Asian Wedding Photographer in Stevenage and Hertfordshire
I have photographed Asian weddings where the ceremony was in a church, in a mandap and in a gurdwara. They are not one job with a change of outfit. The order of the day is different, the light is different, and the moments that matter most to the family are ones a photographer who has not shot one before will miss because nobody announces them.
I am based in Stevenage and I cover Hertfordshire, London and the counties around us. If you want to see the work before you read any further, the wedding below runs from the groom’s sehra being tied in his parents’ front room to the vidaai at the end of the night.
What an Asian wedding needs from a photographer that an English wedding does not
Six things, and every one of them is a moment you get once.
The sehra covers the groom’s face, and then it comes off
The sehra is the beaded headdress tied over a turban base, with strands of pearls hanging down over the groom’s face. It is put on at home, in a small room, usually with eight people in it and no window. For a church ceremony it comes off at the door. That gives you about a twenty minute window in poor light for the single most photographable thing the groom will wear all day, and if you have not been told it is coming you will still be photographing the car outside when it happens.
The coconut under the wheel
A coconut is placed under the tyre and the couple drive over it as they leave, with the men pushing the car. It breaks, everyone cheers, and it is over in four seconds. There is no second take and you cannot ask for one. You need to already be low, already on the wheel, and already at a shutter speed that will hold a moving car.
The bride changes completely, and it takes an hour
Between the ceremony and the reception she comes out of one outfit and into another, with different jewellery, a different dupatta and often different hair. Allow a full hour. Every timeline I have been handed by someone unfamiliar with these weddings has allowed twenty minutes, and the hour comes out of the couple’s portrait time instead.
The stage will eat ninety minutes if you let it
At the reception the couple sit on a stage and family come up in groups to be photographed with them. Every group. If nobody is organising a queue this runs for an hour and a half and the dancing starts without you. I bring someone to run the line, or I run it myself, and I would rather agree that with you in advance than improvise it on the night.
The dhol arrival
The drummer meets the couple at the door. It is loud, it moves fast, and the good frame is usually the family’s faces rather than the couple’s.
The vidaai
The leaving. The bride’s father, her mother, her grandmother. This is the most emotional ten minutes of the day for half the room and the one set of pictures the family will still be looking at in twenty years. You do not use flash and you do not stand close.
Which Asian weddings do you photograph?
Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Indian Christian and mixed weddings where two traditions run across one or two days. The wedding on this page was a Catholic church ceremony for an Indian family, with the sehra, the sweets, the garlands, the coconut and the reception stage all kept. That combination is common and it is badly served, because the church half and the Indian half tend to be photographed by people who understand one of them.
If your wedding runs over two or three days I would rather quote for the whole thing than for the main day alone. The mehndi and the sangeet are usually the loosest and warmest photography of the week.
What you get
- Between 800 and 1,000 edited images for a full day of coverage, delivered digitally. Asian weddings produce more because there is more happening and more people to photograph.
- Full day coverage from the morning preparations to the dancing. For these weddings I would usually start at the groom’s house or the bride’s house rather than at the venue.
- A second photographer where the bride and groom prepare in different places, which for Asian weddings is most of the time.
- An album if you want one, designed rather than dumped into a template.
Where I work
Stevenage, Hitchin, Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City, Hertford, St Albans and across Hertfordshire. London regularly, including the Asian wedding venues in Harrow, Wembley, Southall, Ilford and Croydon. Also Bedfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, and abroad, including Italy.
Questions I get asked
Have you actually photographed an Asian wedding before?
Yes, and the pictures on this page are from one of them rather than from a stock library or a styled shoot. Ask any photographer you are considering to show you a full wedding rather than a set of highlights, because highlights hide whether they were there for the sehra and the vidaai or arrived in time for the reception.
Will you know what is happening during the ceremony?
In a church ceremony, yes, in detail. For a Hindu or Sikh ceremony I will go through the order of service with you or with whoever is officiating before the day, because the sequence varies between families and I would rather ask than guess. Guessing is how photographers end up standing in the wrong place during the most important five minutes.
Can you cover two or three days?
Yes. Tell me the full shape of the week when you enquire and I will quote for all of it.
How much does an Asian wedding cost to photograph?
More than a single day English wedding, because it is usually more days, more hours and a second photographer. Tell me the dates and the venues and I will give you a real figure rather than a starting price.
How long until we see the photographs?
You get a set of previews within a few days. The full edit takes longer for an Asian wedding than for a smaller one, for the obvious reason that there are twice as many photographs to work through.
See the whole wedding
The pictures on this page are from one wedding, photographed from the morning at home to the end of the night. The full story is here, in order, so you can see what a day actually looks like rather than a set of highlights.
If you are looking for something else, I also photograph Nigerian weddings, and there is more about working across the county on my Hertfordshire wedding photography page.
Tell me your dates and I will tell you honestly whether I am free and what it would cost.
