Paul and Nina’s wedding on Saturday 19th September

The wedding I photographed on Saturday was a very special wedding for me as my best friend’s son was the lucky Groom marrying the beautiful Nina. I have known Paul, eldest son of Stuart Clarkson, (owner of Soul and many other busineses in Aberdeen) since he was a very young boy, and I have photographed him many times over the years (see below) . As well as being the photographer, Sandra and I were guests. Lukas was working with me taking the reportage shots and it was agreed that once we sat down for the meal, he would do the rest. This almost worked out but I had to take two large groups after the meal but after that I was free to enjoy a fantastic night at the Forum, another venue co-owned by Stuart with Hytham Bedawi. Hytham and Jill ensured we had a beautiful four course dinner, on a par with many fine dining restaurants, which is quite a feat when serving 150 people.

It is never easy working with friends as it is difficult to assume the correct level of control that you require to arrange and take the long list of family photographs I had to do.However it went well and Blairs Chapel is a wonderful venue for photography, and Nina and Paul were very easy to photograph. We did not have long to take the photographs and although I took over 500 images, I would have liked to take more of Paul and Nina, but neither of them wanted a long bridal portrait session, and it was their choice to get back and join the party, which I completely understand. The Forum looked absolutely stunning but with 150 guests in the balcony bar and dinner set for 150 in the main hall, there was not a lot of scope for photography but fortunately most of the shots were taken at Blairs. For any keen photographers, I had to work at 1600 iso at the Forum to get any light in the background, but with the amazing Nikon D3, this high iso is not a problem.

Nina looked absolutely stunning and her dress was beautiful. She has great posture and looked amazing, and more importantly her smile confirmed how happy she was. Paul, also looked good and was quite relaxed, and it was obvious that they are a great match. Paul’s speech was excellent but was matched by both his best men – brother Barry, and friend Kev. I must also mention the Mum’s ,Lynne, and Freda, both of whom had beautiful outfits and looked very elegant.

When the meal finished, the band (the Limits – who were great) started playing and the evening guests moved from the balcony bar to the main hall, and with close to 400 people at the wedding, the atmosphere was great and everyone enjoyed themselves – it was one of the best weddings I have been at.

Fortunately Nina was delighted with the photographs and was kind enough to email me before they set of on their honeymoon – click here to see what Nina said.

To view the main set of images, click here.

I am pleased that the first wedding to be featured in my blog is a friend’s but I am going to go back to some weddings photographed earlier this year and feature them in forthcoming posts.