Dorset Wedding : Ruth & Hamish : Part One

I could explain, but I feel it's best left hanging.

Symondsbury Manor is beautiful. It's the kind of beauty that certainly runs more than skin deep. It certainly has everything one would need to host a wedding and then some, but it doesn't labour over the façade of elegance. It wears its heart on its sleeve and in umpteen corners, nooks and crannies. The interior runs like a stream of consciousness with an array of guest rooms up, down and sideways, populated throughout with art you'd not likely see in any other venue pitching itself to the wedding market. It's a place for the adventurous, imaginative and passionate and if you're any or all of those I dare say you'd love it at first sight.

Ruth. Ruth is brilliant. She climbs cliff faces. She's utterly down to Earth.

Additionally she's from Malta and I loved the cultural nuances that wove their way in to the day.

For Ruth's bridesmaids it was not only their first time to take on such a role but their first ever wedding too. Utterly excited without getting giddy; they did a splendid job.

Hamish. Ditto. Exactly what I said for Ruth. A brilliant couple. I get brilliant clients all the time. Couldn't have asked for brillianter in this case.

Thankfully there were at least 4 stops of difference in the lighting between exterior and interior but Hamish suggested I might want to avert my camera's gaze as he stepped over me.

Ruth found it amusing. A coincidental narrative inference in the photographic record? Who knows.

I've always found it marvellous, how women interact and work together during bridal preparations. Maybe it was the additional insight into the workings of a Mediterranean matriarchy that led to me having a little epiphany of sorts on this day. All those times I've observed (and unashamedly photographed) men struggling valiantly with their wedding day accoutrements (when I say valiantly I mean with a spirit of confusion and embarrassment mixed sometimes with terror) I've never once seen the same state of confusion descend upon a party of women preparing for the big event (plenty of battles with time though!) I now realise there's a simple reason for both outcomes. Women rather sensibly know you just have to pitch in as a team to get it all done, from the outset. Men do what men tend to do. Struggle, valiantly, individuals in a heroic mould (then cave in and ask for help which is great for me, from a photographic standpoint, if I happen to be in the right place at the right time :~)

In the blink of an eye.

And it was time for Ruth to be transported to the church...