Documentary Wedding Stories : Mister Phill

If you took a multitude of rays of light reflected off multifarious manifestations of human decency and passed them through a convex lens that converged all of those rays towards a single point and then arrayed them onto a surface, you’d likely be presented with an image on that surface that looked something very much like Sara & Paul.

I was blessed with the good fortune to be able to simply photograph them as they were.

Sara & Paul had plans to marry in a castle on the Dorset-Hampshire border and to celebrate in a tented village set upon a tree-encircled meadow near the New Forest village of Boldre. They were looking for a photographer that would blend in and capture the day’s story as it naturally unfolded – sounds familiar! – and it was lucky for me that Sara came across one of my weddings featured on a wedding inspiration blog and she and Paul felt that my way of seeing things fitted the bill. We spoke via email, we spoke over the ‘phone, they booked, I looked forward with excitement to their wedding day. This is the story of that day… View full post »

Laura & Tim have hearts so big that you could climb on board and float your way up to the Moon in them. They are both individually and together a tonic to spend time with; downright uplifting souls. They come packaged with an energetic bunch of friends and family that again, are just great to spend time amongst.

Whilst planning her and Tim’s wedding – that was set to take place in and around Bury St Edmunds with a ceremony at a church within the town and subsequent celebrations a little way out into the surrounding countryside at Suffolk Barn – Laura had come across my Web site but didn’t initially make contact with me, assuming that I might be too far away to cover Suffolk.

I’m based roughly half way along the bottom of the UK; surrounded by land through a span of 180 degrees and through the other 180, it’s just sea. Then France. As I look out to sea (I can’t actually see the sea from where I’m sat, though; I can just see my computer screen) Suffolk is about as far to the left of where I am as things get, in the UK at least. Actually, Norfolk is further to the left and I have photographed a couple of weddings in that county, too. Both counties are actually to the left and up a bit also (or behind me, as I act this out with my arms and hands) and were I more properly taking a base line along the coast it would be Kent that is furthest to the left and the leftmost that I’ve travelled to photograph a wedding there has been on the Isle of Sheppey, which as it happens is exactly due South of Bury St. Edmunds. In saying all of this, I should really be describing directions from the standpoint of looking at a map of the UK in its standardly expected orientation whereby, of course, all of these places are over to the right of the country and indeed to my right from where I am located. Also, where I am sat as I write this, I am facing away from the sea. I’ve learnt a lot about the geography of the UK through my adventures in the world of weddings; an understanding of the orientation of things might at times elude me though :~).

Not uncharacteristically perhaps, I digress!

So… initially Laura didn’t make contact with me and searched for a wedding photographer closer to home, but she kept popping back onto my Web site and I’m so thankful that she did so, and that she did then make contact because… well… happy me! :~) I got to do what I love doing and with people that I couldn’t have loved more doing it with.

This is the story of Laura & Tim’s wedding day and it starts with what I believe should become a wedding day tradition for all marrying couples… a wedding day banana… View full post »

I’d photographed the wedding of one of Natasha’s sisters, Kataya, back in 2012 when the latter married Richard. Natasha and her other sister, Tara, had served unfalteringly and excellently as bridesmaids to Kataya on that occasion. Thomas had served as a hard working usher at that same wedding. Over the ensuing six years, a series of interlinked weddings saw me travelling to Northern Ireland (where Thomas also popped up) and Scotland, and come 2018 it was a thorough delight to return to the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset for Natasha & Thomas’s wedding day.

I have a deep rooted fondness for that part of the world and leapt at the opportunity to head over to Purbeck to meet up with the two in advance of their wedding. I had recently discovered the existence of Agglestone Rock (featured in a leaflet I’d found containing a list of Purbeck sights; it has also attracted some rather humorous reviews on Trip Advisor) and being keen to see it for myself, I suggested to Natasha and Thomas that we take a walk there. I was thoroughly delighted with the rock and at least as delighted again to spend time getting to know Natasha & Thomas, important actors in previous weddings that I’d not – previously – spoken with.

In Natasha, I found a deeply thoughtful and poetic soul; in Thomas, a fascinatingly interconnected thinker. My experience of the rock, of setting foot on Purbeck and spending time with the two of them all combined to leave me feeling greatly at peace with the world; greatly excited at the same time to immerse myself in their wedding day in order to record its story and… this is that story… View full post »