Sammy and Jack's wedding at Sandburn Hall near York

My first wedding since 2019 due to Covid and back on old ground at Sandburn Hall. Being out of the habit of filming a wedding for 18 months, it felt a mix of relief to be back and nervousness about knowing what to do.

Luckily I have been to Sandburn Hall many times before Covid (are we allowed to call it BC) and know about the challenges of filming with that huge picture window in the background. On automatic exposure mode a camera will adjust for the masses of light coming through the window, meaning that the people in front of it become very dark. Luckily I’ve learned how to deal with it by locking the exposure when necessary.

When Sammy said she was getting ready at the venue that threw me a bit until I researched online and realised that there was now a new hotel on the site, right next to the existing venue.

I did make one error which was to miss the start of Jack’s speech. On entering back into the upstairs hall I realised that Jack had started and I didn’t have my camera on my monopod and microphone wasn’t mounted on it either so   for the remaining speeches I relied on hand holding the camera in place hoping that the camera and lens stabilisation would iron out any hand shaking on my part. It actually did a pretty reasonable job.

The photographer organised a photo shoot of just Sammy and Jack by the lake at the back of the hotel. I knew about the wooded area but hadn’t realised the potential of the lake as a background until then. I got some very nice slow motion footage of Sammy and Jack by the lake. Just loving the S&Q mode on the Lumix S5.