There are some weddings you know you just have to do… Richard and Alison’s was one of them, after all Richard is my cousin, so I offered and to my delight they accepted. That was last year. Their wedding was earlier in May and for the record the UK had just a serious amount of rain for several weeks prior to this. Even then the weather right up until the day was forecast to be rain. However, miraculously almost overnight the weather forecast changed and it held off! Not that I did not have some contingency plans had their been rain.
I had gone up the previous day to scout out the locations and also be at the wedding rehearsal. Something that’s rather necessary as St Peter, Martley is a really lovely ancient, but narrow country church with only the central aisle and no opportunity to move around discretely. The rehearsal however, gave me the opportunity to discuss and plot with the vicar (who’s fantastic by the way… I’d love somebody like Rev David Sherwin to do my wedding!) the locations from where I could take photos from and at what times during the service. On the day this worked like clockwork. I also found a number of nice locations for the photoshoot at reception, the Bank House Hotel. The other fun bit was discovering what Ben, our son was going to be wearing as page boy on the day and trying it on, just in case is did not fit. Two and half year olds change ‘rapidly’ (yes that’s him in one of the photos).
It was beautiful wedding with lots of really lovely moments, both and groom and bride could not stop smiling and Alison surprising Richard with a bigger kiss than he or anybody else for that matter was expecting. For the group shots outside the church it might not have been raining, but it was too cold to be standing outside for long, so I kept the group shot short and took the decision to use the extra time at the reception for a longer photoshoot in the small, but scenic gardens at the back where I had spotted lots of opportunities for shots.
The wedding breakfast continued the white with blue theme, but also introduced Richard’s passion for old motorbikes with each table being named after a manufacturer, e.g. Triumph, Norton. Table place names were decorated gingerbread men and favours boxes of mixed mints including ones that had been made to reflect the design of the wedding cake. The wedding cake was topped with a figurine of wedding couple on a motorbike painted especially to resemble Richard and an old motorbike.
