It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since I shot wedding in Italy with my pal Berni. Times are strange, however, and it means I’ve actually found some time to look back over the images I shot, which Berni kindly allowed me to share – some of my favourite shots of 2019 came from this wedding.

I met Berni when I picked her up from Norwich Station to travel to Snap Photography Festival together back in 2018. Over lunch she told me all about how she still returned to Italy to shoot weddings and offered me the chance to second shoot for her if the opportunity ever came up. When her best friend’s sister booked her to shoot her wedding, I jumped at the opportunity to second shoot a wedding in Italy with her!

Shooting an Italian wedding was a fascinating experience for me; the wedding was so different from the traditional wedding day format we have in the UK. They married in Church late morning and then headed over to the restaurant for the reception. There was A LOT of food (nothing could prepare me for ten delicious courses!) no speeches and lots of impromptu dancing. I could definitely get used to a more laid back time line! In fact, Mary and Mimmo were so said back about their day, Mimmo had forgot to mention to us that he’d planned a surprise for Mary, and that Andrea Tartaglia (an up and coming performer in Italy, I gather, who the couple had been to see on their first date) would be performing at their wedding… Cue a lot of excitement in the middle of dinner and a frantic dash to get cameras back on and photograph Mary’s reaction! 

I also learned a lot about how I shoot that day… Very quickly I realised how heavily I rely on my ears when I shoot candidly! Suddenly I was surrounded by people speaking a language I didn’t understand (and quite of lot of them didn’t understand me – that really confused the videographer!!!) and I had to watch people really closely and try and anticipate reactions visually, rather than with my ears! The shape of their wedding day also challenged me during the portrait session; typically I’d wait until around an hour before sunset to do portraits but our only real opportunity for this was straight after church in the heat of the midday sun, but this did mean a nice opportunity to play with light and shadow, and seek out the shade.

My first destination wedding, but definitely not my last. My time in Pozzuoli was short and I hope I’ll get to go back and explore some more. I’m so grateful to Berni for the opportunity and also for Mary and Mimmo for allowing the “famous photographer from England” (!) to let me come to their wedding and experience it all first hand. Here are my favourites from the day.

Auguri!

Are you planning an elopement or wedding in Italy, or getting married abroad? Have camera, get in touch, I’d love to be part of you day.