I don’t think I can post enough photos of this wedding! The location: The Courtmacsherry Hotel. Wow, what a spot! And having photographed this in early August, we got this amazing, sunny weather! If I remember correctly, this was just a few weeks after that dreadful heatwave we had, so the timing of this wedding was perfect. We could’ve had a fainting bride in that heat!
It was my first time photographing a wedding at The Courtmacsherry Hotel, in fact, I’ll go one better; I’ve never even been in the town of Courtmacsherry before. What a lovely, hidden gem it is. It’s one of those towns where, as soon as you drive in, there’s just this calm, holiday kind of vibe to it. Or maybe I was just feeling especially happy that day with all this sunshine.
Wedding Couple Shoot at the beach of Castlemartyr
Our bride and groom, Niamh and Sean, were such a fantastic couple. They were so relaxed leading up to their big day, it was almost disconcerting. They just let me just get on with my own thing, and didn’t really have any specifics that they really wanted me to photograph.
It’s always interesting how some couples have a set idea in their mind, and others, just like Niamh and Sean, just wanted nice photos of everyone having fun at their wedding. And that’s the great thing about the services I offer as a wedding photographer; the couple get to decide everything. You want a couple shoot? Let’s do it! You only want candid shots and no group photos? That’s no worries. You want individual photos of your niece, the flower girl? Sure thing! We can make anything happen for your big, wedding day! It’s all about you and I’m here to photograph it.
Wedding Ceremony Photos at the Castlemartyr Hotel
At this stage, I have started listing the three things that I really enjoyed or stood out to me about this specific wedding, not just as a wedding photographer but also as a guest:
1) The wedding ceremony was something that the couple really put a lot of effort and thought into. There were loads of lovely moments that made the ceremony very personal to them, and something I have never seen before, was a tree planting ceremony. They got a young, small tree, somewhere between a sapling and a large bush (I’m clearly no botanist), and planted it using soil they brought from their family homes. This tree will then go home with them, where, I suspect, it has been planted properly by now, in the garden of their own home. Such a lovely gesture, and the symbolism of the two soils coming together and growing a new tree... Just lovely and touching.
2) This next one isn’t really as deep, or symbolic or anything really... It’s just... Ice cream! For my own wedding, I actually discussed with my partner about having an ice-cream van or stall come to the venue as well for a few hours, but somehow in the stress of planning a wedding, this idea was lost and we never got around to organizing it. But it’s the funniest thing, when the ice cream van drove onto the property, initially the kids were all excited and overjoyed, but once the van had parked and opened shop, you wouldn’t believe how many adults were running to get their 99! If you’re having an outdoor, summer wedding, this is definitely a hit and worth having a look into. I actually thought it was such a good idea and so unique to their wedding that I even incorporated it into the couple shoot!
So, this was one of my favourite things at this wedding, purely because I wish my partner and I had booked it for our own wedding!
3) Third, this was my first outdoor wedding in the summer sun that I photographed, and I loved it! If you look at my website, if it’s the family portraits or even business portraits and headshots I do, I always love photographing them outdoors in nature. So to be able to photograph a whole wedding outdoors, was an absolute dream come true for me! The light might not always be perfect, though it is definitely not worse than in a standard church, but the whole vibe of the entire wedding was also just very relaxed because of this, and made it to me, a defining feature. People were really enjoying themselves in this beautiful setting, and for dinner, there was a BBQ! Very cool!
Here we faked a “band photo” between four friends who didn’t just want a normal shot of the four of them. The light was so beautiful this evening and I thought I’d use that to full effect!
I’d love to photograph another wedding here in Courtmacsherry. So if you’re planning on getting married here, please contact me and make my dream come true again! Alternatively, I can also photograph your wedding in other areas of Cork County.
If you’d like to enquire about availability for your own wedding, you can contact me here, and for my pricing, check out my wedding photography page here.
