The Recession Bites!

Sad news recently. It seems like no-one is immune from the effects of the recesion. Naively I had hoped that the recession might do some good in the industry. There are lots of new ‘wedding photographers’ flooding the market at the moment.Usually with no insurance, poor equipment, inadequte backup and no skill these wannabes are undercutting the true professionals, providing poor service and giving the photography industry a bad name. I had hoped that the recession would force these poorer photographers out of business and allow those of us who truly care about our clients and the service we provide to establish new industry standards for others to live up to in the future.
But the recession is clearly not so discriminating. Over the past few months I’ve seen many such part-timers fall by the wayside – but I’m also witnessing the demise of some truly good, conscientious and skilled professionals who simply don’t deserve the bad times that they have encountered. The photographer whom I most admired and aspired to be an equal to when I first started the business 11 years ago has now closed down. A nother who has one more awards and accolades – both nationally and Internationally than most people could dream of, is on the edge of bankruptcy. Another has had to sell his separate home and premises in order to downsize in an attempt to stay solvent. Bad things are happening out there! These are photographers at the height of their skills, who exhibit nothing but the highest level of professionalism and who are guaranteed to give their clients nothing bu the best. Their demise is leaving a gaping skills/professionalism hole in our industry!

The good news is that at Aurora we’ve not really been touched by these events. Although telephone enquiries are noticeably down, bookings for 2010 are exactly where we would expect/hope for them to be at this time of the year, whilst 2011 is booking up way ahead of schedule.

We had a big debate at the start of the recession, asking ourselves whether we should cut quality in order to cut costs and prices. But though we were tempted, we couldn’t do it! We’ve built our reputation on not only our photographic skill but on our obsession with the quality and the uniqueness of our finished albums. We average over 100 man-hours per wedding, ensuring that absolutely EVERYTHING is as perfect as we can make it. That is the quality our clients demand. We could buy the same software as other photographers and produce cheap’n'cheerful albums for a third of the cost. But they wouldn’t be Aurora albums and we wouldn’t get the fantastic job-satisfaction or the fierce loyalty from our clients that has kept us above our competitors. Thankfully, this seems to have been the right decision for us. Our order books have held firm and the future for us continues to look rosy. But we can’t help feeling for those good guys who have been less fortunate. These are sad times indeed!

Will and Gill

Those of you who read the blog regularly know that we LOVE weddings at Hemswell Court. It’s one of our two absolute favourite locations in Lincolnshire because NOTHING ever goes wrong and NOTHING is too much trouble for Shaun and Judith who run it. So right from the off we simply knew that this would be another super wedding.

And it was – but not just because of Hemswell. It was because of the people there. After covering over 300 weddings we soon get a feel for how the day is going to go. The first ten minutes at the brides home usually establishes the pattern for the rest of the day. There’s always excitement; usually a bit of chaos; often a rather ‘emotional’ mother and a degree of nervousness from everyone. But sometimes there’s also a lot of unnecessary stress – usually caused by either the hairdresser or the make-up artist taking far too long and making everyone late. Or it might simply be caused by bridesmaids being held up en-route and not arriving on time. Or the father might decide to get out of the way of all the women by disappearing and not telling anyone where he has gone. All little things, but things which add stress and often have asort of domino effect on time and emotion throughout the rest of the day. An hour late at church ( yes, it happens quite a lot!) and planning for the whole day is thrown in the air!

But ths was Will and Gill’s wedding. All was peace and order at Gill’s house. Not even an unfortunate incident with broken champagne glasses phased her or her Mother and everyone was perfectly on time. And the make-up artist was brilliant! When I get time I’ll be posting details about her as one of our recommended suppliers – she was pleasant, quick, efficient – and did a great job on everyone there. A totally professional and truly excellent artist!

So that set the tone of the day. Despite the drizzle all went smoothly and well. The Best Man actually did his job (they often don’t). The bridesmaids looked after the bride ( they ususally don’t) and the guests were warmly supportive – as they always are. Even the little ones were all superbly behaved, with the triplets held firmly in check by their long-suffering but clearly brilliant mother! The drizzle disappeared when we got to Hemswell and so we were able to photograph outside before participating in the famous Hemswell ‘carvery’. Other venues try to copy how Hemswell do this, but it never really works anywhere else. There’s something about the ambience at Hemswell that makes the carvery a great occasion with huge hilarity and masses of good sport from the selected ‘chefs’.

I can’t imagine that Will and Gill could have wanted to change anything at their wedding. Quite simply, this was how all weddings should be and huge congratulations needs to go to those involved in its planning.

A full set of pictures are now available on the main website, but here’s a taster:

Vanessa and Jon

It’s been atrend at our recent weddings that things haven’t always gone quite according to plan – dresses have been late, key guests have been held up, or make-up artists and hairdressers have delayed ceremonies. But for Jon and Vanessa’s wedding there were no such problems everything went beautifully and according to schedule.
When we’re with the bride before the ceremony we’re usually able to judge fairly accurately how the rest of the day will go. If there’s stress during the preparations then it often reveals itself later; if people are running behind schedule with the make-up then the rest of the day is likely to continue in this vein – and so on.
So what did we find at vanessa’s? Peace and order. Of course there were moments of rush; of course there was excitement and of course there were the occasional calls of ‘has anybody seen my……’ But behind it all was a determination to get everything done on time, to avoid stress and to thoroughly enjoy the day. Perfect.

And that was just how the day progressed – everything was perfect. The weather was beautiful, the guests were delightful and the whole atmosphere was one of warmth and friendly support. We haven’t covered a wedding at The Brackenborough Arms in Louth for a while now and it was a pleasant surprise for us to see it after the revamp. For those of you who remember the Brackenborough for its faded chinze, then you need to think instead of urban chique – black leather and chrome have replaced the lace and the frills, giving the hotel a much more modern appeal. Certainly the guests at Vanessa and Jon’s wedding seemed to like it and we heard lots of positive comments on the decor.

So – another super wedding which we felt priviledged to attend. Because of the problems we’ve been having with our website the pictures went live a long time before thiese blogcomments, but for those of you who just want a taster, then these should give you something of the feel of the wedding.