Sophie + Amir
Since picking up a film camera for the first time last year, it's been a personal goal of mine to challenge myself to shooting a whole wedding entirely on 35mm film. Enter Sophie + Amir, a couple who's vision aligned with mine, and were open to the challenge.
Whilst it was my intention to shoot solely on film, I wanted to have a *little* bit of backup, in the case of any film disasters or fickleness, I devised a plan. I shot the absolute bare bones on my digital camera, just one as opposed to two, to make sure in case of any accidents, I wasn't leaving this gorgeous pair devoid of photos. So for the full day, I took around 500 digital images, usually I'd take around 3000 minimum! Then let the film take care of the rest.
Sophie + Amir's wedding centered around Sophie's family home, with everyone getting ready together there, and the ceremony was at the local church down the lane. It felt deeply personal and signficant, as all the guests after the ceremony filtered back into Sophie's back garden where they'd had a marquee set up. It was clear that living in the moment on their wedding day was incredibly important to these two, the photos were to be about the wedding, not the wedding to be about the photos, and it felt very freeing working with them both and shooting film. It felt like all the wedding industry 'rules' and 'norms' had gone out of the window, and I could just create boundlessly, and document everything in a very authentic way.
I loved the entire process of shooting my first wedding entirely on film, and whilst as a previous solely digital shooter, it definitely is nerve wracking not being able to instantly look back at what will be your best shots of the day, it's very worth it. It feels like a slower and in some ways more authentic creative process, and incorporating more 35mm film into weddings, as more couples love and see the value of it, is an incredibly exciting prospect for 2025.
