Looking Back on 2008

This is the time when we all look back to our experiences of the past year and see where we’ve been most successful and where we can make changes to ensure that 2009 is even better. It’s strange how justas every wedding has a different ‘feel’ to it, so does every year’s selection of weddings.

Without a doubt this year has seen us photographing the nicest group of people ever. Because of the way we work we only ever book clients with whom we feel we have a rapport and whose weddings we actively WANT to cover. For several years now we’ve been turning away about 100 couples a year in order to concentrate on those we feel we will do the best job and whose wedding we’ll most enjoy. This year our ‘selection’ method has worked the best yet and we’ve come away from wedding after wedding on a real adrenaline high – blown away by how great the couples have been and how nice the guests were.

This year we’ve only had one wedding where the parents tried to turn the event into death-by-a-thousand-group-photographs and even here the couple were brilliant in the way they veered away from the parents’ itinerary and thus were able to have the wedding they wanted with happy guests, smiles all round and super photographs in the normal Aurora style. Despite atrocious weather ( we’ve actually covered only 5 weddings this year where it has remained dry all day) everyone has been relaxed, laid-back and up for a fun time. Photography is important to all our couples (they wouldn’t choose us otherwise) and it really has shown this year, with brides and grooms just trusting us completely and allowing us to create super photographs whilst they enjoyed themselves. We couldn’t ask for more!

It would be wrong to single out individuals but I really do want to say a big THANKYOU to so many of our clients. We’ve felt priviledged to have been invited to your wedding, honoured by your treatment of us and flattered by the comments you have made about us. We have grown to see you more like friends than clients and hope you feel the same about us.

Thankfully, with so many lovely weddings this year there hasn’t really been a downside. Undoubtedly, though, the one really bad low-point for us this year wasbrought about by the actions of  a selfish and unrpofessional videography company.

There are some fantastic, professional and conscientious videographers about but the two companies couldn’t claim any of these epithets. I could rant about them for hours. They completely ignored the written instructions the bride and grooms had given them before the wedding; they were intrusive and stopped the flow of the proceedings on many, many occasions; they repeatedly tried to stop us doing the job thee bride and groom had paid us to do and they were both extremely offensive. Eventually the couple concerned had to remind them exactly what their agreed roles were and eventually they videographers did change their approach slightly. But the atmosphere was terrible, the bride was in tears at one point, the groom lost his temper, the wedding never did develop as the couple had wished nor how they deserved and we had our work severely compromised by this unnecessary, short-sighted and unprofessional behaviour.

I can’t stress enough: in the wedding industry there are basically two types of people: those who pride themselves on giving nothing but their best efforts for the bride and groom and those who see weddings as a cash-cow wheerby they can line their own pockets whilst doing as little as possible. This applies equally to photographers, videographers, car-hire companists, venues and anybody else who you are likely to come into contact with. If you select carefully and choose the right supplier, your wedding day will be a huge success, but try to cut-corners or allow yourself to be taken in by the less-reputable side of the business and you may well find yourselves moving from one near-disaster to another. That’s why we created the Info-Blog: to try to steer you towards suppliers who are totally reliable and give excellent value for money.