Toby & Anna's wedding day ~ Bunting galore in West Chinnock, Somerset

Toby and Anna's stunning wedding was my first booking via Twitter. Toby has a legion of followers on twitter, thanks to his comedic, scriptwriting ability {he is one of the brains behind 'That Mitchell and Webb Look'} and a couple of months ago he put out a tweet to see if anyone knew of any good wedding photographers in the Somerset area. Thankfully, a friend of my husband tweeted back with a link to my blog {despite me not living in the Somerset vicinity!}, they liked what they saw, we had a good natter and I was Somerset bound!

Toby and Anna are a perfect match.They met up in Scarborough doing a workshop of a musical that Toby had written {Anna is a very talented actress} and within 24 hours of getting together, Toby very bravely dared to mention the 'M' word! Thankfully for him, within 48 hours Anna was beginning to agree and with an obvious penchant for the seaside they got engaged on a beach in Brighton 23 days later!

5 years on, on a glorious Sunday they finally tied the knot! It really was such a fabulous weekend; from the pre-wedding drinks on the Saturday night to their beautiful big day on the Sunday, it all went swimmingly.

Anna and Toby ~ thank you so much for asking me to document your big day; I loved every minute of it and I hope these pictures provide amazing memories of a truly wonderful day.

Also a huge thank you to Dominique Bader for second shooting for me on the day; you were fab!

A few details of the day:

Dress ~Temperley

Anna's shoes ~ Dune

Bridesmaid dresses ~ Coast

West Chinnock, Somerset

West Chinnock has to be one of the cutest, picture-postcard villages I have ever seen, so I couldn't resist a mooch around the village when I arrived with my camera.

Bridal Prep

The Davies' household was awash with people on the morning of the wedding with both families getting ready for the big day {minus Toby of course!} I will never forget the look of pride and love on Sergio's face when he saw his beautiful daughter in all her finery walking down the stairs {see the moment below!}. Unfortunately Anna's mum couldn't be there on the day, but she was definitely there in spirit and it was a lovely touch that Anna incorporated so many of her mum's things into her day. Anna's 'something blue' was a little rose from her mum's old nightdress that was sewn into her wedding dress and her 'something old' was an old rattle charm that her mum had as a baby, which Anna incorporated into her bouquet. Anna also had the handbag with her that her mum had on her wedding day to Sergio; a beautiful touch indeed.

The dapper groom and journey to church on foot!

Just as Anna and her girls were putting the finishing touches to their hair and make up, I popped over to the church to take a few shots of Toby and the arriving guests. I then hotfooted it back down the road to capture Anna's last walk as a Francolini. It was such a heart warming little stroll to the church, with all the villagers popping out of their houses to pass on their best wishes and congratulations.

The ceremony

The ceremony was beautiful. There were tears of joy, lots of laughter, two lovely readings and a pretty incredible vocal performance by some of Toby and Anna's friends during the signing of the register.

 

{thanks to Dominique for the above and below shots}

The marquee and drinks reception

The marquee on the village cricket pitch was fab ~ it really was your quintessential English country wedding; bunting galore {I LOVE bunting}, wild flowers and tealights in photo covered jam jars and delicious cupcakes made by the local WI.

The speeches

There was a slight break in tradition when the speeches came around, with 'The Bridesmaids' kicking off the preceedings in style. As a complete surprise for Anna, the four of them read out extracts from Anna's diary as a youngster {with a little embellishment here and there for comedic purposes} and they were HILARIOUS! They had the room in stitches and really raised the bar! They were followed by two lovely speeches from the dad's, with Sergio's being especially poignant as he held a minute's silence to remember his beautiful wife; Anna's mum. It was a heartfelt moment. Anna and Toby followed with hilarious and moving speeches of their own and Toby's lovely best man Chris raised a lot of laughter as he regaled his audience with stories from their school days.

 

{thanks Dominique for the above and below photos}