8 Weeks Before The Wedding

Imagine 2 months before your wedding day you get a call from the vicar explaining that there will be scaffolding up on the day of your wedding! This was the horrible surprise Hayley had to deal with and it wasn't long before she was on the phone to me explaining the situation.

This isn't the first time I've had to deal with scaffolding being put up on the day of a clients wedding. Normally, I would be able to use a different side or angle to hide the scaffolding and crop it out. In some instances I have done some minor editing but I have never had to replace half a church! Hayley's No.1 photo request was to have a group shot of everybody on the steps leading to the church as it was a family tradition. So how I was going to get rid of the scaffolding covering half the church?

6 Weeks Before The Wedding

Before the scaffolding went up I photographed 30 different angles of the church, trying to take every possible opportunity that might arise on the day into consideration. The goal being that after the wedding I could simply cut and paste parts of one image into another; I was confident it would work perfectly but I wasn't expecting what was about to come.

1 Week and 1 day Before The Wedding

As I arrived for the church rehearsal the first thing I saw was metal fencing surrounding the church and part of a builders site in the car park. I then realised that there were no steps leading up to the church, they had been torn up! My first thoughts were for Hayley and what the **** is going on? Hayley was getting married in 8 days! Scaffolding was also blocking the entrance to the church and we had to go through the back door, one of Hayley's shots was to have a photograph in the doorway after the ceremony. Lets just say it was THE MOST EMOTIONAL CHURCH REHEARSAL I HAVE EVER BEEN TO! However, we were promised that the scaffolding blocking the entrance would be removed and the steps will be completed providing the weather wasn't too bad leading up to the wedding.

16 hours Before The Ceremony

The evening before, I went to have a look at the Church so I knew what to expect on the day. The scaffolding covering the church was still up of course but at least it wasn't blocking the entrance; the metal fencing was up and the steps were not completed. I could see the workmen had made an effort to tidy up and it was obvious they had done their best to get the foundations for the steps laid that day as the cement was still wet!

The Day Of The Wedding

The metal fencing was removed, the cement was dry, all I had to do was edit out the scaffolding, the result? Well, you can see for yourself.....