Smiling faces! Lots of happy smiling faces.
Warning… this post has lots of smiling faces in it! And why not in these bizarre times that we’re living in. Continuing on with my dissection of the wedding day we now coming the Drinks Reception. Once the legal bit is done and dusted on the wedding day it’s time to get on with the celebrating. The partying. The drinking. The eating. The catching up. The laughing. All the best bits of a wedding day and with all your family and friends. In this year of the coronavirus pandemic I’ve greatly missed photographing smiley happy people. But what has been great is looking back over photos I’ve taken at weddings over the past few years. With the continued hope that it can’t be much longer until I can capture all of that love and fun once again.
My job during the drinks reception is to capture the energy and fun that people are having. It’s probably the easiest part of the day for me. Let’s be honest, everyone during this time is enjoying themselves. Catching up with family and friends they’ve maybe not seen in a while. Enjoying the sunshine (most of the time during the British summer time!), having a beverage or two, eating the canapés, maybe listening to the live music, enjoying the giant Jenga, ice cream anyone?
The drinks reception is the time when I would usually capture the formal group photos. This can take me away from capturing those informal candid photographs so I tend to try and get the formal groups done and finished as quickly as possible. If I’m booked with a second photographer they will usually carry on with capturing the candid moments. Having a second photographer is really recommended for weddings with larger numbers of guests so that we can both be roaming around capturing all the action.
Whilst my focus is to capture natural moments happening during the drinks reception I’m always extremely happy to capture some informal group photos. As families and groups of friends come together it’s always a great opportunity to capture small groups in amongst those natural moments.
So, scroll down through the photos below to see just a few examples of images taken during the drinks reception. Hopefully it will bring a little bit of a smile to your face. Smiling is surely a little bit like laughter in that it’s infectious.
