Oxwich Bay Wedding Photography | Claire & Matt

Soooo much joy at this Swansea and Oxwich Bay Wed­ding and then a recep­tion by the sea!!!

Well, what a tru­ly fam­i­ly affair this wed­ding was.

In front of a packed con­gre­ga­tion of about 250 at The Life­point Church in Swansea the Bride made her entrance to a piece of music writ­ten by the Groom.…as you do! 

I have absolute­ly no musi­cal abil­i­ty myself. So I am filled with awe by peo­ple who can sing, play an instru­ment and espe­cial­ly write music. Amazing!! 

The mar­riage cer­e­mo­ny was con­duct­ed by the Father of the Bride, who used to be the Pas­tor of the Church. How spe­cial must that be? Hav­ing your own Father mar­ry you!! 

Let’s not for­get about the Bride’s Sis­ter. She wrote her own prayer to say dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, it was sim­ply beau­ti­ful and real­ly full of emotion 

See what I mean, a real fam­i­ly affair 

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You fly with angels wings

You’ve got my blood in your veins

And your eyes see everything

And they shine like dia­mond rings

Stereo­phon­ics — You’re My Star

Swansea Documentary Wedding Photographer

Hands up if you get excit­ed when you go to the seaside??

I’m sure it’s not just me!

I guess it starts in child­hood. Mem­o­ries of long jour­neys, three chil­dren squashed in the back of the car. Play­ing i‑spy to pass away the hours as we head­ed off on hol­i­day. We always stayed in the UK, invari­ably by the coast. Soon­er or lat­er the back of the car would fall silent as the three of us start­ed scan­ning the hori­zon. Each des­per­ate to be the first one to shout out ‘I CAN SEE THE SEA!!!’

Things like that stay with you. When Claire & Matt spoke to me about their wed­ding down on The Gow­er in South Wales my heart sang. With the cer­e­mo­ny itself at a church in Swansea the rest of the day was in a tiny lit­tle ham­let called Oxwich Bay. By a strange coin­ci­dence Oxwich is some­where I’d been before. A camp­ing trip with friends about 5 years ago took us there. So I knew exact­ly where they meant and how beau­ti­ful it is.

It’s times like this that you remem­ber how lucky you are to pho­to­graph wed­dings for a living

Documentary Oxwich Bay wedding photography on The Gower

As I arrived in Oxwich in the morn­ing peo­ple were head­ing to the beach. Clutch­ing buck­ets & spades, pic­nics & drinks bot­tles, sun­cream & hats, excit­ed chil­dren ready for a day on the sand. 

Tucked away from it all, in a love­ly lit­tle cot­tage was Claire and her Bridal party. 

Instead of buck­ets & spades it was make­up and brush­es. Sun­cream and hats were replaced with fas­ci­na­tors and a veil and the drinks, of course, were prosecco! 

I always think that what­ev­er is being said, the atmos­phere in the morn­ing is pal­pa­ble. An excite­ment equal to any felt by a child head­ing to the sand, as the Bride pre­pares to meet her hus­band to be in front of fam­i­ly and friends. 

On this occa­sion, there was a 30 minute dri­ve across the Gow­er Penin­su­la to nav­i­gate before get­ting to the Church. As a child, Claire used to ride hors­es in this area of out­stand­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty so I won­der if she was rem­i­nisc­ing as the wed­ding car made its way across the hills?

The wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny might have been a lit­tle bit lat­er than adver­tised (I’m sure it was traf­fic, right?!) but hey, when it’s your Dad con­duct­ing the cer­e­mo­ny you’d hope there would be a cer­tain amount of flexibility! 

If I was going to use one word to describe this wed­ding it would be joy, sheer, unbri­dled JOY!!

As I said ear­li­er, there must have been 250 peo­ple packed into the Church and at the risk of mak­ing a sweep­ing cul­tur­al gen­er­al­i­sa­tion, Welsh voic­es are amazing!! 

I prob­a­bly spend as much of the cer­e­mo­ny look­ing around at the con­gre­ga­tion as I do look­ing at the cou­ple. The guests are a big part of a wed­ding and I think their reac­tions real­ly add to the sto­ry. Cap­tur­ing a lov­ing smile or an emo­tion­al tear gives con­text to the occa­sion, a big part of the nar­ra­tive of the day

OXWICH BAY WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

After­wards? Time to hit hit the beach and party!!

Well, almost.

The recep­tion was in a mar­quee at Oxwich Bay Hotel, with stun­ning views across the bay as the back­drop for food and speeches

I hope you’ve enjoyed read­ing about Claire & Mat­t’s Oxwich Bay wedding.

If you want to get in touch to dis­cuss your wed­ding then just click here!