Questions we as photographers always need to ask ourselves is:-

• Can we make the situation that is presented to us work.
• Or are we going to run for the hills.

We at Edward Ruthven Photography relish the challenge. Facing the challenges standing tall even if it is an very low budget wedding.

A low budget wedding challenge

A while back we had the privilege of capturing the union between Jason and Jackie Voges. Jackie is my son Bryce’s au Pair. They had a very low budget wedding. Due to this we offered our services at no cost, so that they may have well captured photographs.

Groom

My business partner took the Groom to his place which has awesome gardens in the complex that he stays in to take the groom photos. Some of my partners neighbor’s also have amazing layouts to their properties.

A low budget wedding Bride

Preparation

I went through to the Brides mothers house to take pictures of the Bride getting ready. Their conditions are in the poor type bracket. This environment does not provide for a good variety of interesting backgrounds. For future reference I would prefer to visit the premises weeks in advance and try advising an alternative solution.

Within this setting you have to make things work. When I walked into the yard, I could immediately see that I have nothing to work with. Even when I tried to see things in a distance there was objects that detered from the primary subject.

The yard was neat and tidy but had no garden except for some plants outside the windows according to my visual inspection. This would not have worked within our style of photography due to the background being ‘Just Wrong’ at this extreme low budget wedding.

On walking into the house, further obstacles presented themselves to me. The house was clean but cluttered on my observation.

Makeup

Assistance to others in getting their makeup and hair done was provided by the bride. But she as yet had not started getting herself ready. Please future Brides, make it known you are the most important and you should be the center of attention. The bride should not be assisting others.

I initially started hunted for a cool spot to take the ring etc. photos in. My initial thought was that the flowers outside would work. But nothing really attracted my attention.

On moving into the master bedroom, I found something within the color scheme, a pillow. The Tiara on the pillow was used by me to create a nice bokeh. An teenager hanging around was requested by myself to hold my LED lighting and I went to work.

Thereafter I had to try work out a plan for the makeup shots. I found the lounge in the house had too much in it that it would just create a totally busy, cluttered look. Eventually I got the Bride’s father to help me move a chair from the window area. We moved one of the curtains to cover a small hi-fi plus a few other things, and did a natural window light makeup shoot.

Venue Move

Due to nothing of worth on the outside of the house to do the Bride shoot. I was able to arrange the rest of the Bride shoot at her one uncle’s house at this low budget wedding.

The Brides uncles place had some beautiful sections within the Garden. I initially did the walk, but made a mistake of what background was involved. I then used the pond for some shots. We then went back up to next to the house laid down on the ground fascinating some people in the process. (They had not seen that before).

We moved to the front garden and got a few more good shots.

A low budget wedding Ceremony

Due to not understanding the time it would take to get to the church we decided to immediately leave for the church. This made us arrive 30 minutes early. If I had scoped where the church was and travel time I could have spent a little more time for the Bride shoot.

My Partner was already waiting having scoped out where the ceremony was taking place, as well as having done the necessary arrangements with the pastor. We then did the Bride climbing out the car and church approach photos. I also then did the Church entry photos where my partner took over the rest of the ceremony photos.

While the ceremony was taking place, I went to the attached building to do the reception area photos. I found that the layout was simple and minimal, with small platter food stuffs and basic guest gift area with the wedding cake.

The Rest

After the ceremony my partner quickly did the group photos in the church as there was not any good place outside the church to do these photos. Thereafter we shifted onto doing the couple shoot.

I took some of the couple shoot was done on the street outside the church. This included a lovely pavement area of one of the neighboring houses. We then moved onto the minimal garden of the church for some couple photos.

It was now onto the reception area for us to capture the reception photos, some cake cutting and we were then finished by about two in the afternoon.