I was delighted to be asked to photograph Cameron and Galina's Easter wedding at Witney Registry Office, then at the Waggon and Horses Pub in Southmoor for the reception.

As this was full coverage, the day began at 9am with the bridal preparations. I was using a Canon 5D Mk3 with the 24-70 f2.8 lens and a small Manfrotto LED light. This light is invaluable when doing the flat-lay, and I also took some acrylic ice cubes to add a bit of sparkle to the arrangements as you can see in this image:

It's important not to get too distracted by the flat-lay because I don't want to miss any of the key shots. These include the dresses on hangers, the hair stylist and make-up artists at work, and tying bows and doing up zips. Usually I will choreograph these activities while ensuring that I don't get in the way too much. There will usually be several mirrors and these can be used to good effect.

And so on to the wedding venue, Witney Registry Office. I wanted to get there in good time to photograph their arrival, so I left my second photographer at the bride's house to document their departure. The couple had hired a beautiful Imperial Viscount car, and I wanted to make sure that I got some decent images of it.

The key shots at the ceremony are:

• Arrival of the bride
• Bride's procession down the isle
• First look - the moment when the groom first sees the bride
• Exchange of rings
• First kiss
• Signing the register
• The recessional
• Confetti throw

All this and still looking out for informal shots, those fleeting moments that help to make the story of the day. Anyway, here are a few of the key moments: Arrival of the bride and bridesmaids, and the first look.

After the ceremony I dashed off to the Waggon and Horses pub, again leaving my second photographer to capture the departure. The bride had organised a few "surprises" at the reception. Now as the photographer I don't like any "surprises", so I made sure that I found out as much as possible in order to be well prepared.

The first surprise was Morris Dancers and the important thing here was to find the best position, especially as I knew that the bride and groom would be invited to join in. Because Morris Dancers generally work off two parallel rows I figured that the best place to be would be at the end of the rows shooting away from the sun.

Bright sun was fine for the Morris dancing but was a bit of an issue for the bridal and group photos, so I chose to use the shady side of the pub to avoid the high contrast and the inevitable squinting that would result from guests looking towards the sun. The background for the photos was the pub wall, which was constructed from rather nice stones.

But the biggest lighting challenge was indoors. The interior of the pub was quite dim, with artificial lighting, and the top table was right in front of a window through which the sun was streaming. The only way I could deal with this was to use a fill-in flash, which worked quite well.

The second "surprise" was "St George on horseback", arriving to steal away the bride. The idea was that the groom would fight off this intruder and claim the bride for his ow, which he did without too mush difficulty.

And so we arrive at the cake cutting and the first dance, neither of which presented any particular challenges apart from the low levels of ambient light, so again I used bounced flash.

Galina and Cameron didn't want a printed album, and I'm finding that this is often the case as they can be very expensive, But a good substitute, and one I create for every wedding, is a video slide show that tells the story of the day. This is included in the cost of the package. To give you an idea of what they're like, here's a shortened version of the video that I created for the recent wedding of Galina and Cameron: