Thursday 14 September 2017

Hayley and James - Beloved Brighton, pirates, vintage buses and a good ol’ dressing up box.

It’s rare I start with the best man’s speech, but by-heck, when your best man dresses up to celebrate your favourite things; pirates, ’Dirty Dancing’ (yes you heard right), and Iron Maiden then it would be rude not to. James, you have a truly awesome best bud in Deano, who else would don a dress and dance with Olivier in front of an audience in the name of man-love?! It was hilarious. There was a lot of emotion in that room and in and amongst the laughter there were plenty of soggy eyes… tears of gratitude, of love, of happiness, of your best man disclosing your love of Dirty Dancing yadda yadda… but you could feel this beautiful emotion bubbling around, working its way around a tiny little cabaret room, on a gloriously sunny day in Brighton… palpable, real… lots of squidgy loveliness.

So it's a Sunday this time and another wedding, but not just any wedding… Now I don’t really know James and Hayley that well, but I loves them. We share lots of friends and they clearly have good taste in wedding photographers (oh stop it ;-)) and friends so ta da... loves them!

Hayley, WOW! You, my dear are a thing of photographers dreams. Beautiful, sweet, charming and that hair!!! That amazing hair!!! The camera LOVES you! There is a lot of vintage tones in my edits…because, well, the Twenties called and they’re missing their movie-siren. - move over Marilyn, hello Hayley! What an amazing beauty! James, you did real good chap. But equally, Hayley you did good too m’dear, James looked so utterly handsome all suited and booted and that laugh is a thing of legends!

There was a short, sweet ceremony at Brighton Town Hall, a few pics afterwards, (a personal curse fest with the sun) and then we all bussed it up to Proud in a lovely old Route Master. My big vehicle anxiety was in full swing but I preoccupied myself with getting everyone to cheer and taking pics. It’s a wedding and I’m shooting so of course, the sun was shining crazy bright. If you want a sunny day for your wedding, hire me. I swear the sun comes out in all its blazing glory just as I’m doing the family shots. I think I actually apologized for the brightness at one point as a group of squinting faces all stared back at me. Next time, I’ll have a word and tell him/her to tone it down a bit ;-) Thankfully we found a lovely shady garden spot for the couple portraits where a playful cat thought chasing Hayley’s train was a game. Eeeeek. Funny at first, not so funny trying to dislodge cat claws from your precious dress! Hearty thanks must go to Olivier for carting my light stand around only for me to not use it, ‘Cos the light was so pretty.’ Sorry buddy!

One mention must go to the incredible talents of the people at Choccywoccydoodah who made the cake. Seeing it cut up was a little heart-wrenching, but watching James trying to saw through it was pretty funny. I’m always amazed by the incredible talents of wedding suppliers, the florists, the caterers, the dress-makers, cake-makers etc… so much talent and beauty and it’s my job to capture it all, NO PRESSURE THEN haha. But Choccywoccydoodah, you have to be the best cake designers in the land! Bar my mum who does a mean Lemon Drizzle ;-) All the suppliers did a remarkable job here and I think James and Hayley really had the best day of their lives, so I salute you all.

To finish I'd like to say, James and Hayley, thank you for letting me be part of your awesome day, I enjoyed photographing you and your loved ones so much. What a truly unique and gorgeous pair you both are, a proper bearded pirate and his beautiful wench (sorry Hayley, ‘wife’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it in this context... wench it is;-)), I wish you many happy adventures together, go forth, listen to Iron Maiden, watch re-runs of Dirty Dancing and just be 'em good pirates ah har me hearties.'

Love and best wishes to you both,

Loukie xx



The Fab Suppliers....

The Venues: Brighton Town Hall and Proud Cabaret
The Dress: Rosa Clara at Knutsford Wedding Gallery
The Suit: Woodies Brighton
Hair and Make-up: Betty Lou Vintage Styling
The Caterers:  Proud Cabaret
The Cake: Chociwockidoodah
The Lovely Extras: Betty Booths Photobooths