Snowy Wedding & Portrait Photography

Be prepared !

Okay this is going to be a bit of a different post from me today.  This time last year I had 3 or 4 weddings coming up and the weather started to get a little nasty (snow and ice) so I decided to buy myself a 4×4.  As you may know I lived in America for 10 years, The North East – New York, New Jersey and Connecticut where we would regularly get 20 inches of snow.  In the states I owned a Jeep Grand Cherokee and this car would go anywhere and thru anything.  So this is what I brought.  Because this was going to be a WINTER car only, and one to get me too and from winter weddings we spent a grand total of £1400 and brought a 10 year old model.  Its not pretty, it drinks fuel but it gets me to where I need to be WHEN I need to be.

As a wedding photographer winter weddings are becoming more and more popular and I actually LOVE photographing wedding in the snow – it reminds me of my time in the states so much.  When a couple are thinking about getting married in the winter I am sure one of the last things they think about is, is my photographer going to be able to get to my wedding ?

This is a shot from a wedding 10 days ago when we had the last lot of snow (see blog post below)

And this is me working away – nothing stops me getting the shot, not even a few inches of snow

Winter weddings offer the chance of GREAT photos, this shot would have looked nice normally but when its all covered in snow, it looks great – its an outtake, here is my assistant taking shots at another winter wedding.

So back to the reason for the story today

This was the scene outside my house yesterday.

and this is the street we live on

As you can see the road is totally covered, the cars at the bottom of the road cant get out and it was beautiful to look out on all that snow.  We only had 4 inches of snow but most of the village and nearby towns came to a halt.

So I called a very good friend of ours (Zena) and asked if she would like to bring her two kids out for some snowy winter portraits, Z lives right across the road from the park !  She said yes, so Nikki and I loaded up our kids and took off.

This is my winter wedding car

Nikki loaded the kids into the car while I dug out cameras etc and off we went to met up and spend  a little time shooting a few nice winter portraits of the kids.

Anway back to what its all about,

I have NEVER missed a wedding yet, and if its in my power to do so come hell, high water or deep deep snow, I want to make sure I have the tools at hand to get me there and get the shots for my couples.

If your planning a on getting married in the winter (November – February) one of the questions you should ask your photographer is, if it snows how will you get to my wedding ?

and remember at this time of year you CANT hire a 4×4 they are all booked out ahead of time – thats why we brought one.

Getting married in the winter can be great and can result in wonderful photos, having the right equipment is more than just a good camera, you need to have everything you can to make sure as a professional you wont fail and let down your clients.

For most of the year our jeep is off the road, but as soon as the first floods or snow fall comes, we pop it right on the road

Have a GREAT Christmas and really good new year.

ciao for now.

dp