The Wedding that Brought the Sun Back Out

The sun is welcome at any wedding but at Steve and Lucy's wedding it was particularly welcome.

Steve and Lucy were married on 6 April 2013 in the New Forest Wedding at the Balmer Lawn Hotel. 

The previous week we met them at the Balmer Lawn for a location visit. The weather was grey and starting to rain. This was no surprise to any of us. It was the end of a very long and grey Winter which came after the worst Summer we could remember and the onset of Spring was so late it was looking as though we might have a second dismal Summer.

One week later and the weather couldn't have been more different. It was warm and sunny with pretty white clouds. There were no leaves on the trees but other than that it could have been Summer.

We didn't know it then but their fabulous wedding was to herald the start of one of the best Summer's we've had for years.

Lucy had her Bridal Prep in the Bridal Suite of the Balmer Lawn Hotel.

The room had an awesome four poster bed.

It was the perfect place to get ready for her wedding. It had plenty of space, great atmosphere and lovely view across the lawn and cricket pitch.

It was so nice to be shooting in the sun again, we'd almost forgotten what it was like.

The week before on our location visit with Steve and Lucy we had walked down to the little stream across the road from the hotel. At the time we thought it unlikely that we'd bother to walk there on the day because it was muddy, the trees were brown, the sky was likely to be grey and the route was covered in donkey poo. We referred to it as "Donkey Poo Walk" and we wrote a blog post about it: Donkey Poo Walk and the Return of the Shetty

On the day though it was perfect. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the clouds were white and the water twinkled its blue reflection of the sky. It was just like Summer, apart of course for the lack of leaves in the trees...but also in the Summer, this particular stream in the New Forest would have been full of kids in bathing suites and inflatable boats. These sorts of portraits would have been very difficult in the Summer.

The sun coming out made the guests as well as the bride and groom even happier than they would have been.

It was a photographer's dream come true, the sun even lit up the venue.

Come the end of the day, the sun still wasn't done casting its magic.

It was as though the sun had been locked up for so long and that on the day it had at last been allowed out to play, it was going to make the most of every last second.

We had the most wonderful sunset shoot with Steve and Lucy.

The sun was magical, right to the very last moment. A wonderful blessing for a wonderful couple.