I’ve been dying to share this wedding ever since I shot it all the way back in December. Alex and Tim’s winter wedding at St Etheldreda’s and Lincoln’s Inn started with bridal preparations in the penthouse apartment of 6 Naoroji Street, with stunning views overlooking London. I spent a couple of hours here before making my way to Holborn for the ceremony.

St Etheldreda’s in one of my favourite churches in London and offers a wonderful intimacy that I haven’t found in many other churches. Alex and Tim’s wedding ceremony was set to take place at 4pm which, as other photographers reading this will appreciate, means that it’s pretty much dark outside. Add this to the fact that St Etheldreda’s is one of London’s darker churches at the best of times and you can imagine I was expecting to push my camera equipment pretty hard to deliver results. I rarely ever use flash photography – certainly never during a church ceremony. So when I arrived at St Etheldreda’s I made my way inside and, using the ambient light available, I set my exposures for the arrival of the bride into one of my camera’s custom functions so I could quickly recall them when the moment presented itself.

Weddings have a habit of throwing a few curve balls along the way and this wedding was no exception. As the bride approached the back of the church I set my cameras and waited for her to start walking down the aisle. Then the strangest thing happened. Someone turned out the lights. No warning. No warning at all. I had to react instantly and adjust my exposures, pushing my cameras to the near limits of their capabilities. Though there was a light on outside the main hall and a few more on the balcony above, it was pretty much pitch black inside the actual church hall. The guests could barely see anything. I could barely see anything, but I managed to get a shot that, under the circumstances, I’m incredibly proud of. The bride joined her husband-to-be and ‘ping’, the lights came back on. You have no idea how relieved I was that I didn’t have to photograph the entire ceremony in the dark!

Following the ceremony we all made our way to The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn for the wedding reception in the stunning Great Hall, including one of the longest ‘knives’ ever used for a cake cutting! I stayed with the couple until the very end of the night and it was one of the busiest dance floors I’ve seen at a wedding – I’m pretty sure everyone got up at some point to dance the night away.

Here are some of my personal favourites from Alex and Tim’s winter wedding at St Etheldreda’s and Lincoln’s Inn. The couple have asked that the bridal prep images be kept private so we’ll start this story with my arrival at St Etheldreda’s church. We’d love it if you left the couple (and me) some feedback in the comments section below and of course feel free share this on your favourite social media sites too.