Perfect Weather for a Wedding

The weather last weekend, throughout most of the UK, was appalling thanks to the tail end of Hurricane Bertha. Fortunately we managed to find a nice dry and sunny spot to spend Saturday; Achnagairn Castle just outside Inverness. A trip to Inverness for the weekend isn't something we would normally do, the ten hours it takes to drive there usually rules it out, but on this occasion, even a full on hurricane wouldn't have stopped us from getting there as we were attending a family wedding.

When we got up on the Saturday morning we couldn't believe the weather as it was wonderfully warm and sunny, although the forecast was still suggesting rain for the afternoon. By the time everyone started to assemble there was still no sign of the rain. At this point I should probably introduce the happy couple; Gareth (Bryony's cousin) and his wife Carol.

Having been to a number of weddings in recent years I find this photo extremely interesting. At every wedding I've ever been too, I've either not seen the register being signed (this happens with church weddings when the bride and groom wonder off to sign the register), or have been explicitly told that photography during the signing is prohibited (some legal reason that I've never understood). Yes you'll have seen plenty of photos of people signing the register at their wedding, but they are all staged with a blank register, not the actual one. It appears, however, that in Scotland the laws are different. This is the first civil wedding I've been to in Scotland (we went to a church wedding in St. Andrews a few years ago) so the signing took place in front of us, but this time we were actively encouraged to take photos.

Anyway it wouldn't be a Scottish wedding without lots of men in kilts, including the groom and his father.

Given the long trip home, we called it a night at around midnight by which point it still hadn't rained and everyone seemed to have had a fantastic day. I've lots more photos to sort through so there might be another post, but I'll end this post by saying congratulations again to Gareth and Carol and thanks for inviting us.

The Reception

As I mentioned in my previous post, the reception for Helen and Ian's wedding was held at Otterton Mill. As it's name suggests the mill is in the small village of Otterton right on the banks of the River Otter. The wonderful setting was fantastic for photos and the weather continued to stay fine so until dinner was ready most people hung around outside enjoying a pleasant evening.

I don't know what food is like at Otterton Mill during the day but it was absolutely wonderful for the evening reception. Proper sized portions of locally sourced food -- the pork casserole just melted in my mouth. There were no speechs and no music which meant the evening was filled with conversation and slowly wound to a close bringing a perfect day to a perfect end.

The Wedding

We took a lot of photos at Helen and Ian's wedding last weekend. You've already had a teaser but given how many photos there are I though I'd split them across a number of posts. As the wedding and reception were held in different places I thought I'd start with a post about each before doing some photo mosaics/collages. So...

All week the weather forecast for Saturday had been getting progressively worse and when we woke upon on Saturday it was raining. I don't mean a slight drizzle but more the biblical downpour type of rain. Fortunately the wedding wasn't until 4:30pm so we spent a lot of the morning looking out of the window and crossing out fingers.

Fortunately by 4pm it had cleared up just in time for everyone to start to arrive at Woodbury Park Hotel for the ceremony. The ceremony itself was lovely and simple. By the time it was over the sun was out and we all headed into the grounds for photos.

As well as the traditional posed photos lots were taken of people randomly walking around through the tree covered paths and I'm sure quite a lot of excellent photos were taken by both guests and the official photographers. This is by far my favourite of the photos I took during this period. I was going to show you a close up of the grooms cane, as it is definitely different, but Helen has already beaten me too it and her photo is much clearer.

After the photos at the hotel, Helen and Ian headed to the beach for some more photos while we all made our way to Otterton Mill for the reception.

There Were Hats!

We spent last weekend in Exeter as my sister-in-law Helen and her partner Ian were getting married. It was a great weekend and I'm sure there will be a number of blog posts (from both me and other members of the family) but I thought I'd start with...