Reception & First Dance
The speeches, the entrance and the first dance, photographed through to the last song of the night.
Fine-art Hindu wedding albums for couples in Ascot, capturing the mandap, the jaimala and the seven steps, with a light footprint and a keen eye for the small moments.
★★★★★ Rated 4.8 from 500+ reviews
Wedding photography from £750
Bespoke packages · fast response · free consultation
The short answer
For couples marrying in Ascot, Kaushik Bathia offers award winning Hindu wedding photography, with more than twenty five years of experience and over a thousand weddings behind the camera. We keep our movements slow and predictable around the sacred fire, never darting across the mandap, so the priest and your elders are never startled mid ritual. Fire, garlands, turmeric and tears: the agni and the saptapadi, the jaimala, the haldi and the vidaai are all part of a Hindu wedding in Ascot, and all part of what we photograph. Grandparents rarely stay to the end of a long celebration, so experience has taught us to photograph the eldest of your family properly and early, while they are fresh and still present. Ask about a pre-wedding shoot, a second photographer or an album and we will price it clearly. Travel into Berkshire and across the UK is arranged around your timings, not the other way round.
Coworth Park and The Royal Berkshire both give a Hindu wedding in Ascot the sort of approach a baraat deserves, with room for dhol, dancing and a milni before anyone reaches the doors. Earlier in the same weekend, haldi and a garba fill the house. Under the mandap the priest works through ganesh puja, the jaimala, kanyadaan and the pheras, and the mangalsutra and sindoor close it. Windsor Great Park and the Savill Garden lie just north for portraits, with direct trains from London Waterloo bringing guests in.
Serving Ascot
Ascot is a Berkshire town famous for its racecourse and grand venues. Hindu weddings in Berkshire move between temples, halls and open marquees, and we have learned how each of those spaces near Windsor, Sunninghill and Bracknell behaves on the day. Milni garlands go on quickly and the pairs of relatives change every few seconds, so we work the line steadily and make sure each family greeting is photographed rather than only the first.
Midday sun over an outdoor baraat is unforgiving, so we expose for the faces under the safa and choose our angle for them, rather than letting the bright sky dictate the picture. During the aashirwad the rice comes without warning, so we have the camera raised and pre-focused on your faces before the elders' hands lift. It is the only way to catch it. Prime lenses with wide apertures do the heavy lifting inside a dim mandap, so we can photograph the ceremony by whatever light the room already has rather than by repeated bursts of flash.
We have spent a good deal of time working in Ascot. Ascot is a Berkshire town famous for its racecourse and grand venues, and the neighbouring Bracknell and Windsor are places we know from many weddings. In and around Ascot, we have photographed at venues such as Coworth Park, Macdonald Berystede Hotel and Ascot Racecourse.
Ascot is a Berkshire town best known for Ascot Racecourse, which was founded by Queen Anne in 1711 and hosts the annual Royal Ascot meeting. Ascot railway station has direct South Western Railway services from London Waterloo and sits close to Windsor Great Park. For relaxed couple photographs, we like Windsor Great Park and the Savill Garden, just north of the town, and Ascot Racecourse gives the day a strong sense of Ascot.
Check your date
What we offer
The speeches, the entrance and the first dance, photographed through to the last song of the night.
The seven steps around the fire, the heart of the ceremony, photographed with quiet, steady attention.
Blended traditions and families, covered with an eye for the rituals that matter most to you both.
Every Hindu ritual
We photograph the kanyadaan and the hastamelap as one flowing sequence, holding the giving of the hand and the binding of the union so the story of the ritual stays whole. Laja homa, when the offerings of puffed rice go into the fire, is easy to miss because it is quiet, so we stay tight on the hands and the flame as the grains fall. As the sindoor is applied and the mangalsutra tied, we photograph the closeness of the moment, the expressions and the hands, treating it with the reverence it holds for your families.
The pithi and haldi mark the start of the celebrations, and we photograph the turmeric, the blessings and the joy your family shares as they prepare you for the wedding. Dhol players arriving is a small event in itself, and photographing the drums being tuned and the first beats gives your album a build-up to the baraat rather than only its arrival. Fireworks or a sparkler send-off at the end of a reception need setting up minutes in advance, so we ask about them at the planning stage rather than discovering them as they are lit.

The whole celebration
Getting ready is never a rushed hour for us, and we document the jewellery, the sari, the sherwani and the nerves that come with them. Aunties directing operations from a doorway are a constant of every wedding morning, and we watch that corner of the room as carefully as the bride, because the reactions there are gold.
The main day runs from the baraat to the vidaai, and we plan our coverage around the rituals rather than the clock. Evening venues frequently swap to a different room for the dancing, and we walk it before it opens, so we know the ceiling, the exits and the light before anyone steps inside.
Why choose us
The one photograph a family cannot replace is usually of an elder no longer with them, and long experience has made us deliberate about photographing every generation who is present. We offer engagement shoots partly so we know each other before the wedding; by the day itself we already understand how you move and where you are most comfortable.
From our London studio we regularly make the trip to Berkshire, and a Hindu wedding running over several days and sites is something we scope out in advance. Weddings take us all over the United Kingdom from London, and a celebration in Berkshire sits comfortably within that. Ask and we will confirm availability and any travel cost straight away.

Where we travel
Getting to your venues in Berkshire is our concern, not yours, and we allow for the fact that a Hindu wedding often unfolds at more than one location. Nothing about your day should be shaped by where the photographer is coming from, so we absorb the travel to Berkshire into the planning and keep it out of your running order.
Check your date
Good to know
That happens often, and we plan for it. Muhurat timings and family moments have a rhythm of their own, so we leave room in our coverage rather than counting minutes. Should the priest take longer or the baraat arrive late, we simply carry on photographing. We want you fully present at your wedding, not glancing anxiously at the time. Open air sessions near Ascot tend to use Windsor Great Park and the Savill Garden, just north of the town.
Nearly always. Those quiet preparations, the bride settling into her outfit and jewellery, the groom among his family, contain some of the most heartfelt moments of the whole day. We come early to photograph them calmly before everything speeds up, and with a second photographer along we can capture both the bride and groom getting ready at once. Around Ascot we have photographed at Coworth Park and Macdonald Berystede Hotel.
Without exception. Wherever we can, we introduce ourselves to the priest ahead of time and ask what we should steer clear of, whether that is stepping across the sacred space or using flash near the agni. The ritual always takes precedence, and once the family see that we genuinely understand the ceremony, the good photographs come naturally. This applies across Ascot and Sunningdale, Virginia Water and Bagshot.
With patience, since a Hindu ceremony can last several hours. We keep our movements calm, stay clear of anyone's sightline and shift position only during the natural lulls. By remaining understated all the way through, we allow the family to stay fully present in the rituals while we quietly collect the frames that tell the story of the day. Getting to Ascot is straightforward for us: Ascot railway station has direct South Western Railway services from London Waterloo and sits close to Windsor Great Park.
Of course you can. Booking us for just one function, such as the sangeet or the mehndi, is entirely possible and a lovely way to secure professional coverage of an event close to your heart without the full commitment. It is a common first step; couples often meet us this way and then extend the booking to their wedding day afterwards. We know Ascot well, including Ascot Racecourse.
We certainly do. Each of our fine-art albums is hand-finished, printed to archival standards and bound in lovely, hard-wearing covers. A Hindu wedding is a rich and colourful tale, and an album gives it room to unfold across the pages the way the day itself unfolded. Designing every spread together with you means the mandap, the details and the family portraits all belong in one lasting heirloom. Locally in Ascot that takes in Ascot Racecourse.
Absolutely. We would rather ask than assume, so we speak to you early and find out what matters to each family and why it matters. Perhaps the mandap rituals for the Hindu side, and vows or blessings for the other. Having that understanding in advance is what allows us to photograph both traditions knowingly, never by guesswork. Venues we know near Ascot include Coworth Park and Macdonald Berystede Hotel.
More in Ascot
The same team, experience and care across every wedding and service we cover in Ascot. For weddings of every tradition in Ascot, see our wedding photographer in Ascot page. Browse our Hindu wedding photography page, the wedding photography overview, all areas we serve, or nearby Bracknell and Windsor. We also photograph Hindu weddings across Berkshire, including Sandhurst, Wokingham, Bracknell, Slough, Thatcham and Newbury.
Recent weddings
Baraat · Mandap · Pheras · Mehndi · Sangeet
Tell us about your celebration and we will send availability, ideas and pricing, wherever it takes place.