When I received an email from Cassandra in mid 2015 it had the following line:
“You were the photographer for a few friends weddings and we have been following your work since. We are from SA but are getting married in Sydney in 2016 (where we live now). We are having a low-key small party at a jazz club and a weekend full of other events to celebrate.”
You had me at Sydney but you really had me at Jazz Club. Hooley dooley, a wedding in an exotic foreign land (yes, I’m classifying Sydney as exotic) and to cap it off a reception in a Jazz Club of all places – this is the kind of thing wedding photographers dream about (and also have nightmares about, the lighting is terrible in those places!) What I didn’t know at the time was that I already knew nearly half the guests, Cassandra’s bridesmaid Hayley was a bridesmaid in two other wedding I’d photographed (and is the cousin of my flat mate from when I lived in London in a ridiculous coincidence). Jesse’s groomsmen were both familiar from past weddings and I still recall them as some of the finest MCs I’ve experienced at Ali and Andrew’s wedding many years ago. Alongside this there were a bunch of other familiar faces and it all made the whole day totally informal and basically like a big catch up where I got to take some photos.
The ceremony was held at the University of Sydney and the photos largely speak for themselves, think Adelaide Uni buildings on Nth Terrace mixed with Downton Abbey and you’re getting close, just gorgeous grandiose old structures with a magical grass courtyard inside for the intimate ceremony.
The Lazy Bones Jazz Club is everything you’d imagine it to be. Tucked away in the inner West suburb of Marrickville it’s a dark rabbit warren of a venue with red lights, low ceilings and an amazing little 4 piece band providing the ambience. It’s the kind of place that would fit right into a Film Noir if you turned the clock back a decade and filled it with cigarette smoke.
Enough with the words though, these photos tell the real story.
