Hayley and Ian live in London. They came home to Ireland twice just to choose where they wanted to get married. Both times they chose Kinsale.
That tells you something about a couple. When you live across the water and you still make the journey twice just to be sure, you know what you want and you know why it matters.
The ceremony was at St Catherine's Cultural Centre in the heart of Kinsale town. Patricia Stephens celebrated it, and if you have ever been in a room where Patricia is working, you will know that the word celebrant barely covers what she does. She creates something genuinely felt. With around 75 guests the room had exactly the right scale, intimate enough to feel personal, celebratory enough to feel like a proper wedding.
After the ceremony we headed out into Kinsale. And Kinsale on a June afternoon gives you a lot to work with.
We started at Charles Fort. You drive up and the town falls away below you, the harbour stretching out to sea, the old stone of the fort rising against the sky. We stayed outside. The high vantage point above Kinsale gives you a scale that is impossible to replicate anywhere else in the area. And then there is the old wooden bridge at the main entrance to the fort, connecting the outer walls across the dry moat. It is one of those details that most people walk past. We stopped there. The photographs from that bridge are some of my favourites from the whole day.
From Charles Fort we made our way down to The Bullman in Scilly.
I sent the groomsmen in to get the drinks. While they were at the bar I took Hayley and Ian down to the shore. There is a flat rock just below The Bullman that only works when the tide is out, and on this particular June afternoon the tide was perfectly out. I put them on that rock with the sea behind them, the boats on the water, and the town of Kinsale in the distance. It is one of those shots that looks simple and is completely unrepeatable. The light, the tide, the specific arrangement of boats on the water that afternoon. It will never look quite like that again.
Then we went back into the pub.
This is something I always suggest to couples and I mean it seriously. The morning of a wedding separates everyone. The bride has her time with the bridesmaids, the groom has his time with the groomsmen, and the two groups don't come together properly until the ceremony. By the time the creative shoot is done the couple and their full bridal party have barely had a moment together as a group.
A drink changes that. It doesn't need to be a pub. A cooler box of beer and prosecco in a field works just as well. But that twenty minutes of everyone together, the formality of the day briefly set aside, laughing and talking and just being themselves. It produces the best photographs of the day. Every time. People forget I'm there. The camera gets the moments that couldn't be staged.
From The Bullman we walked the Scilly Walk back toward Actons. The path is narrow and the trees arch overhead, branches meeting in the middle to frame the path in front of you. If you stand a couple in the right spot on the Scilly Walk the trees do most of the work. It is the kind of natural framing that photographers spend years looking for.
Then back to Actons Hotel on the harbour, where the rest of the evening unfolded exactly as it should.
A huge thank you to the suppliers who made the day what it was. Celebrant Patricia Stephens brought genuine warmth and intention to the ceremony at St Catherine's. Hair artist Aisling Kellaher of Polka Dot Dreaming Weddings and Lisa O Mahony of Lisa O Mahony Bridal Makeup had Hayley looking absolutely beautiful from the very first photograph of the morning.
To Hayley and Ian, thank you for coming home to Kinsale to get married. And thank you for letting me be there for it.
If you are planning a wedding in Kinsale and looking for a photographer who knows the town, the harbour, Charles Fort, The Bullman and the Scilly Walk, I would love to hear from you.
