Recently I did a workshop with the wonderful Ashley and Jeremy Parsons (recently named in American Photo's Top Ten Wedding Photographers in 2012), and one of the subjects we discussed was the importance of photography and how your photos will outlive you.
I found this photograph a while ago when I was going through a very old family album. It is my great grandmother on her wedding day. Her name was Lillie Angell and she married my great grandfather in the late 1890s - nearly 120 years ago. She looks very serious and a little bit nervous in her beautiful high collared wedding gown.
I also have photographs of both my grandmothers on their wedding days. My Mum's mother, Winifred Alice Angell (my grandfather was a Captain in the Royal Navy), was married in the late 1920s and looks very formal in her '20s style dress and her wonderful cathedral length veil.
My other grandmother, Margaret Lancaster Barnes, who was a journalist and a university graduate, married only a few years later in the early 1930s, but her wedding photograph couldn't be more different. In a smart white skirt and jacket, she is laughing happily on my grandfather's arm.
A bit of a return to formality for my wedding photo - those leg-of-mutton sleeves really were the height of fashion in Zimbabwe the early 1990s! Our wedding was on a farm in Concession in Zimbabwe; our photographer was Bob Davey who apparently lives in Tannum Sands nearly Gladstone now. It's a small world!
I don't have a photo of my mother on her wedding day. My parents married in a registry office and I don't think anyone took any photos, which is sad as there is a break in what is a very interesting record of my family history. Being a wedding photographer I will make sure there are plenty of photos of my daughter Charlotte when she eventually gets married!
So there you have it - 120 years of family wedding photography. Make sure you have some beautiful prints of your wedding day for your great grandchildren!
