Dirk van der Werff - Middlesbrough Photographers

From the initial meeting with Dirk I just knew he had to be our photographer. My husband-to-be and myself were nearly sent to sleep by a couple of other photographers we had met, showing us weddings albums with photo after photo of 'posed' shots and the 'traditional family' photos.
This is exactly what we didn't want, so when we met Dirk he was a breath of fresh air!
He was so enthusiastic and took his time to talk to us and also listen to what we wanted from our photo's, and once we had looked through the examples of his work, we already had him booked.
We were quite nervous about the pre-wedding shoot we had planned a few weeks before the wedding but there was no need to be nervous at all, he put us at ease and we just spent the afternoon chatting away and getting to know each other.
During the wedding day, Dirk arrived at my mum and dads house to get started. He captured some of my favourite shots during this time to our arrival at the church. The day went perfectly and this is reflected in our photos. At one point we were taken away to get some shots in a neighbouring garden we had initially discussed with Dirk that we didn't want to be away from our guest too long or we might miss the action!
Dirk understood this and we were only gone about 15 minutes. Dirk's entire day must of lasted at around 11 hours, from arriving at 11.30am to leaving at well past 10pm to get some action shots of the ceilidh.
Literally every guest we spoke to after the wedding commented on how fantastic he was throughout the day, saying what a great personality he has. Dirk isn't someone to fade into the background, he gets involved in the celebrations and talks to other guests. One guest even said she thought he was part of the family as he blended in so well.
Whilst on our honeymoon on Boracay Island we got word that Dirk had uploaded some of our photo's on facebook. Even though it was our honeymoon, we couldn't resist heading to the nearest internet café and logging on and we were over the moon with the results so far. Dirk must of known how excited we were to see the photo's, so on the day we returned from our honeymoon, he arrived that evening with 400+ final edited proof prints in a presentation box.
They were better than we ever expected, and tell the story of our day in pictures!
I would recommend Dirk to anyone particularly if your looking for more natural pictures. Graeme's best man and fiancé were so impressed with Dirk that they have booked him for their wedding next year!
Charlotte Fisher

charlotte – 26th January, 2011