Everybody worries about the same thing when they book a winter wedding. What happens if it rains?
Fair enough. It might. This is Birmingham in December, so it probably will at some point. But I have been photographing weddings since 2018, and I can tell you that the wettest days have given me some of the best pictures I have ever taken. Not in spite of the weather. Because of it. I am also a firefighter during the week, which is probably why weather does not rattle me.
Here is what actually happens, so you can stop worrying about it and get on with planning the rest of your day.
The light in winter is better, not worse
This surprises people. Summer weddings get a harsh white sun straight overhead for most of the day, and there is nothing you can do with it.
Winter light is low all day long. It comes in sideways through windows, it is soft, and it is the sort of light people pay to recreate in a studio. You get it for free from about eleven in the morning.
The catch is that there is less of it, and it goes early.
Yes, it gets dark at half three
In late December the sun is going down not long after half past three in Birmingham. That is the single biggest thing that changes about a winter wedding, and it is the one worth planning around.
It sounds like a problem. It is actually a gift, because it means golden hour lands in the middle of your day rather than when everyone is three drinks in and nobody wants to move.
What it means in practice:
Your couple portraits want to happen earlier than you would think. Somewhere around two o'clock is often perfect.
If your ceremony is late in the afternoon, we plan for that. We do portraits before, or we do them properly in the dark, which can look superb.
Nobody has to guess at this. When you book, we sit down and work out the timeline together, with the sunset time for your actual date in front of us. It takes twenty minutes and it removes the whole problem.
What happens when it rains
Two things. One is on me and one is on you.
Mine is straightforward. I turn up with the kit to handle it, I know the venues, and I have done this in weather before. Rain does not change what I am doing. Water on glass, umbrellas, reflections in wet ground, doorways, the light through a rainy window. These are tools, and they are tools you simply do not get on a dry day in June.
Yours is smaller than you think, but it does matter. I need you to be willing to step outside for five or ten minutes when I say the light has gone right.
Not an hour. Not in a downpour with your dress dragging through a puddle. Ten minutes, in a coat if you want one, when I have found something worth standing in.
Couples who say yes to that get pictures nobody else at their venue has. Couples who would rather stay inside still get a lovely gallery, and that is a completely reasonable choice. I would just rather you knew the trade before the day, not on it.
Storms, and why I am not worried about them
I am a firefighter during the week. Weddings are what I do at weekends.
That is not a line for the website. It is the reason nothing on a wedding day rattles me. When the sky opens twenty minutes before you are due outside, I am not the person standing there looking panicked at your guests. I have already worked out where we are going instead.
Calm is worth more than any camera on a day like that, and it is the part you cannot see in a portfolio.
The bits nobody mentions about winter
Venues are easier to book, and often cheaper. Your dream date in December is far more likely to be free than the same weekend in July.
Everywhere looks better. Candles, fires lit, the lights on at four in the afternoon. Venues put real effort into how they look at that time of year and you get all of it in your photographs.
Your guests are all inside together. Summer weddings scatter people across a lawn. Winter ones keep everyone in one warm room, and that is where the good honest pictures come from.
Aerial shots are weather dependent, so a still, crisp winter morning can be perfect for them and a gale obviously is not. I will always tell you straight on the day rather than promising something the wind will not allow.
So, should you book a winter wedding?
If you want guaranteed sunshine, no. Nobody can sell you that in the Midlands, in any month.
If you want a venue you can actually get, light that is genuinely nicer than summer, and a photographer who is not going to fall apart when the weather turns, then winter is a very good idea.
Bring a decent coat, be up for ten minutes outside, and leave the rest to me.
I am taking bookings for this winter and into next year. If you have a date in mind, send it over and I will tell you honestly whether it works and what the light will be doing.
If you want to see what a Birmingham venue looks like when the light is doing the work, have a look at Claire and Scott's wedding at Castle Bromwich Hall Hotel.
