Festival Vibes in Cornwall - A Wedding at Sconner Down.
Brace yourself, this is another long blog. This couple received 885 images from me (1770 when you include the black and white copies) so there were a lot of images for me to go through when putting this together. It may be a long blog, but it’s really just a small selection from a fantastic festival wedding held at Sconner Down in Cornwall.
The day started in Crafthole in The Finnygook Inn (which is only a stone’s throw away from Sconner Down). The Finnygook is warm and welcoming pub with great food, friendly faces and accommodation. Liv rented a room at the Inn to get ready in while Lauren was getting ready just across the road at her dad’s house. The two locations were so close that I was able to move between the two brides with ease.
Lauren arrived at Sconner Down in style! Take a look at this awesome vintage tractor!
Luckily, Lauren and I arrived at Sconner Down early enough for her to have some photos with some friends and I was also able to get some photos of the ceremony room and reception tipi before any guests entered.
Lauren and Liv decided to have a ‘first look’ before the ceremony. So when Liv arrived with her dad in the car I made sure Lauren was in position with her back turned. I love first looks, it’s a great way to capture that special moment.
Lauren & Liv legally married before their wedding day so that they could have their perfect handfasting ceremony, officiated by Liv’s mum. This handfasting was unlike any other I’ve seen because they used coloured ribbons: yellow, orange, pink, blue, red and black. They had all the parents come up one at a time to add a ribbon; each time the parent would say what the coloured ribbon represents (happiness, romance, adventure etc). The whole room was in hysterics when Liv’s dad came up and said ‘this pink ribbon represents…’ and Lauren interrupted with a well timed ‘gaaaaay!’ The joke was just what the room needed because it was an incredibly emotional ceremony from start to finish. When editing these photos, I found myself welling up because I noticed the officiator (Liv’s mum) fighting to hold back tears when her daughter read her vows. She did so well to get through the ceremony.
After the ceremony we had an indoor confetti throw. We had planned to do this outside the reception tipi but the wind and rain threatened to be a bit of a problem.
The rest of the day took place in and around the reception tipi. I captured some candid moments while we waited for the rain to ease off a bit and then we did some group photos in front of the tipi.
There is a beautiful woodland area attached to Sconner Down, so we braved the weather for some photos in the forest. Luckily, when we were in amongst the trees we didn’t really feel the rain but we still had to be careful as there were lots of twigs on the ground that wanted to attach themselves to Liv’s dress. Lucky we had Liv’s sister to assist in holding the dress up while we walked around and she also did a brilliant job of throwing the veil. I have got into the habit of keeping at least one photo in the collection of the veil thrower in action, just for giggles.
Next were the speeches. It was here that I had the most heart racing, 'what have I got myself into' moment I've experienced so far in my wedding photography career. When the Best Boys gave their joint speech, one started off by saying he'd written some jokes for everyone. But as he was looking through his cards he decided that he'd better not read them out. He threw them away saying 'nope, better not read that one' and 'that's inappropriate', discarding all his joke cards on the floor. He's a really funny guy and I genuinely thought he was just kidding - that he was throwing blank cards on the floor and there were never any inappropriate jokes in the first place. How wrong I was...
After the speeches, the cards were still laying on the floor and I walked over to them and saw they did have writing on them. So I said 'there's actually jokes on these.' And one of the bride's dad's shouted 'read them out!' I didn't think they could be that bad so I picked up a random card and started reading, 'why did God invent yeast infections?' Everyone's eyes were on me. I read the next line in my head and I lost all composure. 'I can't read that!' I cried. But everyone was chanting 'read it, read it.' So I did. Fair play to the guy, he knew his audience (there were no kids around, only babies) because everyone loved the joke - they loved it even more because I was misfortunate enough to read it out. I never thought I'd stand up and say that word to an entire wedding party. I was shaking, probably blushing blood red. I couldn't believe what I'd just got myself into. But everyone was roaring with laughter and it went down a treat. As I picked up the other joke cards, it became quickly apparent that I'd started off with the worst card imaginable. The other jokes weren't actually that taboo.
I took a photo of the joke card, so you can see it for yourself but be warned, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea.
After the speeches, I had lots of opportunity to circulate the venue and capture candid moments.
We couldn’t miss the opportunity to get a couple of photos of the bride’s in front of their amazing tipi. The weather was a bit drizzly but we made it work.
This last section of photos is full of candid moments and dance floor action. It was an absolutely incredible party fuelled by an epic Spotify playlist which everyone enjoyed - even the bar staff couldn’t resist dancing.
