Hello there, well after an exciting week, it was time to get back to work today, so I set my alarm for an early start (7am) and headed off to bed early. Needless to say Soukie woke up at around 4:30 am and decided if she was awake everyone had to be awake so setting the alarm was for nothing.
For those of you who find my blog via the search engines, Welcome, my name is David Purslow and I am a wedding and portrait photographer based in pembrokeshire, my website is located at www.davidpurslow.com
Seriously, Today I had the great pleasure of shooting the wedding of a local couple, Megan and Paul. These guys live a few villages away from me and are farmers – I say this because when they came round to view my portfolio and book me, they looked like farmers, talked like farmers and actaully farm Dairy – Cows for a living. Up at 4am and working a long hard day every day of the year – so me moaning about a 7am start really does not even start to scratch the surface.
I have bumped into Paul and Megan from time to time and have seen the excitement grow as the date started to draw near – I went over to do a drive by (go visit all the locations so I know exactly where to go and how to get there) as in this part of West Wales (Pembrokeshire) the places can be a little out in the middle of nowhere and sat nav may only get you in the same town fi your lucky !
So I arranged to meet Megan at the hair dressers Michelle’s in Fishguard (Goodwick) – when I turned up at 8:30 the place was buzzing there were girls everywhere in various states of having their hair done – A superstision of mine is to make sure I take the first picture of the day of bride, so here is my first picture.
I love this shot of Megan – again its a bridal preperation photo – shots of the bride getting ready – in my opinion some of the best shots of the day happen way before the wedding actuall starts and the groom normally misses out on all these.
I love Megan’s expression in this photo – bless her, she was so nurvous at this stage – as you will see as the morning went along she transformed into the bride to be and looked amazing.
Here is another shot taken at Michelle’s of Megan haveing her hair done
So remember I said Megan is a farmer, well some of her bridesmaids and her friends are as well – the reason I tell yout his is in the next photo one of the girls is sticking on false nails – nothing unusual about that but the snippet of the conversation I overheard (photographers hear the strangest things) put a smile on my face – it went something like ” I am never going to be able to pull a calf out with these things on my fingers, let along drive a tractor” – not something you hear every day.
and not only were the girls all good sports and put up with me taking pictures all the time, Megans mum or the Mother of the bride (MOB) was a great sport also – we will see more of the MOB soon. But in this shot he is just getting ready to have her hair done.
Once Megan had finished having her hair done, her make up lady (Jennifer Mills – 07968-546106) did the make up in a little room in the back of the hair salon – these first two photos are a little smaller as they are pictures I send off to other wedding suppliers when I work with them on the day – they are email sized not blog sized
and something just a little arty
It was around this time that the MOB saw Megan and burst into tears – tears are nothing out of the norm when the bride is getting dressed and having makeup done and whenver possible I like to get sneaky photos of them – when I am talking about capturing the emotion of the day, these are exactly what I mean.
Well the wedding story is going to take a big jump from here because we (the wedding party) ran out of time, for some reason we seemed to fall behind by about an hour so the planned shots at the house when Megan got dressed, the dress shots etc – they all got scratched – this is one of those fluid moments that keeps you on your toes as a photographer.
I drove Megan and her bridesmaids back to the house to get dressed QUICKLY ! – while I made my way to the church – one bridesmaid was still left at the hairdresses at this time.
So lets jump to the church – The church is located in a really small village called Manerowen Church and is a TINY little place that is only open once every 2 weeks, it also looks like something out of a Tim Burton Movie (Sleepy Hollow etc) – I have worked a little on the image so it looks how I saw it in my minds eye. – one of the things you have to do as a photographer is see what you want to shoot and then make it happen. Today was a VERY wet and increadably windy day so the chance of doing pictures outside was a non starter and I knew when I came to tell that part of the story in the wedding album, I would need a dramatic picture to do jus that.
So remember when I said that a lot of the friends are farmers, well this next picture sort of demonstrates that and the care for the enviroment that they have – This usher was so concerned that these bushes seemed not to be getting enough to drink that he helped them out while waiting for Megan to arrive – he did joke that I would need a much bigger lens to take a picture but I have no idea what he was talking about
Here is a shot of Paul with his goomsmen
and holding up one of the rings
From here we are going to move quickly along so lets jump to the wedding itself – the Church at Manerowen is pretty small on the inside but it is filled with a ton of charm. – Here are a few pics from the wedding itself.
From the church it was into the Limo and off back up to the farm to shoot a ocuple of photos around the garden
Following the Wedding and the photos at Paul n Megans house it was back to to Mathery for the reception – here are a couple of shots from there.
and last but not least, the cutting of the cake
Well all it leaves me to do is say a big congratulations to Paul and Megan and from our family to yours, we wish you all the very best, take care and see you soon,
Ciao dp
David Purslow
Photographer
www.davidpurslow.com
Phone 01437 779412
Mobile 0759 0076666
Wedding and portrait photography for South Wales, West Wales, Pembrokeshire etc……
These baby portraits break one of the fundermental rules of baby portrait photography – the one about dont take photos of babies iwth fingers in their mouths. The shoot is for a local couple who wanted 3 or 4 baby portraits to go alongside some portraits of their eldest which they had done years ago (not by me)