Us
No associates, no second shooters you have not met, no studio sending whoever is free. Anwen or Rhys, or both; the person on the video call is the person at your wedding, and we have shot every weekend together for ten years.
Photographer. The planning calls, the mornings, the editing
Shot her first wedding at nineteen for a cousin, studied documentary photography at Newport, and spent four years on a regional newspaper, which is where the habit of being in the right place without being noticed comes from. Anwen does most of the planning calls and all of the editing, is usually with the bride in the morning, and is the one crouched by the barn door. Married to Rhys, obviously.
Photographer. The ceremonies, the speeches, the bookings, the tide tables
Came to photography from sound engineering, which is why he is the one at the back of the room watching the whole thing. Rhys covers the ceremony wides and the speeches, runs the bookings and the availability page, knows every registrar and celebrant in the Vale and the tide at every beach, and takes the elopements because he likes a Tuesday on a cliff.
How we work
At the back and to the side, never in the aisle, never between you and anyone. We use quiet cameras and no flash in a ceremony, and we are not in the group photographs other people take.
Line-ups unless you ask, "do that again", making you kiss, a forty-minute portrait session while your guests wait, posed detail shots on a table we have dressed, or Instagram filters on your gran.
Two bodies each, three lenses, cards backed up twice before we leave the venue, and a rule that no card is formatted until the gallery is delivered. Insured for public liability and equipment; the certificate is in the contract.
In ten years it has happened once, with a broken ankle. The other of us shot it alone with a photographer we trust as second, at no extra cost. That is the plan, in the contract, and it worked.
The studio
Hafod means summer dwelling, and the studio is the converted cowshed beside the house on Church Lane, ten minutes from Cowbridge. Most consultations happen by video because that is what people prefer, but the studio is where albums get proofed on a big table, prints get looked at in daylight, and couples who want to meet us first come for a coffee. The dog is Bryn and he has never once eaten an album.
The studio, and where we shootThe availability page says which dates are already taken. If yours is free, the form takes two minutes, we reply within the working day, and a video call that week with a £400 deposit holds it. If it is gone, we will say so and suggest two photographers we would book ourselves.