Groom photographed from behind in an embroidered sherwani

Sikh Wedding Photographer in Canterbury

Covering Sikh weddings from first light in Canterbury, from the kalire shaking to the doli send-off, with twenty-five years of Sikh weddings and hand-bound albums.

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Wedding photography from £750

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The short answer

Your Sikh wedding photographer in Canterbury, at a glance

Experience matters most when the laavan begin and there is no second take. Kaushik Bathia has photographed Sikh weddings for more than twenty five years, and that experience travels with him to Canterbury. Small details carry the story, the kalgi, the chooda, the rumalla over the Guru Granth Sahib, and we photograph them cleanly so their meaning is kept for good. Family is the thread through it all, so the aunties applying vatna, the uncles at the milni, the maternal family at the choora and the grandparents seated in the darbar hall in Canterbury are photographed too. Choora ceremonies often begin before dawn, and a photographer who has covered a few hundred of them knows to sleep early, arrive in the dark and be useful rather than half awake. Options include a second photographer, a pre-wedding shoot at a place that means something to you, and hand bound albums. Travel is quoted openly and never used as an excuse to say no to Kent.

Kent has fewer Sikh families than the north London belt, so an anand karaj around Canterbury usually means the gurdwara sits elsewhere and Canterbury Cathedral Lodge or ABode Canterbury takes the reception. That split needs planning: sehra bandi and the milni in the morning, the four laavan and ardas before the Guru Granth Sahib, attended as a living Guru, with heads covered and shoes off, then the doli. Dane John Gardens and Westgate Gardens handle portraits, and Canterbury East and West both run fast services. St Augustine's Abbey stands beside the cathedral at the centre of the city.

Serving Canterbury

Start your Sikh wedding gallery in Canterbury

Two rooms, two entirely different jobs. One of them was built for worship and will not be rearranged around a camera; the other is hired for an evening and can be lit however you please. Most of the disappointment we hear about afterwards comes from couples who prepared hard for the second and assumed the first would look after itself. Prepare for both, separately. Three names come up around Canterbury: ABode Canterbury, The Old Kent Barn, Canterbury Cathedral Lodge.

That seam gets left off every schedule we are sent. Somebody has to change, somebody has to eat, and outdoors the light is doing whatever the season decided. Place your portrait window inside that gap on purpose instead of discovering it by accident, and tell us where the family goes in between, because the walk out of one building is often the best half hour of the day and it arrives with no warning at all.

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What we offer

What is included in your Canterbury Sikh wedding coverage

Multi-day Coverage

Reception Coverage

The Jago

Every Sikh ritual

Sacred mornings, told in pictures

Nobody photographs past the Guru Granth Sahib from behind it. Camera positions are settled by that fact alone, long before light becomes anybody's concern. We stay low, working the edges and the rear wall, because a congregation sits at floor level and a lens at standing height collects the tops of heads. Carpet in these halls tends towards a strong colour, and it throws that colour upward onto faces, so we correct for the floor rather than the ceiling.

The milni takes place outdoors under whatever Kent weather turns up. Families meet each other in pairs, and what earns a print is generally not the embrace but the row of faces watching it. Across the four laavan it is the raagis, not the couple, who tell you where the ceremony has got to. Langar is the warmest hour anyone gets, and the least photographed. During the doli we ask nothing of anybody. Jago and mehndi the night before are separate bookings and worth the money.

Wedding traditions photographed in Canterbury

Why choose us

How we earn the trust of Canterbury couples

Trust here is mostly arithmetic. We put our questions to you well in advance, never mid-service. We know which passages a shutter has no business in, we stay off the floor the sangat needs, and nothing is performed a second time to suit us. If that sounds unremarkable, ask around.

Good to know

Wedding photography in Canterbury, frequently asked questions

How many hours of coverage do we get on our wedding day in Canterbury?+

Hours follow your timings, not a package tier. In Canterbury that usually means beginning with the getting ready and finishing some way past the first dance, and where the two halves sit far apart we quote for the gap honestly.

Do you photograph the evening reception in Canterbury as well as the ceremony?+

Yes. Evening coverage is its own problem. Tungsten, coloured uplighting and a dark floor want flash used deliberately rather than apologetically, so we work the Canterbury room out before a single guest walks in.

How do you make sure our photographs are never lost?+

Two cards record every exposure at once. They travel home in separate bags, copy onto two drives the same night and reach cloud storage as well, so no single failure anywhere in that chain loses a picture.

How do you work alongside dhol players?+

We take a flank rather than the front, since a dhol player needs elbow room and should get it. The reaction around them is the picture anyway. If the drummers lead a procession, we move ahead of it facing back.

Do you arrange permission with the gurdwara before the wedding?+

Introduce us and we take it from there, speaking to the committee directly about positions and about what is acceptable. That conversation happens weeks beforehand, and not while everyone is already filing in.