What’s the worst thing you can imagine happening in the lead up to your wedding?
I have a friend whose wedding dress was destroyed after her dressmaker’s shop burned down (fortunately there was just enough time before the wedding for a remake). Several years ago I arrived at a venue in London to discover a bride in tears, her make up artist was stuck in traffic and wasn’t going to be there in time, and her dressmaker who was delivering the dress on the day was stuck in the same traffic and was going to be very late (the bridesmaids had a different make up artist who stepped up to the plate and made the bride beautiful, and the dress eventually turned up just in the nick of time). I photographed a wedding earlier this year where a groomsman required a trip the hospital after a surfing mishap on the morning of the wedding required a bunch of stitches in his chin (he was fine for the wedding).
Things seldom go exactly as planned, but the curve ball thrown at Christine and Marc just 9 days out from their wedding was among the worst I’ve seen. At the 11thhour they received a phone call, the venue they had booked for their wedding and reception had gone into administration and had ceased trading, they would need to find a new venue for their wedding. The call came on the Thursday afternoon before everything shut down for the Easter long weekend, so they literally had just a handful of hours to arrange a whole new venue or they’d be forced to wait until Tuesday of the following week which wouldn’t provide enough time to get the message through to all their guests about the change of plan. Fortunately the Sebel Playford stepped in to save the day and everything went off without a hitch, so to speak.
One thing I loved about this wedding is that their kids were heavily involved throughout the ceremony and the day, it wasn’t just a celebration of two people coming together, rather an entire family being formally united. Plus, it gave me something different to take photos of which is always nice!
The ceremony was followed by a lunchtime reception, some speeches and dancing and eventually a quick photo shoot with just Christine and Marc around the West end of the city. There may not have been any bridesmaids or groomsmen, but this wedding had something far more important, a room full of family and friends witnessing and celebrating a family becoming united as one.
I’ll be putting some more images up on my Facebook business page shortly so if you want to see these make sure you head on over and “like” the page!
