It was my 50th marriage, with a great many more to come. For Jo & Mark it was one of a kind. Regardless of those 49 prior commissions it was one of a kind for me too. Every wedding is the most important wedding in the world. The emotional value, the intensity, doesn’t wear thin. The enjoyment of absorbing and relating each unique story does not abate with time.
Having Lake District wedding photographer Thomas Beecham along for the journey was an exceptional added bonus in the weaving of that visual narrative too. Thomas had joined me on a previous wedding earlier in the year in Hertfordshire. Often-times I couldn’t tell his images from mine. Adding to this useful melding of style, Thomas also has a great manner with people so I was more than happy to host him on a visit to Dorset for a weekend of weddings. We get everywhere.
Thomas doesn’t play golf so I thought who better to drop into the middle of a game with cameras at the ready as Mark and his groomsmen warmed up for the day ahead. Novel situations provoke novel perspectives.
Sitting on the dock of the bay. Standing, perhaps more appropriately. I was lying down. Strictly speaking it’s a natural harbour and not a bay. None of that would fit the tune quite so well though…
Best foot forward. With hindsight, I should have snaffled a pair of golf shoes too…
Introducing Jo, her Mum too, Jo and Mark’s little fellow, his new Build-a-Bear and two of Jo’s three flower-girls. Not necessarily in that order…
Jo’s sister and niece, again not necessarily in that order (and not to ignore the existence of the make-up-artist but she wasn’t a family relative as far as I’m aware)…
Murky images or more-so images of a murky outlook but I think worthy of maintaining in the narrative mix if only to counterpoint just how beautifully the day did turn out…
Meanwhile…
As ever, I love the juxtapositions that synchronised camera clocks reveal and suggest…
I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s definitely not Blue Steel. Magnum maybe?..
A collective of nouns. A chaos of brides-women? (Usually it’s a kerfuffle of groomsmen but back at Thomas’s end all seemed solidly arrayed)…
Doesn’t really need explaining does it?..
Jo’s Dad, a tower of positivity…
It’s an enriching process each and every time, being allowed to immerse myself in the very midst of a wedding from beginning to end. A positive force. Some of it must rub off on me; without a doubt it always does. At times something additionally profound lingers in my mind, stays with me, locks itself into my hopes and aspirations for myself, what I am and what I want to be. A positive example is witnessed, one might say. Seeing how practically involved Jo’s Dad was, at this juncture in the final stages of preparations; it’s something I’d not before seen to such a level. If, as and when I find myself on a day such as this as a father, the father that I am, this is the person I’d want to be.
And the Sun breaks through…
To Highcliffe Castle…
An uncertainty of buttonholes.
A fairytale of flower-girls.
Video Unit 2, well prepared against the elements…
An accommodation of registrars. Happy to come out through the rain to run through the pre-ceremony legal niceties…
An anticipation of groomsmen…
An exhaustion of collective nouns, so on to this utterly sartorial little dude, Jo & Mark’s son again (and nice hat as well, Jo’s Mum!)…
Totally inappropriate I know but I can’t shake the theme tune of The Sweeney out of my head when I see this shot. Unless I replace it with that of The Professionals. I’m sorry…
Congratulations Jo & Mark! But wait, there’s more >>>
Contact Dorset Wedding Photographer Phillip Allen : phill@misterphill.com : 07870 696248
