Wedding Day Morning

On the morning of the wedding I was trying to keep out of the way because the house was full of women getting ready for the big day.  All the bridesmaids had stopped at the house overnight so were all just getting themselves up, showered and doing their hair and makeup etc.  I'd already been out to take Emma's dog to the dog minders as we didn't think it would be fair for her to be at the ceremony, reception or night do.

I'd also been to see the yurt (fancy marquee) as I'd been at work when it was being got ready so I hadn't seen it before.  Unfortunately I didn't take my camera otherwise I would have taken some photos because it looked really beautiful with all the tables set up and the bunting strung about the ceiling.  Fortunately thought Mark, the professional photographer, took some photos later (after the balloons had been delivered but before anyone else had arrived) so we have some good shots to remind us how it looked before the party.

  When I got back to the house Leanne (the hairdresser) had also arrived so I was even more outnumbered.  Mark was arriving later to take some photos of the bride and bridesmaids preparation but Emma asked me to take a few shots of the devastation before he arrived.

Ellen was definitely the poser of the group and so features prominently in the selection.  Here she is with the rollers and applying the blusher.

Next to Ellen we have Becca doing the eyes.

And up in the brides preparation bedroom I found Laura, not sure what she was doing, but looking very demure.

Mark arrived to take photos, so I put my camera away and retreated to my study for a while so I was out of the way.  He took some wonderful photos of the girls getting ready and other things like the flowers, Emma's shoes, the bridesmaids dresses hung up in the bedroom and some of the bride and bridesmaids dressed and ready for action.  I'd not seen the wedding dress so he also took some shots of my reaction to seeing Emma for the first time in her dress, so that was quite emotional and embarrassing for me.

After Mark left for the church and to catch up with the boys in the pub, I took over with the photography duties.  Here's Ellen again looking great, no surprise.

Then we have Ellen, Joanne and Becca with an old portrait of Emma and Ginny in the background.

Here Emma is making her way slowly down the stairs, they're quite steep and there was a lot of dress.

Yes, it's Ellen again having some bucks fizz before we go.

Emma is starting to look a bit nervous as we make final preparations to go.

Lynne looks to be making a toast to the bridesmaids.

Haven't seen much of Ginny this morning.  I think she's been taking her Maid of Honour duties seriously and making sure that Emma has had all the help she needed to get ready.

Finally the four bridesmaids all in a row.  Looks like the outside door is open in the background so we must be almost on our way.

Emma and I waited for about five minutes after the bridesmaids set off in their old fashioned Daimler limousine before we went to our vintage Bentley convertible.  We thought we'd give them plenty of time to get themselves in place for Emma to arrive and be greeted by them.  Unfortunately the driver of the limo took the long route to the church via Huddersfield town centre while we took a more direct route passing Castle Hill, so we arrived at the church almost ten minutes before the other car.

Anyway, we all got there in the end and had a wonderful service, reception and then partied through to the early hours.

One last thing, I promised a link to the blog post of the wedding from Mark Tierney Photography from where you can visit the rest of his site and see some more of his wonderful work.   If you're looking for a brilliant, contemporary wedding photographer I can wholeheartedly recommend Mark.  He was very friendly, unobtrusive, worked very hard on the day and produced some amazing photographs.  Last week we looked through the 700 plus proofing photos that he put in the client area of his site for Emma and Dan to choose from for their wedding album, and I don't know how they're going to narrow their selection down to 140.  Hopefully I will be able to post some of the photos in this blog at a later date, I'll check it's OK with Mark first of course.

Wedding Practice

OK, I know.  I've been very lazy and not posted for months.  It's my normal winter time lack of enthusiasm that seems to overtake me for longer every year.  I've no taken many photos in the past months and to be honest most of the photos on this post were taken by my wife as I was busy doing my part in the practice and are in some of them.

So my eldest daughter was married at the end of March and we went to a practice at the Church a couple of evenings before the big day.  The practice was at the All Hallows Church in Almondbury, Huddersfield.  It is a beautiful old church across the road from the Woolpack pub which is run by Dan Martin, my new son in law.

The practice went through the whole ceremony and enabled us to know what we were to do on the day and to make some decisions about the fine details.  In this first photo we are receiving final instructions from Rob the vicar who is a friend of Emma's from the school where she works. He was very laid back and humorous during the practice and the wedding for real.

Here we are about to start off down the aisle which involved splitting around the big old font and then getting back together again.  We had to make sure we didn't go too fast as Rob said that some people end up almost sprinting down to the front of the church.

The other Rob did the first reading which was all about the meaning of love and he was so nervous.  But he did a great job and had everyone in tears, at the practice and at the wedding.  I think maybe the "Spank the Monkey" t-shirt was a little inappropriate for the location but no-one seemed to mind.

Here are three of the bridesmaids and a substitute (Rob's (not the vicar) girlfriend) for the evening, stood in the aisle during the first part of the ceremony.  I am quite impressed with Lynne's (my wife) composition of the photo with the bible in the foreground.  Maybe she should be the photographer of the family rather than me.

Here's Rob and Owen (Dans half brother) intently watching the proceedings.  A bit like a couple of rather odd looking bookends with their arms folded.

Here's the happy couple exchanging rings with Will (the best man) looking on.  There's me again in the background and even though I'd finished my participation in the ceremony I couldn't get my camera back from Lynne.

This must be a serious part of the ceremony as they are knelt before the vicar.

Here's Ellen doing the second reading which was an extract from The Velveteen Rabbit where the Skin Horse explains to Rabbit about what it means to be real.  Another tear jerker which I'm glad that I heard at the practice otherwise I'd have been in pieces at the real wedding.

Finally managed to rescue my camera from Lynne and grab a quick candid of her with Emma and Laura.  She really doesn't like having her photo taken so I had to be a bit sneaky to get this one.

Finally we have Emma and Joanne leaving the church to pop over the road to the pub for a quick drink before heading off home.  Emma looks pretty excited about getting through the practice and looking forward to the real thing after two more sleeps.

Next time I have some photos that I took from the wedding day morning.  I didn't take my camera to the wedding as we had a professional photographer who took some amazing shots and I'll link to his site and blog in my next post.  We also are accumulating hundreds of photos taken by people at the wedding and the rest of the day so I might post some of those too at a later date.