Tipi wedding photographer

I’ll travel further for a tipi than for almost any other wedding. It’s always such a joy.

Under canvas

A tipi is really just like a very large lampshade. The light comes through the canvas warm and soft so people photograph beautifully. Everyone just has a really good time. I love the movement between light and dark throughout the day.

Most of it happens outside

The thing about tipis is that they’re usually open down one side, so for most of the day there isn’t really an inside and an outside. People drift between the two with a drink, and the photographs follow them rather than being taken in one place or the other.

It also means you get a proper establishing shot of your own wedding, which you don’t at an indoor venue: the whole thing sitting in a field, with everyone you know somewhere in it.

After dark

This is when a tipi earns its keep. Once the light goes, whatever’s rigged inside starts doing the work, and the canvas turns into the lampshade for the whole field.

Worth knowing when you’re planning: the moment it gets properly dark is the moment the outside of the tipi becomes the best photograph of the night, and it lasts as long as people are still going in and out. If you want that picture, it’s worth me being there for it rather than finishing at nine. That’s why I always offer 11 hours.

A tipi wedding I photographed

Ant and Kat were married at Spirit Lake, near Dorking. Tipis on the lawn beside the water, the ceremony outside, and after dark the whole thing lit up and reflected in the lake.

How far I’ll come

My usual range is about forty five minutes from St Leonards, and for tipi and marquee weddings I’ll stretch that with pleasure. Beyond that, ask me. Dorking is well outside the circle and I’d go again tomorrow.