Emily & Joe – Oldwalls wedding

When Emily met Joe she knew she had met her Prince Charming … sound very corny? Well, it’s not because she did as they were performing on stage together and Emily was playing Cinderella to Joe’s Prince Charming! Their Oldwalls Wedding was 5 years later after Joe proposed at the top of the Shard and the fairytale was complete. The end!

Well, perhaps not – certainly just a beginning for them and would not be a very long blog post … I met with Joe and Emily a year before the wedding and our shared background in theatre gave us plenty to talk about and we probably talked about that as much as we did the wedding! Although I had photographed at Oldwalls before so I could talk them through the day in more detail than they probably knew about at that point. Oldwalls is a great wedding venue and on a glorious summer day like that one was it is hard to beat it for wedding photos. The day was sunny and hot – although not one of the hottest of last year – which had plenty of days that were too hot to be wearing a suit!

Emily got ready at Mulberry cottage and looked absolutely stunning in her Pronovias dress from Alison Jayne in Swansea and I love the photographs I took of her in her dress before we headed off to the venue. They are slightly different from my usual style but I had a few minutes so I went for it. I really like them! Emily’s bridesmaid had a dress on from Rowberrys in Swansea and also looked gorgeous. The flowers were from Garden of Eden in Swansea.

When I got to the venue I was able to catch up with Joe and his boys decked out in their suits from Luigi’s in Brighton. Once I have photographed the boys I always relax a bit as it means I have the shots on the card that I need before the ceremony starts. It’s then just a matter of waiting for the bride to arrive … and relax! Obviously I don’t relax much or for long but getting the key shots done on a wedding does mean that you have all the stuff to build around for the day. Its then a cse of taking candids and finding those fun moments.

The ceremony and post-ceremony time seemed to fly by and once we had the family photographs done we wandered around the stunning grounds for 20 minutes and took the photos for the first portrait session of the day. The second was as the sun was setting after first dance and those shots were great – we just got there in time too as the sun was about to dip over the hill.

The other standard parts of the day went well and it was a really fun day with loads of laughing and I got to chat to a few people as well as photograph them laughing and having a great time. It was a slightly unusual day for me as I was staying longer to capture the fireworks. The couple paid more for this and after the first set by Fat Barrys Soul Band (who I photographed at Emma and Steffan’s wedding earlier in the year – Steffan’s Dad plays in the band), everyone went outside to see the display. I was slightly worried as fireworks are not the easiest thing to photograph in a dark field but with my trusting lighting and some luck, we got great photographs!

That was the end of the night for me and the trip back to Cardiff getting ready for another wedding in a busy few weeks for me – which were hard work but enjoyable. Emily and Joe loved their photos and their thoughts on the day (and me) can be found here. Thanks guys – I loved it!

Please get in touch if you like what you see and lets meet and chat over a coffee.