Kent Wedding Photography – Ché & Warren’s smoke bomb filled, South African themed, post-wedding shoot

Smoke Bomb Wedding Photos

Ché and Warren were married in South Africa in 2013, but the worst thing happened – their photographer lost all their wedding photos! Yikes. I first heard the story when Ché’s blog post about it went a bit viral on all the wedding photography forums (go read it; she’s a wonderful, funny writer and it’s illustrated with awesome cartoons). Losing a couple’s photos is a wedding photographer’s worst nightmare, and I’d been a bride myself a few years earlier, so of course I know it’s every bride’s worst nightmare, too! I was so impressed with how Ché was handling it by listing the things she was thankful for in her life that she would choose any day over having wedding photos. I loved her sense of humour about it, and the fact that she and Warren were totally taking the lemons life had handed them, and having a gin and tonic with them! They’re using their travels round the world to create a whole new wedding album of photos – wherever they go, their wedding outfits go too, and they ask strangers, or use timers, to take photos of themselves there. I also felt an affinity with them as, like me, they’re South Africans now living in London, and I just wanted to do something lovely for them: AKA a beautiful photoshoot!

Ché and I emailed back and forth for ages before we finally sorted out a time and idea. I really wanted to do something beautiful in the golden evening light with smoke bombs, and when I mentioned it to my floral designer friend Gwenda, from Bohotanical, she suggested that we bring some florals into it, focusing on proteas as a nod to Ché and Warren being South African. Gwenda’s flowers are always gorgeous, so of course I said yes, and from there it spiralled into a mini styled shoot, with a hair and makeup team on board as well. Gwenda also found the perfect grassy meadow for us to use just behind her house, and along with her partner and daughter, ran around like crazy with smoke bombs in the background!

I knew Ché and Warren were gorgeous, but they were such natural, happy, in love people that I was basically jumping up and down with excitement, yelling, “This is SO PRETTY!” at every opportunity. I ADORE how the smoke grenades came out on camera, and I’d love to try them again at a real wedding. Smoke bomb wedding photos for the win!

Suppliers:

Hair: Collette Preston-Reeves from I Do Bridal Hair