Madeleine & Andrew on 35mm (mostly)

singer tavern wedding PHOTOGRAPHY

When Madeleine and Andrew first mentioned shooting a lot of their Hackney Town Hall and Singer Tavern wedding on film, we were SO excited. I started photography with film when I was a little kid, and only switched to digital in my 20s, so for years I’d been adding a little 35mm coverage here and there at weddings. The unpredictability, the expense, the limited number of shots, the inefficiency of stopping to switch rolls, and the sheer risk – only having one copy of each image feels wildly dangerous to me nowadays, in the age of dual memory cards in each camera – had all made me think film wasn’t ideal as the main medium for wedding work. But meeting a couple who were willing – even keen – to embrace all that was a delight.

After shooting this wedding we immediately created a 35mm film add-on option for all the clients whose weddings we were already scheduled to shoot, and about 80 per cent of them booked a roll or two right away. And soon after, we scrapped that whole add-on concept and just included film at every wedding as standard.

More and more, film photography is the thing new couples and their wedding planners ask about when they first enquire about commissioning us to shoot for them.

We’re now shooting more film than ever, and couldn’t be happier (if you’re a fellow film lover, here’s our 35mm film wedding photography portfolio).

PS: Our favourite 35mm film labs are Carmencita in Spain, Take It Easy in the UK and Indie Film Lab in the US. We mostly shoot on Kodak Portra. We use a range of cameras, mostly Canon.