Vicar defends Church over photographers at weddings
A VICAR has defended the Church over a photographer’s claims they are treated “rudely” and “abusively” when they try to take wedding pictures.
A petition has been created by Lincoln photographer Rachel Roberts claiming that photrographers are regularly humiliated.
She said she wanted to start a “public conversation” about the relationship between photographers and clergy at weddings, the BBC reported.
But on BBC Breakfast yesterday, Nottinghamshire vicar Reverend Anna Alls said photographers shouldn’t “get in the vicar’s face” and “distract” them.
Ms Alls, vicar of the Benefice of Burton Joyce, Bulcote and Stoke Bardolph with Lowdham, Caythorpe and Gunthorpe, said: “I think communicating with the vicar about what’s appropriate is probably OK. Not being in the vicar’s face and distracting them, because what we’re hoping for at the end of the day is that the couple are married legally and that’s the goal.
“It would be a shame if the vicar was distracted and that didn’t happen.
“Sometimes churches can be a bit dangerous as well. We don’t want to catch in our peripheral vision the photographer’s assistant kind of winching themselves up on some medieval pulpit or something. That would be a shame.”
Speaking about what photographers should do, she said: “I just think communicating with the vicar about what’s appropriate, what’s safe, where the best place is to stand in the church and capture all the action, that kind of thing.”
But Ms Roberts said: “The kind of things that I’ve experienced quite a lot of the time are things like being asked by clergy members to be hidden behind pillars very much out of sight, out of mind, or to be sat at the back. But by starting this petition, I’ve had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stories from wedding photographers and videographers who just want to be respectful. I will say, first of all, that this petition isn’t about vicar bashing and church bashing.
“We’re saying, ‘let’s work together’. But some of the stories that have come out are quite shocking. A lot of photographers and videographers say they now flatly refuse to go anywhere near church weddings. They’re just like, I just don’t want to take them on.”
The petition, signed by more than 900 people, described vicars’ “humiliating” behaviour as a “huge issue” in the wedding photography industry.
Ms Roberts said she started it to “reset the relationship”.
She was driven to start the petition after seeing a video on social media of a wedding photographer being “spoken to really aggressively” by a vicar in front of a church full of “horrified” wedding guests.
Ms Roberts said one vicar threatened to pause the ceremony and kick her out if she took photos at the wrong time.
The number of religious weddings in England and Wales is steadily declining, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). In 2016, 76 percent of marriages took place as civil ceremonies. That rose to a record 85.5 percent in 2020 – the latest available data – though coronavirus restrictions at the time may have affected this figure.
After the BBC posted a clip of the discussion on X, viewers weighed in with Lee Johnson saying: “Having taken wedding photos inside a church, this angers me. All that needs to be done is to meet the vicar beforehand (not just before the ceremony) and discuss what and where you can and can not be, then stick to it. You don’t have free rein and you must be respectful.”
Rebecca Jones Photography said: “As a wedding photographer of 10 years I’ve experienced some of the loveliest, most understanding vicars but also some very rude and aggressive ones. I’ve had a ceremony stopped and been physically pushed behind a flower stand.”
Priest Elaine Evans SCP added: ”Modern cameras are capable of some very ‘close-up’ photographs from the back of the church. I don’t like photographers acting like paparazzi and clicking away, moving around etc while I’m trying to marry a couple.”