Couple:

Chantel & Dwain

Season:

Autumn

Ceremony Location:

A field!

After a little AM/PM confusion Chantel & Dwain arrived in Ireland from Chicago at crazy o’clock in the morning. A quick adventure in driving at the wrong side of tiny country roads and a few short hours of sleep later and I showed up at their hotel room to photograph their wedding day. What followed was one of the most fun, personal and real weddings I’ve photographed. We were joined by Romy for a beautiful ceremony beneath two ancient trees with the Sugarloaf mountain as a backdrop. It was emotional! Other than that it was just Chantel, Dwain and I hanging out and having fun.

Things I loved about Chantel & Dwain’s wedding:

  • How they both pushed through the exhaustion and jet lag that they must have been feeling and didn’t even mention it.
  • The ceremony. It was such a privilege to be there and not only experience their vows, but document them for their friends and family back home.
  • Chantel and Dwain were up for anything. They asked me if they could climb up on the side of the big pool outside of the hotel! That’s my kind of couple!
  • No matter what I asked of them they just did it – which led us to some amazing images.
  • Chantel’s wedding dress. Amazing.
  • Some of the locations we had planned didn’t work out so we had to improvise a little – the location of the ceremony was somewhere I had found the day before when scouting. The final image below at sunset was another back up location I’d found. In the end it all worked out great.

Some kind words from Chantel & Dwain:

“Thank you for being super awesome and allowing us to kidnap you for the entire day! You truly are the best at what you do. We had the greatest time ever and it was worth every thorn prick and midges’ bite (I count 8 of them so far) that I received along the way! Thank you, Thank you, & Thank you again.”

Here are a few of my favourite images from their wedding day. I’ve also sprinkled in some thoughts and advice from Chantel and Dwain below.