By Ian Aikman & Kris Bramwell
BBC News
A petition calling for a reset in the relationship between vicars and wedding photographers attracted headlines this week. Here, a retired vicar, a wedding photographer, and two married couples share their experiences.
The retired vicar
Image source, Martyn Cripps
Retired vicar Rev Martyn Cripps, 77, says he must have conducted more than 400 weddings involving dozens of photographers in his time – with the vast majority good to work with. But a few, he says, remain memorable for the wrong reasons.
Early on in his time as a vicar, Martyn recalls a situation that unfolded just as the ceremony reached the proclamation.
“I was with the couple in the front. We were getting to the more solemn part of the ceremony and I heard a lot of noise coming from behind the couple,” he remembers.
The photographer was “clambering over chairs” in the pursuit of the perfect shot – so much so that guests were being disrupted as the noise grew louder.
“He was causing total mayhem. The couple were obviously distracted and were not happy.”
Martyn paused the ceremony and said he would not continue until the photographer left. “The couple actually thanked me.”
It is not the only incident that he recalls. “I’ve had more than one photographer lying on the floor,” he says.
One snapper even lay in the middle of the aisle as the bride and her father began their procession.
“He was trying to get a sort of worm’s-eye view,” Martyn says.
Maybe the photographer was hoping they “would part and walk around him”, he wonders.
In time, Martyn says he came up with an effective way of working with photographers.
He would invite them to the rehearsal and talk to them about the shots they were hoping to get.
Then he would advise them on where to stand to get those shots while causing minimal disruption.
“If they were out of sight, there was no problem,” he says.
“My concern at the end of the day was that the couple had a good wedding and that involves a balance between the ceremony and their record.”
The wedding photographer
Image source, Lorna Yabsley
Lorna Yabsley from Kingsbridge, Devon, has photographed more than 700 weddings across 40 years – and has even written a book on the subject. But despite her impressive experience, she says she still gets treated like a “third-class citizen” on occasion.
“For years I’ve been meaning to write to the church and the registrars,” Lorna says, “because they’re just as bad”.
“It’s been a bugbear of mine.”
The 59-year-old began shooting weddings back in the 1990s. “Back then it was more formal,” she remembers.
There used to be a respect for the skills. “Now, everyone’s a photographer”, she says, but you’ll see the difference between a professional and an amateur – even if they use the same equipment.
A photographer is paid for their eye, too, she says. And a wedding photographer has their experience of working at weddings.
Lorna started using the now-familiar candid style of photography before it was popular. But her “fly-on-the-wall approach” did not go down well with some church officials.
“The whole attitude towards photographers – there’s an awful lot of snobbery about it. You just become a pariah,” she says.
Vicars get “stressed and precious” about documents being signed correctly.
“On occasion, you get treated like a third class citizen” and in a “patronising, off-hand manner”, she says.
That being said, Lorna believes there are a lot of unprofessional photographers doing wedding jobs now.
But her plea to vicars is simple. “Don’t tar everyone with the same brush.”
“There are lots of very, very fine vicars,” Lorna adds – and she wants to be clear not all clergy make things awkward.
“In this Instagram age, people all want this dream princess wedding in this church,” she says. “I think that leaves a bad taste in the vicar’s mouth. When the photographer comes along, that’s the final nail in the coffin.”
The married couples
Image source, Peter and Suzanne Heron
When Paul and Lorraine married in 1995, the vicar was in a “foul mood”.
“He warned the photographer previously that they could take one photo only in the church and not in the aisle,” Paul says.
When the photographer took their sole permitted photograph, the vicar paused the ceremony and “stared the photographer down for a full 10 seconds”.
“It was awkward to say the least,” he says.
For Peter and Suzanne Heron, who got married in Newton Abbot, Devon, in 1973, the problem was the other way around.
A scene-stealing photographer treated the ceremony like a photoshoot.
“There was a point I had to remind the photographer that it was our day, not his,” Peter says.
“We were talking to people and they kept grabbing us. They wanted to take a photograph here and there.
“In the end we had to remind them, this is our day and we want to enjoy it. But they did a good job.”
