joyful & natural
COTSWOLD WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
How To Choose Your Perfect Cotswold Wedding Photographer
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY FAQs
Choosing a wedding photographer is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make when planning your wedding. With so many different styles, approaches and packages available, it can feel overwhelming!
I’ve put together some of the most important questions to ask a wedding photographer, along with honest answers about how I approach photographing weddings across the Cotswolds.
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER BEFORE YOU BOOK …
My shooting style produces natural flattering images that never look posed or forced. I love for personalities to shine through in my images and I strive to capture moments that are candid and emotive. So, you will get a beautiful mix of flattering portraits combined with documentary shooting.
My editing style is the ‘look’ you see on my web site. I like to stay true to the colours on the day but give them extra ‘pop’ and life in the editing process. Editing styles or trends, such as turning everything a little ‘orange’ or ‘desaturating the greens’ will date over the years and images can become ‘stale’ when edited in that manner (just think about all those instagram filters that go in and out of ‘fashion’). If you’ve spent many hours choosing a specific pink for your flowers or spent hours choosing suits of a certain colour, then I will stay true to that in my edit.
99.9% of couples feel this way. I believe that photos should reflect personalities, and the process of creating beautiful photographs should be a fun one. I stay away from ‘awkward static’ poses and I encourage you to move and interact with each other. A lot of my photographs that you see on my web site, couples are actually walking and just engaging with each other. In fact, some of my favourite photos, couples are not even looking at the camera.
If you would like to go a step further and be ultra prepared I also offer pre wedding shoots in the Cotswolds, with ZERO AWKWARD posing. Read more about my pre wed shoots …
No! 95% of your day is shot unobtrusively, using a ‘documentary style’ approach. I blend in and shoot the day as it unfolds. I don’t boss you about and I don’t take over. I want to shoot the day as it ‘felt’ and deliver a gallery filled with authentic, emotive, fun and creative images of you and your loved ones enjoying the day.
The 5% that is not documentary , is the bit where I shoot your family group photos and your couple portrait photos. My approach here is equally relaxed. For the group shots, I ask you for a list beforehand, and I whizz through them all in about 30 minutes. I know how important these photos are to you and they do become a very treasured part of your wedding gallery, but I’m also aware that weddings are for getting together and not for spending hours on photographs.
Of course! Absolutely! Not every wedding needs to have 200 guests and a bridal party of 12! I’ve spent an entire day with a wedding of 14 guests and I felt like family when I left! I often shoot smaller more intimate weddings, and there are some venues such as the Cotswold House Hotel, where I’m a recommended supplier, that cater for smaller weddings specifically. So, yes, big or small, the love is the same and the celebration deserves to be documented.
I also love shooting second marriages. I adore seeing how two families can come together, often with older children, and embrace their parents getting married. It’s a real honour to photograph second marriages.
No. 100% not. It’s wonderful from a creative point of view , arriving at a new venue, and often some of my best work is in a new environment as it pushes me creatively and I see things in a ‘fresh’ way, not influenced by past weddings at the venue.
Having said that, I’m a recommended supplier for some beautiful Cotswold venues (Cotswold House Hotel, Caswell House, Oxleaze Barn, The Manor House, Kingscote Barn and the King’s Head) and I do love shooting at venues I know well. It’s real honour when venues do recommend me as it means they respect my work and want my images linked to their venue. It also means they like having me there, which I think is incredibly important.
In short, no,not for the natural, in-between moments. Weddings are fluid and constantly unfolding. My job is to anticipate and respond to what’s happening in real time, rather than working through a checklist. If I were focused on ticking off a list, I’d inevitably miss the genuine interactions and small, meaningful moments that can’t be staged or predicted.
That said, I absolutely want to know about any specific groupings or important people you’d like photographed and I do actually ask you for a list for the family group photos. But when it comes to the documentary parts of the day, the best images tend to happen organically and that’s where I work most instinctively.
Yes, I’m happy to send you over an entire gallery, start to finish. It’s important, I believe, when choosing a wedding photographer, to view an entire day and you shouldn’t choose someone purely based on their instagram or web site gallery. As photographers, we post an enormous amount on social media, but there is also a huge amount that never gets displayed and viewing an entire gallery, will give you a good feel for how the photographer has photographed the entire day, not just the ‘couple portraits’ or that ‘beautiful sunset’, or one epic dancing shot. There needs to be consistency in the shooting style from bridal prep through to the first dance.
The gallery should tell a story and make you feel like you were actually there!
A pre wedding shoot takes place a few months before your wedding day. It is an opportunity for us to meet each other, and get you both comfortable in front of the camera. A pre wedding shoot lays a really valuable foundation for your wedding day photos. On wedding day we often have limited time , but having done the pre wed you both understand my shooting method and we are able to get emotive relaxed images easily in a short space of time. Please read my FAQ’s on a pre wedding shoot on my pre wed page.
I shoot with 2 cameras on the day and have a spare in my camera bag. Whilst I shoot, the images are backed up onto an extra card in the camera and as soon as I get home, I back them up again. I don’t format my camera card until the images have been delivered to you.
So far this has never happened to me but if it did, I have a fabulous network of photographers who would be very supportive and step in for me in that unforeseen circumstance! I would also still edit your wedding, even if I did not shoot it.
Once I leave your wedding, I come home and back up your images and then import them into Lightroom. I will then pick out a handful for you within 48 hours, which you will be able to share on social media or send to guests. The entire gallery of fully edited images takes between 6 – 8 weeks depending on the time of year. Your images are delivered to you via a very chic online gallery that is password protected. You are able to download your images , share them with friends and order prints all through the gallery itself. Very easy!
Yes! Absolutely! Beautiful ones, but I don’t put any pressure on you to purchase an album. You can read more about my albums on my pricing page.
To date, just over 300! I’ve shot weddings in 30 degree sunshine. Rain drenched winter weddings. Wind swept weddings during the infamous Storm Brian and Storm Eleanor. All weddings are unique, couple wise and weather wise and each one is a joy and a privilege to shoot.
It’s funny you should ask, I have precisely SEVEN of them! Enjoy my ‘honest wedding day advice‘ and I hope you find the post helpful :)
Now! Today! Yesterday! 😁 As soon as you have secured your venue and date, you need to book your wedding photographer. Wedding photographers book up two years in advance, and areas like London and the Cotswolds are hot spots for weddings and extremely popular. So, don’t delay:)
The FIRST thing to do is to send me a message using my online contact form. I will respond to you , letting you know if I’m available on your date. If I am, and you would like to chat to me before booking, we can schedule in a Video call when it works for you. Once that’s done, and you are happy to book , I require a booking fee of £300 (deducted from your package price) which secures your date with me. I’ll send you your booking fee invoice, along with my wedding agreement for you to read through and sign. And that’s it! Once the booking fee is paid, your date is secured with me!
HAPPY HAPPY WORDS
“Tanli was exactly the photographer we were looking for! Someone who could make us feel at ease and also capture the most natural moments of the day. There were also many intimate moments of our guests which have been very special to look back on”
WEDDINGS IN THE MAGICAL COTSWOLDS
GORGEOUS COTSWOLD VENUES ON MY DOORSTEP
As a Cirencester wedding photographer , I have the most incredible and sought after wedding venues, all within a 40 mile radius of me.
Beautiful Cotswold Barn wedding venues such as Oxleaze Barn, Kingscote Barn, Cripps Barn, Stone Barn, The Great Tythe Barn and Lapstone Barn to name a few. Gorgeous boutique hotels too such as the Cotswold House Hotel in Chipping Campden and The Manor House in Moreton in Marsh. Exquisite venues such as the incredible Caswell House in Brize Norton and Hyde House in Stow on the Wold, are just a stone’s throw from me too.
Being a recommended supplier for Cotswold venues is valuable, as it means that venues trust me with their couples , respect my work and enjoy having my images linked to their venue. And it means they like me, which I think is so important too.
WHERE TO NEXT?
MORE OF MY WORK?
GALLERY
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MY INSTAGRAM
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