Why your vicar might not let you have any photos of your church wedding!

For many couples, getting married in their local church or chapel is still their preferred choice for their wedding ceremony.  Despite the large number of gorgeous hotels, wedding barns and other  such authorised wedding venues these days, there is no doubt that walking down the aisle of a traditional church in a gorgeous wedding dress is a dream for many brides to be. And of course, such couples will want to have lots of  wedding photographs of the key parts of the service.  The bride walking on her father's arm to be given away, exchanging rings, the all-important first kiss, signing the register and the wedding recessional are all required photographs from the day.  As documentary style wedding photographers, working as a husband and wife team, these would of course be top of the list of our images from a church wedding.

However, it should of course be remembered that a church wedding is a religious service, conducted and controlled by a vicar, minister, priest or similar official of the church (depending on the type of church and the religious denomination). And, increasingly, they are taking a harder line with wedding photographers, including, unfortunately, banning all photography during the ceremony.

Why would they do this?

As well as conducting a religious service, the vicar does also have a legal responsibility of the actual marriage. (For the sake of clarity, I am going to use the term “vicar” for the rest of this article, as a short hand for all the various church officials that could conduct a church wedding). So, as well as orchestrating the ceremony and service, they need to ensure that the legal part of the marriage is conducted properly. So, quite a responsibility. What many vicars have told us over the last couple of years is that wedding photographers (whether professional or guests with cameras) are increasingly “disrespecting” (in their words) the service. Moving around constantly, cameras with noisy shutter and/or motor winders, high powered flash guns and interrupting the ceremony for “that important photo” are just a few of the complaints we have heard. In one bizarre example, a vicar told us that that the photographer used him as a “human tripod” and rested his large white zoom lens on the vicar’s shoulder whilst taking photos!  Another told us we could only photograph from the back of the church, despite the fact the bride had expressly asked us to take a photograph of the groom’s first look as the bride arrived with her father. When we asked why I wasn’t allowed to photograph from the front, we were told “photographers make me nervous”. Even after we pointed out we use small quiet cameras, never move, don’t use flash and are always respectful of the ceremony, the answer was still “no”.

Whilst this may seem harsh, we can understand why vicars are adopting such a hard line. We have ourselves been guests when a photographer (and for that matter a videographer) totally distracted us from the service by moving around and using bright flash or LED lighting. 

When we are booked for church wedding photography, we always strongly recommend the couple speak to the church vicar at the time of booking the church what their policy is with regards to the photography. That way, any unfortunate misunderstanding or disagreements on the actual day can be avoided. It may also be possible to demonstrate to a vicar adopting a hard line on photography that, in our case at least, we will not be a disruption in any way.

Here are some questions you can use to ask your vicar about your wedding photographs.

• Is photography allowed during the ceremony, or at all in church? If not, why? (For example, we don’t use flash, we have quiet cameras and we never move around!)

• Is there any charge for photography? Or videography for that matter? (We have never been asked to pay but we know videographers sometimes are)

• Is throwing confetti allowed? If so, must it be bio-degradeable?

• Can guests take photos during the ceremony, or at any other part of the ceremony? (We are happy for a few guests to take a photo of signing the register, after we have; see below)

• Can the photographer(s) take photos of the actual signing of the register? If not, can they pose one instead? (In the UK it is now normally the case that the vicar, or registrar for non-church weddings, will not let photography of the actual signing take place. This is supposedly due to data protection reasons.

• Is there any unusual artificial lighting in the church the photographers need to know about? (For example, sometimes in old churches you will see the incandescent electric bar heaters, which if used in the winter, give a strong red cast on digital photos.)

• Is there anything else our photographer(s) need to know?

Our preferred approach for church wedding photography, vicar permitting, is as follows:

1.     Steve arrives in plenty of time for the ceremony, usually with the bridegroom, ushers and best man. He will seek out the vicar at the earliest possible opportunity to (re) confirm what he/she is happy for us to photograph during the ceremony. If there are any restrictions, he sends a quick voicemail or text to Sam (who is usually with the bride still) to forewarn her. He usually has a packet of extra strong mints on hard, for which a nervous groom is usually thankful!

2.     Steve positions himself behind and to the right of the vicar (from the guest’s perspective). He will step out from this position to capture the bride’s arrival.

3.     Sam will arrive just before the bride. She will photograph the bride arriving, and entering the church with the bridal party.

4.     During the ceremony, Steve will photograph at the front; the vows, ring exchanges, first kiss and so one. Sam will capture this from behind.

5.     We don’t photograph during prayers or hymns. (As we both sing in a choral society, we do try and help a little here!)

6.     For the signing of the register we normally pose this with an empty register, according to the vicar’s wishes (normally we are told we can’t photograph the actual signing for “legal” reasons).

7.     For the recessional (when you come down the aisle as Husband and Wife), Sam is in place at the back of the church to capture this, whilst Steve ducks down out of the way.

8.     If throwing confetti is allowed and planned, we both photograph this. A lot!

Most professional, reputable wedding photographers will always respect a church ministers wishes whilst photographing a wedding. Will a little planning and asking your vicar in good time, you can still be sure of gorgeous photos from your church wedding!

Steve Vaughan