Its always such an honour to be asked to shoot a friends wedding, so when one of my best friends Sami asked me to shoot her wedding to her awesome fiancé Michael, I was beyond stoked and excited!
The day begun with me meeting Sami at the house she was getting ready at in Charlestown. It was on and off raining outside and the decision had just been made to move the ceremony inside rather than have it out on the balcony at Caves. There was such a nervous energy as everyone was madly getting ready. When the limo arrived the rain started to fall again as everyone climbed in, umbrellas at the ready. we then all set off for Caves beachside Hotel. When we arrived, we snuck the girls in the back way so the guests didn’t see them, and then did a beautiful reveal of Sami looking stunning in her dress to her Dad. These types of moments are always some of my most favourite moments from a wedding! The music then begun and it was time for the ceremony to start! The ceremony was just beautiful, with so much love and the rain falling softly outside. Sami & Mick’s little girl Rylee wasn’t overly keen during the ceremony so sat on Sami’s mums lap getting all the nice warm cuddles. After the ceremony finished, lots of cuddles, and congratulations and laughs were had before we started doing family portraits in front of the beautiful arbour.
As the guests all made their way out to head to the reception, I snuck off into the foyer area of the hotel for a few portraits of Sami and Mick. There was an epic piano in the corner, so I could resist some really badass, classy images! The bridal party all then jumped back into Limo and set off for Caves Beach for some bridal party photos. We all tumbled down the steep sand dunes with lots of laughs, shoes all dumped in a pile at the top. While we were shooting on the beach, the rain began to lightly fall again. Once we were finished with the bridal party, we let them head back to the warm, dry limo, and we set off for a walk down the beach towards the caves! When we got to the caves we walked along the rocks and then climbed down into them, as thankfully the tide was out. It was also nice to get a bit of relief from the rain while we were in the caves.
After we finished at the Caves we set off for Catherine Hill Bay. We did a bit of unplanned 4x4ing as the access road to the location I wanted to use was in quite a bad state due to all the rain. But it was totally worth it as the photos in the spot were fabulous in the rain. Then we set off for our last stop further down the beach. By the time we got there the rain was really bucketing down, so umbrellas stayed out for those photos. The reception was held at Club Charlestown and was beautiful decorated by Sami herself. Due to Covid there was no dance floor action, but that didn’t stop everyone from having an absolute blast of a time! Midway through the reception we decided to head outside to do some backlit rain photos, but would you believe it, the rain was now nowhere to be seen! So we settled with some fun photos in the middle of the road instead! At the end of the night Sami and I were discussing the fact she didn’t get a chance to incorporate her favourite word into the wedding in a subtle way anywhere. So we decided to do a sneaky little photo without Mick knowing what was actually written on her shoe (bit of a NSFW word hahaha) as a surprise for when they got their photos back. Hope you liked it Mick!
What an absolutely kick ass day! It was such an honour and a privilege to be able to photograph my beautiful friends wedding! Thank you both for having me there!
