Yorkshire Wedding Photography Leeds | Destination Wedding Photographers
It’s not often that we get to go to weddings as guests, in fact it’s pretty much never! But when two of our best friends Alexandra and Alex told us they were getting married the idea of just being guests seemed alien to both of us. I guess it comes down to the fact that photography is more than just a job for us. It’s an interest, a passion and a lifestyle.
From the individuality of each of the film cameras in our living room – looking around I count 35, each producing a different look – to sitting at the computer until late into the night fine tuning our editing. Over the years we’ve seen literally hundreds of couples excited to see their images and over the moon with the final collection, so what better gift to give two of the best friends we could ever ask for.
We’ve known the Alex’s for about 7 years now when I lived in a student house with Alexandra. In fact the first time I met Alex was the morning of Leeds festival when he was getting ready to get the bus over, Alexandra introduced us and I offered to give him a lift as I was heading over anyway.
Several hours later, after a detour across the central embankment of a dual carriageway (my car did not like that one but it saved us a couple of hours in traffic!) and a lot of talking, it was pretty obvious Alex was – like Alexandra – an incredible person. You may remember their climbing based engagement shoot from a while back.
Over the years climbing has become the Alex’s main passion in life and between that and all the work we put in to Sansom Photography we don’t get to see them half as much as we’d like to. That said one of the things we’ve realised in the years since graduating is that sometimes it’s not about how often you get to see real friends, it’s about how everything falls back into place when you do see each other.
Whether it’s heading down to the climbing wall to see them tackling some ridiculous problems (and realising how much worse we’ve got!) or meeting up in town with all of the old housemates, it brings back all of those Uni memories and we find ourselves lost in conversation for hours.
On the morning of their wedding Verity and I headed into town to meet Alex and a couple of other friends for breakfast before Verity caught a taxi to Alexandra’s hotel and I went over to the Alex’s apartment to watch a few stomach churningly dangerous climbing videos before Alex got ready for the wedding.
The intimate ceremony with mainly just close family for guests was held at Leeds Town Hall before we all walked the short distance to the Cross Keys for a fantastic meal before the rest of the guests joined us for speeches and an evening of catching up with old friends. Alex and Alexandra chose not to have a first dance so we seized the opportunity to take them away for one last couple shoot as the sun set to round out their collection before we all went back inside where Verity and myself spent the evening with my old housemates catching up on all of their news.
We stayed at the wedding until the last of the guests had gone and the bar staff were just about pushing us out of the door. After one of the longest days in a long time I think we all felt that 1AM was just too early to go home. As we walked through Leeds with our old friends – Alex and Alexandra having stayed to see the last of the guests off – we couldn’t help but think how much things have changed over the years. Careers and interests, partners now (or soon to be) husbands or wives.
Some things don’t ever seem to change though and just as I’m certain Alex and Alexandra will have long and happy lives together sharing their love of exploring, I’m also certain that in 10, 20 or 30 years time we’ll still all be meeting up somewhere to see these special people.
– Chris
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