Sopley Mill Wedding

So today’s Sopley Mill wedding is a bit of a special one. I’m coming up to a decade in the business, and in that time I’ve met many families, and shared very different experiences with them. But there are a handful of families that live long in the memory for a variety of reasons. The Mann family is one of them.

In 2013 I photographed big sister Jenn’s wedding to Nick, and it was there that I was introduced to Bob, Sue, April and George Mann for the first time. A year later I photographed April’s wedding to Tom, and saw George deliver the funniest (and only!) Brother of the Bride speech! [At this point I should also say Bob delivered *without question* two of the most entertaining Father of the Bride speeches I’ve ever heard!]

Fast forward five years and I receive an email from George saying that his time has come, and asked if it would be possible for me to complete the hat-trick and photograph his wedding to Bronwyn. Honestly, there is no greater honour as a wedding photographer to be asked to come back and photograph all three siblings from a single family (which I did again last weekend with the amazing Shannons!). Firstly it means you did a great job not just once, but twice! But it also means that amongst it all there was a deep connection with one another, and a genuine joy at reuniting once again.

Now onto the day, which happened at the lush Sopley Mill, down in Dorset. We were gifted a beautiful day, with garden games, a white bouncy castle (of course), and speeches all happening outside. Unfortunately the highly anticipated Rubber Duck Grand Prix couldn’t take place down the Avon River as planned since the current was too strong, and the venue couldn’t be sure that all the offending ducks could be collected before being swept away. However, the ever creative couple came up with the genius idea of staging a Rubber Duck Face-Off instead, where everyone was asked to dress up their rubber duck in the most creative way possible. With Bronwyn and George both being massive Harry Potter fans, there may have been a slight bias to towards the eventual winner, but fair play it did look amazing!!

So a very special Sopley Mill wedding to be a part of, and one I hope you’ll enjoy looking through.

And in case you were wondering what that sequence of shock is all about at the bottom of the post, it goes back to the night they met. George was the grungy drum player for a Rockeoke group; Bronwyn, a smitten member of the crowd. She willfully got up to the stage and belted out her song choice - Electric Six’s 2001 classic, ‘GAY BAR’ - whilst George did his best Dave Grohl impersonation. That’s when the love affair began, so it was only fitting that Bronwyn got the wedding band to re-enact that, all to an unsuspecting George…