Stephan and Sheena, Cortachy Castle

Last Saturday, on what was probably the hottest day of the year I was in the grounds of Cortachy Castle near Kirriemuir for the Wedding of Stephan and Sheena. It was a great day with bright sunshine, most photographers will agree that bright sunlight is not great for photography, it creates areas of high contrast where you can get dark shadows and large highlights in the same area. This results in a difficult working environment, however, blue skies and sunlight do make a great day so we have to work with it. You’ll often see Photographer using flash guns which seems strange on a bright day but it helps to balance the light out.



The Service was to take place outside “Bellas Cottage” in the grounds of Airlie Estate, it was a brilliant place to be married, especially at this time of year and on such a great day. Future Brides, don;t get any ideas, this was a one off location as the family have a connection with the estate – I don't think they would allow any other Weddings there.


The guests started to arrive early


Stephan and his Best man arrived, sunglasses were the order of the day.

Before they were handed over I took a shot of the rings.

Stephans Mum comes from France and was wearing traditional Breton Costume

Sheena arrived in Style

She walked down the red carpet with her father into the sunlight
 
Stephan shed a few tears when he saw her, he’s such a nice guy. The service was a Humanist service conducted by Mary Wallace who has a really useful blog, it was a very nice service, one of the best I have seen.



One of the things that Mary did was to ask each of them in private to say what 3 things they loved about each other then she read them out, this caused some hilarity I can tell you.


I sneaked round the back and into the cottage to get a different perspective.


Stephan and Sheena didn;t want many formal pictures of themselves but one thing they did want was a Gainsborough, Stephan is a vet and they both really like cows so we managed to get the cows to come to the riverbank and take a shot vaguely similar to a Gainsborough!

 




We then drove to the Village Hall in Glen Isla, Stephan and Sheena had spent a lot of time decorating this hall, considering that it is a rural village hall more used to Scout and Guide groups, they had done a brilliant job. Books are a large part of their lives (they are both actually highly intelligent) so that was the theme of the day and they had done it wonderfully.



Even the Deer's Head had been decorated!

All in all it was a great day, so personal to them and they are a brilliant and happy couple, I wish you both the very best for your future, it was a pleasure to work with you.