If Brighton is typical of anything it’s typical of being cool. Think Brighton Rocks, Quadrophenia, it just feels so damn cool. A cool location demands a cool couple. Lucie and Zoe are the coolest couple in town. This was a special day for sure. Two people totally in love, portraits on the seafront, the best pub in town and a rock n roll performance on stage at the end by one of the brides.

As I post this wedding on to my new website it seems bizarre that I hardly knew Lucie and Zoe on the day of their wedding. I’d only met them once before when I photographed Lucie’s brothers’s wedding a year or so previously in Greenwich. Several years later, at the time of writing, Lucie is a good friend of mine and I have worked with her on numerous projects over the years most recently on the early stages of her new project, a TV show called the Heartless, which reflects her time sharing a flat in Camden in the early noughties as the Libertines and her brother Carl came to the forefront of UK Rock and Roll.

Lucie and Zoe were so giving of their time on the day for portraits. I love to get around 30 mins to shoot portraits if I can but I’m happy if I can get 20 minutes. I am always wary of not keeping the guys out and away from their guests for too long but at the same time it it can be a period of time that the couple can get to themselves.

They’ve only just gotten married it could be the only time they really have together as a couple for the entire day. When I’m shooting portraits I am on purpose. I like to create an energy, to get the guys on the balls of their feet, whilst at the same time not hurrying them. I love to shoot portraits. I am predominantly a documentary photographer. I want to let the day unfold.

But as the years have passed I find I have fell in love with the portrait side of the day more and more. It isn’t that it takes me any more time than it did way back. It’s still only a very small part of the day in terms of time. But I think after many years of practice I have become more adept and mining the short amount of time I have for quality.

The trick is to be as present as you can. To pay total attention to the couple and their interaction and to really get the most of out of the time you have with them. With Lucie and Zoe we actually did two sets of portraits. We did them as soon as we arrived at the pub venue and later in the evening just before sun-set.

With a huge bunch of music friends and family in the music industry the day was pure rock n roll and ended, like I said, with Lucie and Carl performing with members of Lucies band as Zoe and the rest of the guests danced the night away.

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