It all started when Andrea Lane, a photographer in Tring in Hertfordshire, spotted a thread on the SWPP (Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers) web forum detailing a photographer in America who had offered a local couple a free wedding shoot. She did it because she wanted to ‘give something back’.
In February 08, just twenty minutes before she was due to leave for Heathrow Airport to go to New Zealand with her husband for a holiday of a lifetime, Andrea got a phone call from the hospital to tell her that she had endometrial cancer and she needed a hysterectomy urgently. After talking with the doctor they made the decision to carry on with the holiday and she was booked in for an MRI scan for the Tuesday after she got back, a pre op assessment the next day and the op the day after that. It was a very scary time for 55 year old Andrea and her family. However, all went well and Andrea recovered really well and was so grateful to find that they had removed all the cancer and that she didn’t need any further treatment. She is of course being followed up but everything looks great. She says she is going to annoy her family for many years to come!
So when she saw the thread she posted a reply saying ‘Wow, what a great idea. I think I will do that and try to raise money for Cancer Research.’ She had already taken part in a sponsored run and raised nearly £800 and wanted to get to her target of £1000.
Following Andrea’s post members from all over the UK posted on the forum expressing their support for the project and suggesting it should become a national event; so many had been touched by cancer in some way or another that they all wanted to help. We now have in excess of 100 photographers from all over the British Isles offering to do a free wedding shoot for a ‘deserving’ couple in their area to help raise money. They have offered a whole day’s photography with these lucky couples and their friends and relatives. They will provide a DVD of images and some prints for the bride and groom. Each couple that wins will be asked to raise as much as they can (at least £300) for Cancer Research through their friends and relatives, work colleagues and anyone they can!
So now, we need to find couples who are getting married in the three months running up to Christmas 2009 who perhaps can’t afford a professional photographer or have had their lives touched by cancer or other illness.
If anyone wants to nominate a couple or the couple want to apply themselves they should look on the photographers4charity website to find their local liaison officer and details on how to apply.
I am the Liaison Officer for the Lancashire area so if you have any queries regarding this fantastic event please feel free to contact me on (Freephone)0800 6126569, mobile 07792248181 or email me at paulbrown1@aol.com.
If you know of anyone getting married in October, November or December of 2009 please forward this page.
