I’ve lived in the fantastically wonderful, world-class city of Liverpool for about 20 years now – and it took Nicola and Colin’s wedding photography trip to Port Sunlight on the Wirral Peninsula to remind me that there’s loads more to this incredible city region than I could possible have imagined when I first arrived.
Port Sunlight was built by the Lever company as a village for their soap factory workers and as a testament to productivity and commerce. Or something. Anyway, it’s a fabulous place, full of quirky period architecture and cute cottages, not to mention the official Hillsborough Memorial Garden and, on the day of their wedding, we were blessed with beautiful sunshine and blue skies, if not with warm temperatures. (It was freezing!) Following recording Nicola’s preparations at her parents’ house, we made our way to the ceremony at St Saviour’s in Oxton, where I got to photograph my favourite moment in all weddings – when the groom sees his bride for the first time (I always quip that, “She’s gonna knock you sideways, mate!” and I’m never wrong!). Sadly, we weren’t allowed to photograph up at the front of the church so we had to make do with some shots from the other end. Do check with your priest/vicar about this – most churches allow us to photograph the ceremony from a suitable vantage point off to the side, but occasionally (normally because another ‘photographer’ has broken the rules of 1. NEVER use flash in the ceremony and 2. NEVER try and get closer to the couple than where we’re positioned at the start) we’re not allowed and it’s always better to know this before we get to the church than to discover it at the last moment! Regardless, the ceremony was lovely and after the family shots in the warmth of the church, the bridal party set off for Port Sunlight where we got some fabulous summer-feeling photos. Then we dashed off to the Village Hotel in Bromborough for drinks, speeches and some amazing food!
