Prepared for
Mohammed
& Nicole
You're already married. Nothing about this day has to be endured — no ceremony to run to, no morning to race, no schedule anyone else wrote. It's a celebration, and it should be photographed like one.
From our meeting
What you told me you wanted
The shape of the day
Already legally married. No ceremony, no preparations. The day opens with the two of you in the car at 12:30 and ends with the room still talking.
In front of the camera
Neither of you enjoys it. You want photographs that look like you standing somewhere — not like you being arranged into a shape.
The look
Castle and sandstone — Curzon Hall as the reference point. Plus the city textures you responded to at Cross Eatery and around Town Hall.
The night
The Grounds, 6:00 to 10:00. Seventy-odd people, no dance floor. Food, cake at 6:45, two speeches, and games running right through. The night is people talking to each other.
One team
You came in for film. When I asked whether you'd rather have photography and film from one crew who talk to each other all day, you said yes. Both are quoted here.
What you keep
A short film to send that week. A five-minute film that holds the feeling. A longer edit that keeps the games and the speeches in full. And every original file.
The day
How it runs
This is your day as it stands today. Everything below it is what I'd raise before anything gets locked.
Five things worth deciding now
About nine in ten couples I work with don't have a planner. Whether or not you book me, these are the calls I'd want you to make with your eyes open.
One — The light at 1:00pm
Mid-November in Sydney puts the sun almost directly overhead in the early afternoon. It's the least flattering light of the year for faces. It's completely workable — but it means we front-load covered and shaded architecture between 1:00 and 3:00, and save anything open and exterior for after 3:30 when it starts to soften.
Two — The best light of your day is already paid for
Sunset on 14 November falls late in the evening. Which means the warmest, softest twenty minutes of your entire day happen while you're sitting at dinner, inside coverage you've already booked. Fifteen minutes outside The Grounds during the meal gets you frames the middle of the afternoon physically cannot produce. No extra hours, no extra cost — and with no dance floor to be pulled away from, nothing is happening inside that you'd miss. I'd want this in the run sheet.
Three — The 4:30 to 6:00 gap
Ninety minutes sits empty between the photoshoot and the reception. That's either a genuine breather — which, given neither of you loves a camera, has real value — or it's ninety minutes of standing around. Worth choosing on purpose. The alternative is shifting the shoot to 1:30–5:00 and tightening it.
Four — The limo's finish time
You have it from 12:30. I need to know when it stops. That single number decides how many locations we can realistically run, and how you get from the last one to Alexandria. It's the most common thing that quietly collapses a photoshoot plan.
Need this from youFive — How the night ends
Most receptions end on a dance floor, which does the work of an ending without anyone planning one. Yours doesn't have that. So the last twenty minutes need deciding — a final game, a thank-you from the two of you, a proper send-off through the room. Otherwise a night that's gone beautifully just quietly stops. And if it lands at exactly 10:00 with coverage ending at 10:00, we don't have it at all.
Locations
Castle, sandstone, city
You said Curzon Hall for the castle look, and you responded to Cross Eatery and Town Hall. Here's a shortlist that holds all three, runs in a straight line, and lands you at The Grounds without doubling back. Ordered for the light, not for the map.
University of Sydney Quadrangle & the colleges
The closest thing Sydney has to an actual castle — gothic sandstone, turrets, cloisters, arches. St John's and St Paul's next door read even more literally castle than the Quad itself. Deep covered walkways, which is exactly what you want at 1:00pm.
Town Hall & the Clarence Street pocket
The frames you already liked. Town Hall's sandstone face and steps, then Cross Eatery and the laneways either side of it for the darker, tighter, more modern texture. Two very different looks inside a two-minute walk.
Paddington Reservoir Gardens
Sunken brick arches and cast-iron columns — closer to ruins than a building. It photographs like nothing else in the city and it's rarely crowded on a Saturday afternoon. My pick for the strongest single set of frames on the list.
Sydney Park brick kilns — held in reserve
Minutes from The Grounds. I'd keep this one unused unless the day runs behind or the weather turns, because it's close enough to reach at any point without costing the schedule anything.
Curzon Hall itself is a working reception venue, so access on a Saturday depends entirely on whether they have a booking — which we'd need to check well ahead. If it's clear, it slots in place of stop one. If it isn't, the university precinct gives you the same architecture without the risk. Either way, I'd rather commit to three locations done properly than five done at a run — particularly with a couple who'd rather not be in front of a camera for three and a half hours straight.
Approach
You told me you hate the camera.
There are broadly two ways to photograph two people. One directs — you're moved into a position, your chin is adjusted, you hold it, and the frame is built around a shape someone else designed. It's efficient and it's consistent, and for couples who enjoy performing it works beautifully.
It does not work for people who don't like being looked at. It produces exactly the expression you're worried about — the one where you can see someone waiting to be told they can stop.
The other way is to give you something to do, and then get out of the way far enough that you forget we're there.
That's a technical decision as much as a philosophical one. It means longer lenses and more distance. It means direction that's a task rather than a pose — walk to the end of that arch and tell him what you're thinking about — and then letting the twenty seconds after the instruction be the frame, instead of the two seconds during it. And it means shorter, harder bursts: three locations of forty minutes each with real gaps between them, rather than three and a half unbroken hours of being watched.
Seventy people in one room, no dance floor, four hours of food and games and conversation — that is about the best possible setting for working this way. Nobody is lost in a crowd, there's no loud bracket to shout over, and almost everything worth keeping happens at a table while two people are mid-sentence. A big room fights candid work. Yours hands it to you.
It's also the single strongest argument for having photography and film come from the same crew. When two studios are working the same couple, both are competing for your face, and you end up performing twice as often. One team means one set of instructions, one person talking, and a lot more of the day where nobody is asking you for anything.
Longer lenses
Distance is the difference between being photographed and being watched. Most of your portraits will be shot from further away than you'd expect.
Tasks, not poses
You'll be asked to do things, not to hold things. The frame we keep is almost always the one just after the instruction ends.
Short bursts
Nobody is unselfconscious for three hours. Fewer locations, real breaks between them, and you stay recognisable in your own photographs.
Option A
Film only
One cinematographer, 1:00pm to 10:00pm. This is what you originally came to me for. Every tier below includes the full nine hours — the ladder is about how much of the night you keep, not how long we stay.
One
The Essentials
$3,560
- One cinematographer · 1:00pm – 10:00pm
- Teaser Film — 45–60 seconds, delivered in both vertical and horizontal
- Highlight Film — 5 minutes, cut to your music and the feeling of the night
- All RAW footage — every original and edited file, on your own hard drive
- Private online delivery with full download and sharing access
The films, and nothing longer. Speeches and games survive as moments, not in full.
Two
The Full Story
$4,650
- Everything in The Essentials
- Documentary Film — built for a day with no ceremony and no dance floor: your entrance, cake cutting in full, both speeches uncut, every game start to finish, and the room between them
- Cut with the live sound of the room, not laid over a music track
Games are the one thing a five-minute film cannot hold. They need length, they need the setup and the payoff, and they need the sound of seventy people reacting.
Option B
Film & photography, one team
One cinematographer and one photographer, working as a pair from 1:00pm to 10:00pm. Same run sheet, same locations, same conversation with you. This is the option I'd put my name behind for your day, and the reason is in the previous section — two studios means two people asking for your face.
One
The Essentials
$6,250
- One cinematographer + one photographer · 1:00pm – 10:00pm
- Teaser Film — 45–60 seconds, vertical and horizontal
- Highlight Film — 5 minutes
- Full edited photographic collection — every keeper from the day, colour graded, no per-image limit
- Sneak peek photographs — a small set within 48 hours
- All RAW footage on your own hard drive
Both crafts covered. The night survives as moments rather than in full.
Two
The Full Story
$7,250
- Everything in The Essentials
- Documentary Film — your entrance, cake cutting in full, both speeches uncut, every game start to finish, and the room between them, cut with its live sound
- Golden hour step-out built into the run sheet — fifteen minutes outside during dinner, at the best light of your day
This is the version of your day I'd want to be handing back to you in eight weeks.
On the photography decision. You mentioned you're meeting another studio in early August, and I told you honestly in our meeting how they shoot — heavily directed, structured, posed. That's a legitimate way to work and plenty of couples want exactly it. But you told me in the same conversation that you don't like the camera and you don't want to look arranged. Those two things are in direct conflict, and the conflict won't show up until you're standing in it. Take the meeting, look at their work properly, and ask them how they'd shoot two people who'd rather not be shot. The answer to that question matters more than the price on either of our quotes.
Add to any option
If you want more
Pre-wedding session Read this one
Two hours, another day, no schedule and nobody watching. For a couple who don't like being photographed, this is not an upsell — it's a rehearsal. You find out how we work, we find out how you two actually are together, and on 14 November nobody is meeting anyone for the first time while the clock runs. It is the highest-impact thing on this page for your specific brief.
Fine art album
Designed with you rather than generated from the gallery. Included in Option B Three.
Why any of this matters
You experience your wedding three times
Before
In the planning
Every decision you make between now and November is you imagining the day. Most of what makes a day feel rushed is decided here — in the gaps nobody costed, the transitions nobody timed. That's why this proposal opened with a timeline rather than a price list.
The Day
In the hours themselves
It goes faster than anyone expects and you will not remember most of it accurately. My job on the day is not primarily to film it — it's to keep you ahead of the clock so that you're actually present in the parts you're paying for.
For Life
In what's left
This is the long one. In ten years the only version of 14 November 2026 that still exists is the one that got recorded — and the parts of it you'll want most are rarely the parts you'd have predicted.
Some moments only reveal their value with time. The future doesn't decide what mattered — it just finally shows you what always did.
Delivery
What arrives, and when
Teaser Film
45–60 seconds, cut in both vertical and horizontal so it works on a phone and on a screen. This is the one you send while people still want to talk about the night.
Highlight Film
Five minutes, shaped around your music and the moments that carried the day. The film you'll actually rewatch.
Documentary Film
The long one. Speeches uncut, cake cutting, every game start to finish, and the room between them — carried by its own live sound. Included in The Full Story.
Photographic collection
Every frame worth keeping, fully edited, no per-image cap. A sneak peek set inside 48 hours. Option B only.
RAW footage
All original and edited files, supplied on a hard drive you provide. Included in every tier on this page — nothing is held back.
How it's delivered
A private online link with full download and sharing access. Yours to keep and to send to whoever you like.
Let me know which way you're leaning
These options are a starting point built from one conversation, and nothing here is locked. If the shape isn't right — more film and less photography, a different balance, something from the add-ons folded in — say so and I'll rebuild it.
When you know which one you're leaning towards, tell me and I'll prepare the official quote for you to accept and book. And whichever way you go, I'd still like to answer the five questions in the timeline section with you — those affect your day whether or not you book me.
To secure the date
$1,000 depositPayable when you accept the quote. That's what holds 14 November — the date isn't reserved until it's in.
Everything after that
Balance the week beforeThe remainder falls due in the week leading up to the wedding. Nothing in between.
Prepared for Mohammed & Nicole — Saturday 14 November 2026
