Hampton Court House Wedding : Farah & Ivor : Part One

Your parents met. They married. They had you. You were born on opposite sides of the world, in the same town, the same city, the same village, the same street, a hundred miles apart. You grew up. You met. You met at a party; you met in an office; you met in an elevator. You met at an airport, stranded by an invisible cloud of ash. In a bank. You met in a bank robbery. He rescued you from a bank robbery. You met in a bookshop. She rescued you from a bookshop. You met on the Internet. You rescued each other from the Internet. At first you didn’t notice each other. It was love at first sight. It was a spark that grew slowly but strongly. It was a spark that grew quickly.

You met.

She flopped down into a chair in front of you, at the end of a work shift. You were enchanted.

A new journey commenced.

You met and you scored your dream in the sand.

I awoke on the morning of Farah & Ivor’s wedding day in a good mood. Whilst I’d certainly not describe myself as a morning person I don’t tend to wake up grumpy anyway, mostly just dazed and confused. I awoke in a good mood because:

a. It was the morning of Farah & Ivor’s wedding.
b. I invariably wake up charged on the morning of a wedding.
c. I woke up to a view that couldn’t but leave me feeling so.

I’m not beholden to wedding venues, to specific ones, in general. I’m beholden to people. I follow where they go and appreciate where they choose to do it all but it’s them, first and foremost, that I’m there for. Since photographing Caroline & Tom’s wedding at Hampton Court House last Christmas though I’d always harboured the hope of being commissioned to photograph another wedding there, not because it’s a lovely venue (which it is) but because I’d then have an excuse to stay once again at the Houseboat Riverine, a bed and breakfast establishment floating on the River Thames, moored to the banks of Taggs Island and just a short hop from Hampton Court House itself. I was so impressed with the accommodation, service and the breakfast (always an important start to a long day on one’s feet) the last time I stayed, I featured it in my piece on Caroline & Tom’s wedding. Farah almost went with the idea of staying at the Houseboat Riverine herself and doing all her wedding morning preparations there, having read what I had to say about the place after my last stay, but decided it might be a bit precarious getting ashore in a wedding dress so settled for somewhere a little more spacious. It’s probably a good thing.

There’d likely have been no room left over for me to book in to.

The perfect awakening in hand and perfectly fortified for the day ahead I started off some 120 seconds up the road (having first crossed a bridge) at The Kings Arms Hotel where Ivor and his brother Tristan, also his best man, had spent the eve of the wedding…

They’d already been out that morning on an organised run, followed by a marathon breakfast back at the hotel…

Farah and her bridal entourage were getting ready at Warren House, a further 900 seconds away in moderate traffic…

I’ll apologise in advance…

Brace yourself…

Who’s Choo…

He’s behind you…

Amongst the most discrete and unobtrusive of wedding videographers I’ve worked alongside, he appears here solely because I made a deliberate point of including him in a photograph; it’s all part of the bigger picture after all. I’d provide a link and a recommendation but he was that discrete, I know as much about him as you do…

I’m a fan (really, I should be arrested)…

I had my face to the wall at the appropriate juncture…

I thought I’d wait to see if anybody noticed. Yes, a new room indeed…

(Much as I would have loved to have photographed Kingston traffic on a Saturday afternoon) Zoom…

Best ushers ever. Well page boys. Still, best ushers ever…

Farah and her sisters. Sans Farah. She’ll be along shortly…

The ceremony was, simply put, fantastic; very much about Farah & Ivor; highly accommodating registrars and full participants in proceedings as well. They even joined in the singing during the two… I keep wanting to call them hymns but technically speaking, they weren’t hymns (songs and readings of a religious nature not being allowed in civil ceremonies). An Elvis number, I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You and Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend almost had me singing too, but with a camera pressed up to my face most of the time, jaw movement would have been inadvisable. Probably a good thing considering my singing talents.

I have the notion that I could relate the full story of a wedding day purely through images of hand positioning and gesture. I imagine I’d be narrowing down my market significantly though if I pursued the notion fully…

Farah’s father was quite apparently happy with his daughter’s choice; words during the speeches later in the day backed up what the images suggested…

Later into the afternoon I asked Farah & Ivor if my proximity during the ceremony had caused them any distraction. The last time I’d been at Hampton Court House for a wedding I’d been able to bury myself in a sizeable Christmas tree adjacent to the ceremony table but on this occasion the vase of flowers on a pedestal didn’t afford quite the same degree of verdant cover. They told me they’d not noticed my presence whatsoever, they’d been so wrapped up in each other and the emotion of the occasion. It’s a question I often ask, a response I invariably get and it always amuses me when I see that one photograph (it’s really nice as well to be made to feel an accepted part of the occasion myself)…

Such versatile devices…

The battery never gives out on this one though…

A signing of the times…

For those that were there, pardon the creative license with the narrative chronology…

If memory serves me correctly there was a good bit of rain the day before their wedding and it was preposterously foggy for certain on the following day but Farah & Ivor seem to have a knack for bringing good weather with them. A couple of weeks earlier they’d visited me in Dorset for a pre-wedding shoot and in the midst of a month of grey and damp managed to re-animate the tail end of summer and top it all off with a sunset fit for the Caribbean.

That’s the group shots covered…

I never have a problem with the little uns but getting the grown ups to look in the right direction, that’s always a challenge…

The journey continues in Part Two >>>

Contact Surrey Wedding Photographer Phillip Allen : phill@misterphill.com : 07870 696248