Ellisse and James' Wedding at Bartle Hall, Preston - Shropshire Wedding Photography

A while ago, I joined a Facebook group called “A group where everyone is super fucking nice to each other for no reason”. In this group people post things about their life, either great joys and triumphs, or sad events and tragedies, and other members say (and occasionally do) nice things. I joined because I genuinely believe that the world is what we make it; so if we want the world to be a nice and generous and kind place, then we ourselves need to be nice and generous and kind and hopefully, the people that we are nice to will be nice to someone else…and a little ripple of love and kindness will spread around the world.

Anyway, last year, in 2019, I was busy browsing through Facebook and came across a post on that group where a guy got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. It was so lovely, so sweet, so beautiful. The couple had been through a lot - mental health issues, self-harm, eating disorders, you name it they had, as very young people, struggled with a lot of things that life can throw at us.

So, I instantly, decided to do a nice thing. I offered them my photography services for their wedding, whenever it would be, where ever it would be, for free.

It did take them a while to come round that it was a genuine offer - that I wasn’t trying to scam them, that I was offering over £1000 worth of services for nothing in return, other than maybe a pint of shandy on their wedding day. But I promised them, over and over that there would be no catches, in writing, not just over the phone, and they finally happily accepted and we started down the road to their wedding. And Covid happened - of course, so their wedding was postponed and all the usual shit that went down, but eventually, in June this year, their special day happened.

And special it was - Bartle Hall was their venue and I arrived to capture the last few moments of Ellisse getting ready through to late afternoon after their wedding ceremony which was officiated by their friend as a celebrant.

The ceremony was so personal, so special, and so charged with emotion. Only a few people attended, and that made it even more special - those attending were all people who really meant something to both Ellisse and James, and who had really influenced their life, and had helped them along the way. And it was an honour to be there to record it. It was just a lovely day, with early summer sunshine and warmth that made it special for the couple to have an ‘afternoon tea’ outside in the garden before they then sat down to a lovely meal inside. And then, as young people do, they enjoyed the rest of the day, laughing, drinking, joking, spending time with their closest, bestest, best friends and family.

Which, really, is what a wedding day is all about…

(Please take a moment to think about searching out and joining that Facebook group, but if you don’t want to just do nice things online - although god knows social media needs people to be nice on it! - just try and be nice to one person a day (you don’t need to be a Shropshire Wedding Photographer to do it!), and the ripples will flow out over the world and the world WILL be a nicer place.)