A very special wedding album. By Cheshire Wedding Photographer Jane Burkinshaw

Chris & Maria's Wedding 22.02.14

Remember when I did my Wonder Woman imitation and photographed a huge wedding (250 guests) with just half an hour's notice? Well, today I delivered the wedding album to Maria and Chris and thought you might like to see it.

Before I do the Big Reveal, I want to share with you a bit about its quite complicated gestation, as it was far from straight forward. My photography of the wedding started at the moment Maria arrived at the top of the aisle on her proud Spanish father's arm. I dashed along the side of the pews, caught my breath and grabbed my camera. From then on in, I captured all the key moments of their big day and really enjoyed watching it unfold. If, like me, you love weddings and didn't read my blog about their wedding you can read it here.

A few weeks later I met with Maria and showed her the photographs. She was thrilled with them and we started to discuss albums, a conversation I would usually have had months before the wedding. Maria and Chris wanted a traditional leather bound, matted album, which of course I was happy to create for them. The challenging nature of this album lay in the fact that I had not been present at all the events that unfolded prior to Maria getting to the church and, therefore, had no images.

We both wanted to have an album that told the full story of their wedding and set about sourcing images from guests. Do you know how many guests take photos at weddings these days? All of them! We were inundated with literally hundreds of pictures, in varying qualities, sizes and formats. Thus began a long job of sorting through them, getting to a short list and then editing them so that they would sit seamlessly alongside my images.

But there were still big gaps - no good shots of Maria getting ready at the hotel with her bridesmaids, none of Chris and the camaraderie between him, the best man and the ushers. Then we had a brainwave! Use stills from the video! We received some gorgeous shots but realised with a sinking heart that they were low resolution and couldn't be printed large. I contacted the album supplier and was advised to get some prints done. Phew! They were fine up to 5"X7" so we were OK.

To cut a long story short, we got there in the end, with a few more edits and reviews than normal, but this hadn't been a normal wedding for me or the bride and groom. From the outset I was determined that their day should not be affected in any way by the no-show of their booked photographer. As I showed Maria the finished product today, I knew that I had succeeded and that she loved the album. I'm quite proud of it myself as I know what hurdles we had to get over to create it.

So here it is, just a glimpse anyway. I like to imagine that Chris has just got in from work and is looking through it with Maria, with a glass of wine, laughing and remembering their wedding day. (Keep that wine away from it though!)

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!