Surprise Wedding Anniversary Shoot Swap

{8th May 2011}

As the end of March approached, I started thinking about how Adrian & I could celebrate our 2^nd wedding anniversary on May 15th.  As engagement & wedding photographers, we’re used to being behind the camera, a position that suits Adrian just fine & me, well, some of our clients will testify that I’ve been known to work the camera – you know, sometimes, there’s no quicker way to explain the emotion you want to get across than actually acting it up for the couples haha.

As Adrian & I had been unable to have an engagement session, I thought that a surprise wedding anniversary shoot swap would be a lovely way of celebrating. I knew that I would need to get some help to pull off this surprise, all the while thinking about Adrian’s possible reaction. So, I discussed my plan with the lovely Elizabeth of  Bridal Musings & she was excited about featuring the final image collections.

Adrian & I had met Anneli & Wayne Marinovich several times before I called to see if they’d be interested in doing a shoot swap with us. I was so excited when they both agreed to it and to keeping the surprise from Adrian. Anneli agreed to send us a request for assistance that I could show Adrian so that he’d be smartly dressed and have all the right camera equipment for the shoot swap, even if he thought he’d be covering a massive 60^th birthday party!

Then Julia offered to loan us some of her gorgeous head pieces! I couldn’t believe the generosity of everyone involved in the shoot, which was getting increasingly delightful as time went on.

I wore a pair of sequinned black ballet shoes, black pair of trousers & a mustard yellow & cream lace corset, which had been made from my wedding dress! The super talented Cherilyn had made my wedding dress; it felt natural for me to commission her to buy the mustard yellow fabric & incorporate my dress into a stunning corset! Adrian & I are always looking for ways to recycle and reuse and as my wedding dress was hanging in a bag at home, we agreed on the reuse option for it.

Anneli & I wore different head pieces during the shoot before we paired up to take photos of each couple.

These last two images are a little of what happened behind the scenes; Adrian has perfected the art of using a DSLR to take a self-portrait whilst still holding onto it like it was a camera phone! haha! He was walking ahead of us doing this:and this is the image he got:

So what were Adrian’s thoughts on all this? Well he said:

“I was initially annoyed when Funmi told me that we were actually there to be photographed but after 10 minutes, I calmed down and became truly awed at the amount of planning that went into organising the shoot. I was impressed to hear that Anneli & Funmi had already got a wedding blogger & a wedding accessories maker involved in the shoot. This, coupled with the fact that Anneli had taken my photos at the photographers’ shoot back in March, meant that soon, I relaxed into the shoot. It was good to catch up with Anneli & Wayne as we went from Philips Memorial Cloister in Godalming to Winkworth Arboretum. I really enjoyed the shoot, though I’ve made Funmi promise not to surprise me like that again!”

We had so much fun on the shoot and are so grateful to all involved. Adrian & I really enjoyed being all dressed up and photographed by Anneli & Wayne. Please visit Bridal Musings and Anneli ’s blogs to see more images from the shoot and get the story from their viewpoints!”