I find the morning of a wedding day so relaxing … usually! All my photography gear is ready, my notes for who’s who and what happens when are printed out even though I’ve memorised as much as I can and a bunch of other prep bits and pieces to make sure all things photographic go as smooth as possible. But on Fiona & James’s wedding day, while having a cuppa before making my way to Petersfield Registry office I got bit on my hand.

Bites don’t usually effect me, I’ve no known allergies or anything like that, but this must have been a beast of a mozzie. By the time my cuppa was finished my camera hand was starting to swell. By the time I was a mile up the road I couldn’t hold my steering wheel properly so I popped into the chemist. After waiting a few mins in the queue (which seemed like an hour) my elbow had almost doubled in size and my hand could easily be mistaken for that of a heavywieght boxer and the pharamcist had called in sick.

I could go on about what happened but the jist of it is, I was running late and got to the ceremony just as everyone were about to take their seats … which is cutting things very fine and to be honest I wasn’t feeling great. It could have been the bite, or the pain in my hand trying to grip my camera, maybe standing in front of so many guests as if they were a jury with a verdict of ‘this is one of those asshole photographers’ already made in their minds, or just being totally angry with myself for almost missing the start after being so prepared earlier in the day. James walked over to me and just as I was expecting a rightful earful, his cheeky grin beamed and he said “I knew you were going to make it”. He then gave his best man the task of hunting down some anti-histamines for me!

The ceremony door opened, the music changed from classical to Aerosmith & Run DMC’s ‘Walk this Way’ and Fiona boogied up and down the aisle in a stunning purple wedding dress, a bouquet sitting in a cauliflower stem and 2 v. v. cute bridesmaids. And that sort of set the level as to how the day was going to pan out … a whole mish mash of ideas that if you wrote them on paper might sound a tad bizarre at a wedding but the way they all fitted together made for an absolutely perfect day.

The reception was at The Pub with No Name, their guests were as chilled as Fiona & James and between tug-of-war, egg & spoon races, a drumming samba band and an amazing folk rock band, a fine time was definitely had by all.