What do you start with this amazing festival wedding?  And where do you end?  This wedding had it all.  But when I say that I’m not talking about all the trappings, the big white dresses and country mansions with its rolling grounds and gothic finials.  I’m talking about the human content of the day.  To paraphrase Walt Whitman (not Walter White), it contained multitudes.  Let me explain.  Bridal prep took place in an almost impossible to find, half-finished, truncated windmill base station set back from any discernible road.  So that’s how the day started.  All through prep, with everyone acutely aware that this was an outdoor wedding, the skies banked heavy and dark.  But during the dress crisis when Krysten’s top turned out be just a bit ‘too sheer’, thunderheads rolled in and then the thunderheads rolled out.  So that, because the bride arrived an hour and a half late (with refashioned undergarments), the rains that were scheduled to soak the ceremony had cleared and dried.  During the ceremony, Krysten and Jack exchanged temporary wedding bands that would later be replaced by tattoos.  As part of her vows Krysten told Jack she hated him (see reaction shot halfway through).  Afterwards, the afternoon continued without event under soft, romantic cloud cover.  Well, without event right up until the point one of bridesmaids was hospitalised with pneumonia.  Forging on, the evening was fantastic.  Homemade bourbon cocktails gave way to food and speeches in the converted barn.  Which lead in turn to the dancing — where the wedding band was a rotating lineup of wedding guests.  Then, at some point, one of the guests took a boat out onto the small lake running a thin crescent to the right of the family garden.  Where he capsized.  And went completely under.  That’s okay.  It happens.  The party grew good spirited and woozy under the weight of wine and more cocktails.  Then a man broke his nose on the wedding-white bouncy castle.  This was okay, too.  His friends sat with him and laughed.  Back at the barn more people danced.  Elsewhere, the honourary male bridesmaid took a turn for the worse and fell asleep next to his own vomit, blanketed by one of his friends…  C’mon. It’s a party.  We’ve all been there.  The night rolled on.  And it was a brilliant night.  I finally turned in around 1am (everyone was camping and I had my own tent to retreat to).  I don’t know what time the party went on to but I could hear the soft thud of music well into the night — as I lay there on stony ground trying to avoid the puddle of rainwater collecting in my tent.  The next morning, among stragglers sleeping out among the stars, to tired or drunk or stoned to find a tent, I called a taxi with the one flickering bar of signal I could find on the farm.  The last thing I heard from Jack’s sister, Holly, was that the planned barbecue for the ninety remaining guests was being complicated by the fact that the head chef was the bridesmaid now lying in a nearby hospital, hooked to an intravenous drip.  And yet nothing, nothing that happened made a single dent on one of the most enjoyable weddings I’ve shot this year or any other year.

Take a look for yourselves.  I shot everything…