Gabriela & Lukasz's fairytale wedding

October 23, 2017

The wedding of Gabriela and Lukasz would easily be up there as one of the hardest and more stressful weddings I have shot. Sure, it doesn’t help that the bride is a well respected photographer and the groom is one of Adelaide’s leading cinematographers, but the combination of the weather and tremendous time pressure is what has put this wedding in it’s own class. When I log onto my weather app a few days before a wedding and I see that there’s going to be cloud cover, I know I’ll be in my element for a shoot. As photographers, our worst nightmare isn’t shooting in rain, but to shoot on a hot sunny bright day with not a single cloud in sight. Gabriela and Lukasz’s wedding was the perfect example of this weather. The reason why this makes shooting an outdoor wedding so hard is that the harsh sunlight causes a huge dynamic range between highlights and shadows. This makes it really hard to photograph the subject and balance the lighting in both the foreground and background of the photo and the highlights end up blowing out/becoming totally white or shadows are completely black. Whilst digital camera sensors these days can capture a much wider range of brightness values, there is a limit and when photographers are faced with a scene that has a wider brightness range than the camera’s, we encounter problems. To add to this, working under the direct sun is extremely uncomfortable especially for a guy like me who hates the heat.

Furthermore, shooting in front of her guests which also included a number of wedding photographer’s that I truly respect also added to the stress.

But all that aside, this couple was amazing to work with. We made them climb fences, go through thorny/prickly weeds all whilst walking down hill in her high heels to get to some of the most breathtaking locations in the Adelaide Hills that I was able to find in the week before their wedding.

Their wedding was held at the picturesque Mandalay House and Gardens up at Mount Barker. In my opinion this is one of Adelaide’s most hidden gems/exclusive wedding venues as they only accept approximately 10 weddings a year.

This couple particularly wanted their collection to be very soft. People who know me and my style of photography/editing know that whilst I do a wide range of photos, I am not the softest photographer out there! hahaha

The bride’s dress made by the very talented Alexis George was a 2 piece dress which actually came in handy for our wedding adventure! In order for Gabriela to climb over fences, she needed to take off the bottom half of her dress. No questions asked, this girl was more than willing to whip off her skirt in the middle of the road for that perfect shot.

When we headed back to the reception I noticed the very tasty Krispy Kreme donut wall was demolished before mains were served!

Special thanks to Bree for helping me sneak the couple out of their reception for some awesome photos at sunset where we hiked down a hill full of wild thistles.

Gabriela and Lukasz – thank you for entrusting me to shoot your wedding. You both kept me on my toes that’s for sure!