Irfan and Sheikh, Birmingham (seemingly everywhere in Birmingham!)

Irfan and Sheikh

Birmingham, UK.

So this is a special one.

Towards the end of last year I received a call from Irfan asking me if I would be interested in photographing his wedding in early December. I was a little unsure as I had already photographed a lot of weddings throughout the year and wanted to make sure I left myself a little time to get all the things I haven’t done around the house this year, done.

Anyway, we chatted things through and it became clear to me that this was a day that I couldn’t miss being a part of. A couple of weeks later we met up for a short ‘pre wedding’ shoot at Birminghams Botanical Gardens where I met Sheikh for the first time. What a truly wonderful person she is… so much fun to be around… I immediately felt totally comfortable with them both and very much looked forward to their day…..

Anyway, my day began with Sheikh and her family at her house… a very early start for me (I am not a morning person) before we moved over to the Botanical Gardens to take a couple of portraits before the wedding ceremony at Birminghams Central Mosque.

The ceremony itself was a very interesting experience. Once the legal formalities were dealt with the Iman then went through the readings etc. and it was beautiful. I don’t say that lightly… it was one of the most wonderful things I have witnessed/listened to whilst being a part of the wedding biz.

Then (yes… venue number 4) we made our way over to the Bia Lounge for the afternoon reception. Lots of amazing speeches, an unexpected confetti cannon (which has given me a few more grey hairs) and a sensational meal (that I thoroughly enjoyed)….. Before moving to venue 5…..

Irfan and Sheikh are both lecturers at Birmingham City University and as they met on the Campus we decided that it might be nice to use a period of ‘downtime’ during the day to grab a few shots of them there. So we did.

I particularly love the images taken in the lecture hall… I wanted to use that lecture hall scene in the first Indiana Jones movie as inspiration and I think we nailed it!

And then, we battled our way through what many might consider a small Hurricane to the final venue of the day… Mughal-e-Azam… an amazing restaurant on the Stratford Road that has just been refurbished.

I want to thank every one for the amazing welcome I received throughout the entire day. I was told I would be treated as a member of the family and I really was… it was a really special day for me.

Massive thanks must also go to Luke and Alex (videographers from butlerfilmandphotography.co.uk) for being great to work with. And also to Craig for passing on my details (lovely seeing both Craig and Lydia and their two lovely boys for the first time in 7 or so years) and to Faisal as well.

Finally, massive thank you to Irfan and Sheikh. Your day was a joy to be a part of. Thank you for being so much fun to be around, for being so remarkably organised and for simply both being wonderful people.

Images © John Colson