back in fashion. The only thing still missing is the sign of peace handshake during the church wedding ceremonies. Maybe that will return in 2024.

I photographed most of my weddings in Cork again, with the occasional trip to Kerry. Fernhill House Hotel in Clonakilty was the venue I photographed in most, followed by The Maryborough and Dunmore House Hotel. 

Civil ceremonies are catching up on Church ceremonies and will probably overtake them in the next few years and outdoor wedding ceremonies are increasingly popular.

I went to The Blasket Centre, The Aghadoe Heights in Killarney and  The Walter Raleigh in Youghal for the first time this year and I’m looking forward to revisiting them when I can.

I received 12 Wedisson International Photography Awards, some of which are featured below.

I’ve added a 3 hour wedding package for smaller weddings and elopements to my list and it is becoming popular with couples who don’t want a full day’s coverage.

I’ve also bought my first mirrorless camera which I will be using when I get started again in February. Come back this time next year to see if it has made much of a difference to my style of photography.

I had a very difficult job picking this end of year selection. I wouldn’t call these my actual favourites as there are loads of photographs that I am really proud of, but they would mean more to me and the people in the photographs that to someone unconnected with the families. You can see those photographs in the family gallery link at the bottom of this post.

So, I have tried to choose wedding images that work without any connection to the people in the photographs. Some were structured and directed, particularly the backlit night shots, but many were captured on the fly as things were happening around me. The god of photography smiled on me as I pressed the shutter and everything fell into place!

I’d like to thank all the brides and grooms that trusted me to photograph their most important day and I’m looking forward to working with lots of great couples at fantastic venues in 2024.

Click here to see the wedding photographs Cork brides like best…

Fun Family Photographs…

Best Cork and Kerry Wedding Photographs of 2023

Ballyseede Castle is a luxury wedding venue located just outside Tralee in Co. Kerry and it is a fantastic location for a wedding photographer in Kerry to find themselves working at. It was the perfect venue for Claire and Liam’s Elegant Ballyseede Castle Black Tie Wedding.

Ballyseede Castle Civil Marriage Ceremonies

Ballyseede Castle dates from 1721, but it has been thoroughly modernised with the addition of a new accommodation wing and a beautiful orangery, a glass structure where you can have your drinks reception after your church wedding or a civil marriage ceremony. Humanist and Spiritualist wedding ceremonies can be held in the hotel’s original dining hall or outside in the manicured gardens. Ballyseede is one of the best outdoor wedding venues in southern Ireland.

Documentary Style Wedding Photography

My photographic style is a mixture of documentary and directed photography and my approach is to work out a timeline and a schedule with each couple that fits in with their vision for their day.

This Kerry wedding venue is big enough for the bridal party and the grooms party to get ready in the hotel without bumping into each other before the ceremony and there are lots of places to do a first look if the wedding couple want to do one.

At Claire and Liam’s wedding, I was able to move between the fun of the bridal prep to the guy’s pre-ceremony visit to the bar and back again. I could to photograph both teams getting ready and have time for more personal family portraits on both sides before the 2pm ceremony began. 

I always schedule time before the ceremony the get these important legacy family photographs. Everybody looks their absolute best just before the ceremony begins and it saves lots of valuable socialising time at the drink’s reception in the afternoon.

Irish Wedding Ceremony Photography

During a wedding ceremony, whether in a church or a civil setting, I know where to position myself in advance of each element so as to capture the events as they unfold. There are no “take twos’ ! Claire and Liam had readings, a traditional hand fasting, an exchange of rings and the signing of the register before they rocked back down the aisle.

After the ceremony, everybody filed past and congratulated Claire and Liam and then made their way to the drinks reception. I gathered both families and we went into the front drawing room to the formal family photographs. These are possibly the most important and the boring photographs of the day for any wedding couple, but if you have everybody that you need in place, you can fly through these in 15 to 20 minutes.

Wedding Speeches and Wedding Sparklers

The next part of the day flew by! I took shots of the wedding guests in the orangery, dodged the showers to bring Claire and Liam out into the gardens for some couple photos, shot the wedding cake and the dining room and then photographed the wedding party having a quiet drink in the bar while the guests were being seated for dinner. 

Claire and Liam were led through a cheering crowd into the dining room by a saxophonist. They decided to have their speeches before dinner was served so that the speakers could enjoy their meal. 

After dinner, when it got dark, we gathered around 20 guests and did some wedding sparkler photographs followed by some creative night time photographs at the beautiful temple in the gardens.

After that, all that was left was to hit the dancefloor for the first dance and then get everybody to party on for the rest of the night.

Click here to see my Favourite Kerry Wedding Venues…

Click here to see my Winter Weddings in Ireland Blogpost…

Claire and Liam’s Elegant Ballyseede Castle Black Tie Wedding

Visit Ballyseede Castle

It was a difficult job choosing my best of 2022 wedding photographs in what was another unusual year for the wedding industry as a whole. The Covid restrictions were eased and finally removed altogether, which meant that weddings could go back to normal, in terms of the number of guests you could invite and how long a wedding day could last.

Wedding bands were back in business, and the only aspect of the day that hasn’t come back is the Offering of the Sign of Peace at the mass!

This meant that lots of weddings that had been postponed due to the restrictions were rescheduled and fitted in amongst the weddings that were already booked for 2022, so by the end of August, all the wedding suppliers had already done a year’s work, and by the time New Year’s Eve came around, we were wrecked.

Luckily, January and February are quieter months, so we will all be rearing to go again in March.

To be honest, it’s hard to choose a definite “best of” selection for any year, but these are some of my favourites from 2022.

What makes me like these particular wedding photographs is that they show a genuine emotional connection between the people in the picture, which is what I’m trying to achieve on every wedding day

Brides and their dads, grooms and their mothers and grandmothers, just married couples, big wedding parties and close family members. For me, these are the important photographs that have to be captured on the day and I make sure to schedule some time to make sure I get them.

I was delighted to receive 6 Wedisson International Wedding Photography Awards for photographs I took in 2022. Thousands of photographers from all over the world enter the competition, so it is quite a big deal to be chosen. I like to enter the more creative and dynamic shots and it seems to be working out so far.

I’d like to thank all the couples that trusted me to photograph their most important day and I’m looking forward to working with lots of great couples at fantastic venues in 2023.

Click here to see my Winter Weddings in Ireland Blogpost

Click here to see the wedding photographs Cork brides like best

Early in 2020, I was contacted by professional model Sandra McKenzie Vass Keogh, who asked me if I would be interested in doing a wedding dress photo shoot with her.

I was delighted with the idea as it meant that I could try out some new ideas and techniques that I wouldn’t have time to experiment with on a real wedding day.

Diamond Bridal, the award winning wedding dress shop in Cork city would supply the dress and veil, Sandra would get her hair done by boziuke83, make up done by Amanda Tattan and I would be able to suggest some great photographic locations around Clonakilty.

Then Covid 19 struck Ireland in mid March and all our plans had to be put on hold. Finally, after a lot of rearranging, we agreed to go ahead on Sunday the 2^nd of August.

At this stage, I hadn’t shot a wedding in over 6 months, and I was starting to worry that I had forgotten how to do it!! Luckily, as soon as I had the camera in my hands and a bride in front of me, everything came flooding back.

From the very beginning, I had the gardens of Fernhill House Hotel in mind for the main part of the shoot, and depending on the weather, I planned to go to one of our fantastic local beaches for some seascape shots.

I contacted Michael O’Neill, 3^rd generation proprietor at Fernhill with the idea, and he very generously gave us access to the gardens and a room for Sandra to get changed into her wedding dress.

On the day, the weather was perfect. No wind, no rain, cloudy skies with the sun breaking through. As it was the height of Summer, the gardens were perfect too, with everything neatly clipped and flowers blooming everywhere.

We made our was around the gardens, from the formal summer house and the outdoor ceremony building to the pergola and the bamboo avenue. I shot with my beloved 16-35mm for the landscape shots and the mighty 70-200mm for the portraits. I used on and off camera flash, and I made poor Sandra climb through the forest of wild flowers in her heels. But it was worth it!

After a couple of hours at Fernhill, we packed up and went to a field of barley I had spotted in Ardfield, about 15 minutes drive away, for some dramatic and moody black and white images. I was worried that the field would be cut when we got there, but thankfully, we beat the farmer by a couple of days.

Our last stop was Sandscove, a small stony beach near where I live and where I have photographed many times before. Sandra’s dress had a long ornate train and I wanted to create an image that looked a bit like a mermaid sitting on a rock, you will have to decide if I captured it or not, but I love it!!.

The whole afternoon was an education, being able to take the time to set up unusual shots and to play around with ideas. I’m really happy with the results and I hope that you like them too.

Click here to see my 2019 Fernhill Weddings Blogpost

Wedding Dress Photo Shoot