As a rule, the very best time of the day to get images of the both of you on your wedding is at either sunrise or sunset and your day’s schedule should be based around sunset timing for that day.

Let’s put sunrise out of the equation for now and concentrate on the time of the day made for simultaneous champers and photos.

Step 1 Work out your date.

We take a couple of months of the year off the island, these usually coincide with school holidays and bad weather, so check that we are on the island during your intended dates. Chances are we won’t be on the island between Dec-Feb also its very hot and there are a lot of people on the island at this time.

Step 2 Look up sunset time for your date

As a rule, depending on the time of the year, at Point Lookout, the sun disappears about seven minutes before the time shown (which is Brisbane timings)

Step 3 All going to plan the very best time of the day to take photos is the hour leading into sunset.

This is when the light turns on, making it the ideal time to get your location portraits (most of the images across our site are taken during this time (or sunrise) So work backwards from here. Just after sunset time would be your Reception entrance And the hour leading up to sunset is your Location Portraits

Step 4 Add about 20-40 minutes for your Big group photo plus your Family/friend formals

The timing of this does depend on your guest count and how many family/ friend group photos you’d like to get done Then another 20 minutes (again depending on guest count) for your congrats And of course… 30 minutes for the ceremony (depending on who you use as a celebrant, how many reading you have, how late you turn up) So on average, your ceremony would be about two and a half hours before Sunset time (taking into account – guest count, bridal party count, ceremony time etc)

The best light for photographs happen in the hours leading up to sunset (generally as a rule, you should try to avoid the middle of the day).

How we usually work out the best time for your ceremony is, find out when the sun sets and then time your ceremony for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours before. This should give you enough time to be a teeny bit late, have your ceremony, get congratulated by your guests, have a group photo and your family formals and then about an hour’s worth of locations photos with your bridal party, catching that last bit of amazing light before heading off into your par-tay.

Yes, absolutely, we can help with your timeline, in-fact, we can help with more than this. We have written up a guide to getting married on Straddie which gives you the rundown on the Who, What, When, Where & How of organising your North Stradbroke Island wedding. You will receive your online version on booking with us.

The way we see it is… you are with your besties, looking hot, having a couple of drinks, watching everything you have planned for unfold around you, life is feeling great, things may get a little crazy and we cannot wait to capture all of the lovely, honest and spontaneous moments that happen throughout the day. It is important that you have an amazing day (the time of your life really) So we want to make sure that your time with us is more then just a couple of hours having your photo taken, we want it to be fun – the real fun… because when you are having fun, you look as though you are having fun, and this makes for awesome photos… that is what it is all about isn’t it?!

Of course we do. We carry $20 million in public liability insurance (the industry standard).

Of course we do, we would be delighted to design you a beautiful, lay-flat, keepsake, bespoke book to keep on your coffee table and to show all of your friends.

Heck yes we do. We would love to make a beautiful highlights video of your special day. We absolutely love a wedding where we can combine our powers to also shoot video for you.

If you mean unedited raw files, then no; the editing of the images is as much a part of the service as the actual taking of the photographs; and RAW files are a very long way from the finished product. But what you do get is both the the high resolution and low resolution JPG files of each of your edited images. Those are yours to keep; to email around the world, share on Facebook, Print up and hang on your wall. They’re your memories, after all.

Yes we do, but it would have to be pretty darn special to get us off our island

Heck yes we do, we love our small but mighty local wedding vendors. We have excellent relationships with them and we all work extremely well together.

We have seen many cases of everyone banding together in extreme situations (cyclones / lockdowns) to ensure the clients have the best day of their lives.

We have a recommended list of local vendors that we supply in our Guide to organising a Straddie wedding, that you receive on booking with us. 

Awesome, let me know that you would like to book in, I will get some information off you for the paperwork. Then, once we receive the $500 non refundable retainer, plus a signed agreement, (with the balance due the month before your wedding) then you are all booked in. As most couples tend to have their wedding on a Saturday these are the days that book out the quickest.

Yes. Editing each image individually to our style is absolutely included in the package This includes basic retouching such as: colour and tone adjustments, cropping, application of creative effects to our style. We can also do additional editing (at an hourly rate) if you require it after you have received your package.

Yes, they are high resolution, edited to our style, digital .jpgs. We will supply a set of low resolution images, for email and social media use as well as the high resolution images, for printing out your wall art etc. You’ll receive them through a link to a DropBox folder. You will need to download them onto your own external storage device within two months (we do a cleanup of the folders every couple of months or so).

For most packages, we will email you a couple of ‘sneak peeks’ within 72hours and then you will receive your package of images within six weeks from the date of your wedding.

Sit down a moment while I go through this. We take this part of it very seriously. It is pretty much the reason why we will never stay much longer than our knock off beer and get too far into the party with you. We need to head back to the SIP studio and get your wedding safe. This is all of the RAW images onto three seperate archive systems, one which lives off site, just in case. And then we have delivered the product to you, we keep those images backed up on two different archive systems and we will guarantee having it for five years.

Yes, we totally can. Did I mentioned the couple of hundred weddings we have photographed over almost ten years, on the island? With all of this information, we have written an online, comprehensive guide specifically designed to assist you in organising your wedding on North Stradbroke Island. This is actually a pretty cool bonus, but hey, this is what we do and we do it pretty damn well, why not share that info. You get this once you have locked your date within 72 hours, and then you will receive your package of images within six weeks from the date of your wedding.

Did we mention that we have photographed a wedding or two hundred on Straddie (I keep bringing this up right).

Where we photograph the bridal party location shoot is dependant on a couple of things, what the weather is doing (some spots on the island are better for certain wind directions etc)

Where the other weddings are (if there are any others – we will know this info) and if there are any problems with access to the spots, how mobile you are, how adventurous you want to get, what photos you have seen of ours that you really like. And, of course, we will chat with you about it beforehand.

I know, rain or dreary weather is NOT how you envisioned your Straddie beach wedding to turn out, Straddie is certainly an ‘all about the location’ location. Do not despair (we have this covered – literally) we have photographed quite a few rainy weddings on the island (our own was absolutely torrential. So yes… we totally know how you feel) The two things you need to ask yourself are;

1. Have I hired an experienced wedding photographer?

2. Have I hired an experienced wedding planner?

Having a Plan B during an outdoor wedding is pretty essential, the weather is pretty much the only thing that can’t be changed. Having a planner who knows the local situation is the best way to ensure that rain doesn’t ruin your day.

Many brides worry about what happens to the location shoot when it is raining and the answer is that an experienced and technically competent wedding photographer won’t have any problems working with rain. In fact we love the rain and the photographic opportunities that can present themselves on a rainy day.

We would have discussed a Plan B in the lead up to your big day. But we are always game to go for an explore, get out the umbrellas and dance in the puddles, plus some of our most amazing images have been captured on wet miserable days, it is all part of the fun. So save yourself some stress and get some experts in for the job.

You only need to provide food if you have us covering additional reception time. We put so much into the day that by the time the reception comes along we are almost done so the energy will be much needed after the big day we have had. If we are just covering the entrance of the reception (say for the 7 hours coverage) then chances are high that we are going to grab a knock off beer (maybe one of those vol-au-vents going around the reception too!) I hope you don’t mind.

Experience

As former news photojournalists we can adapt to working in less then ideal situations, fortunately Straddie is beautiful most days of the year and this incredible backdrop makes it pretty easy for anyone with a camera, a set of presets and a speaker clipped to their belt (have no idea what I’m talking about – you’ll find out if you book them!) to come over to the island and shoot a wedding. And this is all fine, until things don’t go to plan, eg. the weather turns and they fall apart like a piece of paper in the rain.

We were both newspaper photographers for many years before deciding to move to Straddie and become wedding photographers. So we have worked all over Australia and the world in a highly competitive, deadline driven, pressurised environment, we could handle whatever is thrown our way eight years ago when we started shooting weddings on Straddie and we can certainly deal with it now.

We know our gear like the back of our hand (would you believe we started our career shooting with film – yes that’s right) and can adapt, improvise and overcome most obstacles.

Locally Based

Most people getting married on Straddie also have a deep connection to the island, and putting back into the local Straddie community is important to them. Hiring us sees that money going straight back into the island economy, which, especially at the moment, is pretty damn important.

We own (and live in ) our own house in Amity, so of course have our own transportation, so you don’t have the added responsibility of dealing with accommodation and transportation arrangements and costs, which you would with an off island hire.

We have local knowledge and local connections and feel strongly about shop local, so thanks for looking after our local business.

Professional

We are Straddie residents, and I think people drawn to the island mostly have a pretty laid back feel, but we run our business with the professionalism trained into us from working at a busy newspaper.

There is not much I dislike more then administration (I mean, what creative doesn’t) but weekdays, as a general rule, I make sure I check my emails once a day, so you should receive an answer within 24 hours (on saying that, please keep in mind that we are a small business of creatives who really want to take photos but also get made to do administration, so sometimes we just want one day off.

We have set up our website so that you can answer most of your questions, and let you know exactly what to expect from us in the lead, on the day and afterwards with receiving your package.

Kinda Cool

I know, I know, not cool to say we are cool, but I feel justified due to the high ratio of ‘friends who were once clients’, the same could be said for the ‘clients who keep coming back for more shoots’ and the ‘yearly drink on the beach during the clients annual island visit’

The King and Queen of Plan B – C – D (all the plans)

We are very dedicated to our wedding couples and the business in general. For us, work has always come first, it goes with the newspaper photographer territory, to be available and ready for everything, usually to the detriment of our friends and family. But going through COVID, as well as getting older and a thorough assessment of the market, taught us a couple of very big lessons. So after a lot of ups and downs, making many mistakes and yelling at each other quite a bit we have reconfigured the business to suit the current world a little better. This includes the picking and training of a team of already pretty amazing photographers and videographers, who are ready to step in and shoot as well, if not better than us at your wedding.

We are really, really freakin’ good at what we do – the end!

For the guarantee of a quality finished product. Hiring a quality professional photographer gives you peace of mind that your special day will be covered confidently, and in a beautiful manner.

You are paying for the photographers technical ability, experience, professional equipment (inc backup equipment), and artistic vision (such as posing groups of people).

The art of wedding photography is arguably one of the most difficult forms of photography due to the stress of the day, time constraints, lugging of equipment and most importantly the inability to go back in time and capture moments that may be missed by an inexperienced photographer.

Avoid unnecessary situations, get a professional from the beginning, when you consider that your photos are usually the only thing that you keep long after your wedding it makes sense to invest in this portion of your wedding day. One of the things people like about us, is that we know when to stand back and let things happen, but we also know when to step in and take control, get some amazing images and get you back to the reception to party with your friends and family.

Stu is a qualified, certified drone operator. This means that he has done all of the CASA certification courses and has the pieces of paper to prove it. So yes, we do drone. What does this mean for you? Well he can go out and get that awesome and unique birds eye view.