A supermarket Saturday girl who saved her wages for her first camera is in line for a top national wedding photography award.
Stacey Oliver worked at the old Kwiksave store on Chester’s Sealand Road as a schoolgirl and spent her money on a Pentax camera which she used to take pictures around the city.
Now the mum of two from Sealand is up for Wedding Photographer of the Year at The Wedding Awards which take place at a glittering event in Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre on Hanover Street next month.
Stacey, 40, was bitten by the photography bug as a schoolgirl at Blacon High School and went on to do A-level photography at Chester College and gained a B Tech at Mid Cheshire College.
Then the college was asked by the Chester Chronicle newspaper if there were any students interested in a photographer’s position with them.
Her dad pushed her to apply and she beat off 200 applicants for the job.
She was a newspaper photographer, first with the Chronicle and then with the Daily Post in North Wales for the next 20 years and has no regrets.
She covered every kind of story and took pictures of everyone from Prime Ministers to primary school pupils, before taking redundancy a couple of years ago and setting up on her own as a freelance.
She said: “I enjoyed being a newspaper photographer and I admit I was apprehensive about taking on weddings but I love it.
“It is very different to working on a paper but in both roles you have to think on your feet, act quickly and not miss a moment and I think being a press photographer has helped me because you have to get that special picture and you might only have a moment to do it.
“I admit I did once upset a vicar because I knew that the groom was going to be overcome by emotion and I knew I had to get it so I made sure I was in close.
“It did get me a big ticking off afterwards from the vicar but I got the picture and the couple loved it.
“That’s the key to the job – I love making couples happy.
“Your wedding day is one of the happiest days of your life and if I can capture that then they can relive that forever.
“But I don’t shoot what it looks like, I shoot what it feels like.”
Her own wedding to husband Peter – they have two boys, Ollie, eight, and Lewis, two – was exotic and memorable but the pictures were awful.
Stacey said: “We were married on a beach in The Gambia and I wish I’d paid for someone to come out and take the pics. I haven’t even got a wedding album.
“But a wedding is hard work.
“It’s a long day and there’s massive pressure – on a newspaper you might be able to take the pics again and there’s another edition the next day but with a wedding you’ve got to get it right first time.
“I love meeting the couples and talking to them about what they want and then capturing those special moments, the emotion and the happiness.
“My aim is to create beautiful, natural, stylish wedding images that capture the spirit of the day from the smallest detail to the biggest moment with all the wonderful and unique bits that make it a special day.
“I did lots of great pics as a press photographer and they were wrapping chips the next day but my couples will have those pictures for the rest of their lives and hand them down to their children.”
For more information go to staceyoliverphotography.co.uk.
