Beverley + Tom | West Street Vineyard Wedding
Warning: This wedding is going to hit you RIGHT in the feels.
I’d only met with Beverley and Tom for a wedding consultation back around February time, and when they said their wedding day was on May 25th – my birthday – I knew it was going to be special. I really hoped they were going to book me as their photographer and I was so happy when they did, from the sounds of things their wedding day over at the West Street Vineyard in Coggeshall was going to be an epic affair – as long as the weather behaved itself.
Well we didn’t have to worry about the weather behaving itself, because at the time, May 25th was the hottest day of 2017. Beverley and Tom were having an outdoor ceremony and wedding breakfast, so with the sun burning down I whacked on my sunscreen and got to work photographing Beverley getting ready at her parents’ house, whilst my second shooter Emma met the boys over at the Crowne Plaza hotel at Five Lakes.
By the time we got to the ceremony, it was crazy hot and all the guests did incredibly well to sit out in the sunshine right the way through speeches and dinner, which was a brilliant BBQ which suited the relaxed, outdoors theme (though there was some interesting guest sunburn by the end of the day). The gents conducted their speeches before dinner took place, and each speech in turn had a different flavour; Beverley’s Dad described how she has grown into an exceptionally capable woman, and spoke fondly about his favourite memories of her growing up. The groom’s speech was heartfelt, just as soon as Tom could see the screen of his iPad to read under the eye-watering sunlight, and the two best men provided some great comedy, taking turns in poking fun at Tom and his seemingly questionable football skills (and Arsenal football club, which was met by a tough crowd). Right at the end of his speech, in amongst all the excitement and emotions of the day, Tom kindly found the time to wish me a happy birthday, which I was genuinely really touched by – this was in addition to Beverley and her mum giving me a birthday muffin and cup of tea in the morning which I absolutely loved 🙂
As the sun bore down relentlessly, we changed things up by conducting their couple shots later in the evening, once the sun had gone down a little, providing some gorgeous golden light. I knew from their pre-wedding shoot only a week earlier that these guys were brilliant to photograph, and they didn’t disappoint, even humouring me by fighting their way through some tricky undergrowth to get just the right shots. As was mentioned in the best mens’ speech, Beverley and Tom clearly revel in each others’ company and just have the best time being together, which I can testify is completely accurate. Photographing these two was such a pleasure and I’m so happy they chose me to do it!
This was a wedding where you really wanted to be a guest, so you could cut some shapes with them right into the wee small hours. But I’m not sad that I wasn’t a guest, because even better than that, I got to be there for the whole day with them, to capture the images which document the day Tom and Beverley became Mr and Mrs Sayer.
