cloudless blue sky, warm breeze, actual real life hot sun! sarah and tim chose the hunting lodge hotel in cottingham northamptonshire for their wedding as it was a really personal location to the couple. tim's grandma and grandad had actually got married there when they were young, followed by the silver wedding anniversary of his parents and then tim himself had previously worked there for almost ten years! this all made a lot of sense to me when i found out, as the whole place had a real family atmosphere, almost like everyone was just hanging out at a friends (spectacular) house!
as i walked up the gorgeous long driveway and saw the sun through through the trees i started to get excited about shooting sarah and tim's big day. excited until i got to the top of the drive outside the hotel, then became super excited, as i was greeted by a very happy sarah peeking out of one of the windows with a massive grin on her face, "hiiiiiiiii you're here!" yes i was! so got right to work.
as i would just be shooting the ceremony, drinks reception and group photos, i headed off to the room dressed for the wedding breakfast so i could capture what a beautiful and creative job had been made on the tables. tiny potted candles, little glass cups full of mini easter eggs all wrapped in different coloured foils and tiny pink jewels scattered around the beautiful name cards hand made by sarah herself, everything looked perfect.
pink was the main colour, and it worked perfectly especially with it being such a bright and sunny day. whilst i was snapping away tim popped in for final inspections before going off to prepare with the registrar so i took the opportunity to sneak up to sarah's room. on entry i was struck by the buzz in the room, everyone beaming and giddy and a very excitable gabby, sarah and tim's little girl.
when everyone left to go and get seated for the ceremony i took a few minutes with sarah to take some photographs of her looking quite honestly stunning, such a unique dress which hid a garter containing her late grandma's handkerchief which i thought was such a lovely touch, gorgeously quirky shoes and an incredibly beautiful hair piece that had actually been handmade for her by a close friend at the wedding, she looked amazing. standing with gabby in her tiny white and pink princess dress complete with wand, they looked just perfect.
instead of being "given away" by her dad, sarah had chose to walk down the isle with gabby and it was an adorable idea, as soon as tim turned around to see them gabby let go of sarah's hand and ran towards tim for a big cuddle and i think everyone had a bit of a moment!
everything went off without a hitch, lovely readings, beautiful music and when the newly married couple walked down the isle with gabby trotting behind they couldn't have looked happier.
we all came outside into the sunshine for a complimentary glass of pimm's, and between chatting, laughing and a lot of stray confetti, i took the couple and their family aside into the beautiful gardens for their group photos which ended up being very casual and a lot of fun, wandered down the drive with the best men (including drinks!) and finally into the courtyard garden with sarah and tim for them to have a few minutes of alone time, enabling me to get some beautiful pictures of them together.
so that was my work done! all apart from the fact i had been invited back as a guest in the evening which i thought was incredibly sweet, so as a little wedding present of my own to the couple i returned with camera, and shot their first dance. it was possibly the happiest first dance i've ever seen at a wedding, both beaming along to the beach boys "god only knows" (how can you not??) and a wonderful evening was had by all.
...proudly being one of the last ones standing heading into the early hours, i was privileged enough to have witnessed sarah's wonderful un-official karaoke rendition of possibly every erasure song known to man whilst spinning around the dance floor, it then looked almost like she had started to sing to someone...
wonderful enough a moment in it's self, till my date tapped me on the arm and nodded towards the doorway with a "haha look", and there stood my favourite part of the whole day...
tim simply standing staring at her, with a look of absolute beaming adoration all over his face. which at a moment like that, you could see they were made for each other. x
*full photoset can be found on the facebook page and coming soon to the website. links at the top of the page x
