It’s been marryin’ time at Queensberry these last few months. Off the top of my head there’s been Danny, Nigel, Akshay, Chetan, Gino and, for the girls, Anna.

One of the first family occasions I can remember with Heather was my Mum and Dad’s 25th anniversary.

And now, as of today, we’ve been married forty-three years ourselves. Good grief.

1968 was one year on from the summer of love: a time as now of terrorism, tumult and war. Even earthquakes. Unrest to say the least of it in America, France and many places else. Vietnam, the Prague Spring, the Civil Rights Act, the assassination of MLK and RFK. This morning Heather reminded me we got married on the day of the My Lai massacre.

But those are not my most abiding memories of 1968, nor should they be. Those events are history and our marriage is not. I was and am a happy camper. 1968 was our hippy Men Of The Fields period. We didn’t invent love and sex or even rock’n'roll, but it did feel like it. Even in mono the music was great.

Congratulations to the newbies. I hope your marriage works out as well as mine.

Cheers, Ian

PS Heather this is a way of telling you I love you. There will be flowers.

Think of the best stuff you ever had. The best meal, the best coffee, the coolest shoes, the wittiest tee-shirt … a fantastic book store, those amazing heirloom tomatoes.

The people who provide you with amazing stuff are obsessive.

Yes, they want to sell you something, but it’s their obsession that drives them and makes them outstanding.

There’s a lot of obsessiveness in a beautiful album too, from the photography and design to the printing and binding.

Every now and then we remind the obsessive people who work at Queensberry that our business is “not about the albums”.

Sometimes we remind photographers that it’s not about the photography either…

Because it’s not.

Our business is about the people in the viewfinder. You. Your stories. Your special moments.

So if you’ve chosen a photographer who’s driven to be the best they can be, congratulations! You need someone like that, who obsesses about camera models and available light and pixels and ICC profiles and software that makes your eyes cross!

But if your photographer also understands that, as one professional put it, people photography is about people, not about photography, you’re on the way to a beautiful album that you can “enjoy, reflect upon and share forever”.

Cheers, Ian

Ian recently wrote about what makes certain photographs special. It depends on who’s looking at them.

Looking through our wedding photos, I was amazed at how much of the wedding I’d missed.

Seeing the girls getting ready beforehand, the shots of Kayla just before the ceremony, the expressions and emotion of the guests, how I looked as she walked down the aisle…

It was as though these images completed a puzzle in my mind, a puzzle I didn’t know wasn’t finished.

To me some of the most special photographs are of things I missed, or didn’t even know happened. They add more meaning to my memory of the day.

Cheers, Nigel

I would have just left (the shop)…

Enjoy

Cheers, Nigel

Last post I said we didn’t get married in a castle. This time I get to admit we didn’t drive Bentleys to the venue. I’m starting to feel quite a man of the people!

… I’m not a car guy. The two cars I’ve owned have been hand-me-downs from my mum, and I prefer to ride my Vespa. You get the picture.

But the guys’ one job at a wedding is to choose the car – the colour and make and model and size … and it proved to be a little harder than I expected…

Kayla grew up driving BMWs and Audis, so I wanted something a little different.

A couple of Bentleys would have been nice. But it turns out finding a couple of Bentleys that people are willing to lend to some random guy isn’t as easy as flashing a cheque. After all, they don’t need the money.

So I did a bit of homework and came up with four options…

Friends – this was the obvious place to start. I knew people whose cars we could borrow, or who had contacts in the industry. Nothing amazing, just nice cars.

Rental companies – After a bit of Googling I realised that other than hiring a limo (no thanks), something vintage (not our style) or a fleet of Toyota Priuses… the NZ car rental market doesn’t offer you too many options.

Car dealers – Ideally I wanted three cars the same, so I figured a car dealer was the place to go. Some had a ‘no rent’ policy (insurance was too high), some said they couldn’t afford to have three cars off the yard on a Saturday, but others said, ‘Sure thing, but it’ll cost ya.’

Car clubs – I had a hunch that although they didn’t advertise, members of car clubs would hire out their cars for occasions like weddings, and a quick email to a couple of different car club secretaries confirmed that they do.

Since our need for cars was fairly minimal, as our ceremony and reception were at the same venue, I went with the ‘friends’ option.

A couple of Range Rover Sports, and a Mercedes to lead the way. All black.

Cheers, Nigel

“The frankest and freest product of the human mind and heart is a love letter; the writer gets his limitless freedom of statement and expression from his sense that no stranger is going to see what he is writing.” – Mark Twain.

I’ve always thought of wedding vows as a love letter read out loud.

But the way they’re typically spoken, written, and expressed, is almost forced. They’re an expression of love, I think, better kept for a love letter.

I want my vows to be my frankest and freest thoughts and feelings. But I don’t feel that limitless freedom that Twain talks about.

Knowing this letter – the most personal, important, thoughtful and lasting love letter I’ll ever write – will be heard by everyone, scares me.

That’s why, as a guy who expresses himself much better on paper, I’ve decided to write Kayla a love letter as well. The love letter. A love letter written in a way I wish I could have spoken to Kayla – but can’t.

Just like a photograph, I want her to be able to re-read my vows to her, remember why I married her and cherish that letter for the rest of her life.

Maybe your medium of love is through music or poetry or art. Whatever it is, it’s helped me to think of my vows as a love letter.

If you’re a bit stuck too, start by expressing yourself in the most natural way you know how.

Cheers, Nigel

PS I’m getting married tomorrow

Because you’ll probably (hopefully) never be engaged again, or plan your own wedding again, or be single again…

Sure planning a wedding can be stressful, and frustrating, and hard work, and all those other things that make you want to run off to Vegas and elope – but it’s also exciting and fun and romantic.

It’s now only two days until our wedding, but we’re still taking time to relax, reflect, and enjoy the process. Wish us luck, rehearsal tomorrow.

Cheers, Nigel

Well I don’t know about you, but we had a hell of a time finding a venue that had a date even remotely close to the one we wanted – and we were looking over a year in advance.

Turns out corporates are booking their annual functions three or four years out, nabbing all the prime dates. We learned the importance of booking early the hard way, especially since we were planning a wedding in the peak summer season.

We were after a venue that we felt cared about our wedding. So if we were shown around by a 20-something ‘event planner’ in high heels holding a clip-board who could only fit us in between 9 – 5, we felt as though her pay check was more important than our wedding.

It made us want to be sure we were talking to the person who’d actually be co-ordinating our wedding on the day.

Look closely at how the venues you’re considering price. If they’ve got a complicated pricing system where every little thing is costed separately, set clear expectations about your budget. A total package price sounds appealing – but understand exactly what you’re getting for your money.

Here’s why we chose the venue we did.

A good venue should make life simple. So just like your fiancée, pick one that ticks all your boxes.

Cheers, Nigel

Where do you start when planning a wedding?

I’ve no idea… You’ll have to ask Kayla! But one of the first things I remember was sitting down and setting our priorities. And the reason I remember is because I think it’s probably one of the most valuable things we did.

What I mean by ‘setting our priorities’ is that Kayla and I decided we needed to figure out what aspects of our wedding day were most important to us… other than the reception (the most expensive part).

We each wrote down our top two priorities – things we considered deserved the most time, money and/or effort. The idea was that everything else would fit in around them.

As it turned out, we wrote down the exact same things. Her dress, and the photography. That meant these two things got budgeted for first – there was no compromising.

Kayla took that literally and went out and bought probably the most expensive dress she could have (although she tells me it wasn’t!) But because we’d both agreed on it’s importance, I wasn’t surprised.

Setting our priorities means we’ve got exactly what we both wanted in a dress and a photographer. We’re still within our budget. And with a clear understanding about what’s important.

Cheers, Nigel