Hindu Wedding Photographer in Rochester

Fine-art Hindu wedding albums for couples in Rochester, from the first haldi to the last dance of the sangeet, backed by a quarter of a century of wedding days.

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Wedding photography from £750

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The short answer

Your Hindu wedding photographer in Rochester, at a glance

For Gujarati, Punjabi and North Indian families marrying in Rochester, Kaushik Bathia brings an understanding of the order of the day earned over twenty five years and more than a thousand weddings. Someone in the family who knows everybody is worth borrowing for twenty minutes, so we can find the right aunts, uncles and grandparents quickly instead of calling for them over a microphone. Guests remember the garba and the reception; families remember the grah shanti, the kanyadaan and the vidaai. Both are photographed in full at Hindu weddings in Rochester. Temples each set their own rules on where a photographer may stand and whether flash is allowed, and years of asking that question in advance has saved a great many awkward interruptions. Pre-wedding shoots at a place that means something to you, a second photographer where the day splits between venues, and albums finished by hand: all available, and we will travel to Kent or wherever the wedding takes us.

The Historic Dockyard Chatham gives a Hindu wedding in the Medway towns the scale that a mandap and a garba both need, and Eastgate House the smaller, older alternative. Haldi and mehndi are usually the day before. A baraat can arrive with dhol across open dockyard ground. Through the ceremony the frame holds on the agni, the saptapadi and the kanyadaan, with the sindoor and mangalsutra taken close. Rochester Castle Gardens and The Vines are the portrait stops before the vidaai.

Serving Rochester

Say hello from Rochester

Hindu couples marrying in this part of Kent tend to plan around two fixed points: the hour the ceremony begins, and how far the wedding party must travel to reach open ground once it ends. Rochester makes the second of those easy. The Vines is a green space, Castle Gardens another, and both sit within the old centre, so a portrait window need not be long, and it will survive a ceremony that overruns without costing anyone a coach or a parking space.

Settle the ceremony room first, before you settle anything else. Ask which space is yours, ask for the time of day, and ask what hangs directly overhead. Height above the couple determines whether daylight is an ally or an opponent, and it sets how much rigging must be built before the seating fills. Dress, catering, music, the order of the afternoon: all of that bends late. Ceiling height does not.

Check your date

What we offer

What is included in your Rochester Hindu wedding coverage

The Vidaai

25 Years' Experience

Grah Shanti

Every Hindu ritual

The mandap, the agni and the pheras

Fire indoors, at midday, beside a window: that is what makes this ceremony awkward for anyone holding a camera. The flame sits down near candle warmth; the window behind throws something considerably bluer into the same picture. One has to be right and the other wrong, and we choose the flame every time, since it is what the room is watching. Cloth slung overhead across a mandap also kills the bounce you would otherwise get back into faces, so low lamps end up doing the remaining work.

Then comes the varmala, over almost before it starts and often performed while both of them are up on shoulders, faces above the crowd and the background beyond anybody's control. We position for that in advance; reacting to it is not possible. Circling the agni gives four passes across the same few metres of floor, and coming back with four photographs that look alike would be our failing, not the couple's. Every round therefore alters something: eye level, the side we stand on, how tight we are.

Wedding traditions photographed in Rochester

Why choose us

We have photographed hundreds of Hindu weddings

Our case is a plain one. A Hindu day contains maybe five things that happen once, briefly, and never again, with no rerun available to anybody holding a camera. The plan is built outward from those, and the slower hours get filled in afterwards. It explains why our opening questions concern your timings, and why styling and albums come up later.

Good to know

Wedding photography in Rochester, frequently asked questions

Do you understand the significance of the jaimala and kanyadaan?+

Jaimala is public and noisy: one fixed position, a long focal length, no wandering. Kanyadaan runs opposite to it, close and hushed, and largely a matter of what a parent's hands are doing. Same day, two unrelated techniques.

What makes a fine-art album different from a standard photo book?+

A fine-art album opens flat. A picture can therefore cross the spread and no face is lost where the pages meet. The board is thicker, and the edit is sequenced to tell the day rather than simply follow the timestamps.

How do you approach a marquee Hindu wedding?+

A marquee hands you a blank ceiling and no windows worth the name, which is liberating and risky at once. We establish beforehand which panels of lining will glow and which will not, then rig our own light before guests arrive.

Is there a travel charge for a wedding in Rochester?+

Coverage in Rochester carries no travel charge. If a day spans two sites some way apart, or staying over proves unavoidable, we put it in the quote in writing at the outset, never as a later addition.

Do you travel to Rochester for Hindu weddings?+

Yes. Rochester falls comfortably within the ground we work, and reaching it is an ordinary working morning rather than an expedition. Send a date first of all, since availability decides this and very little else does.