I’ve always wondered what it might be like to hire a whole village for a wedding day. Rosie and Steve did a pretty good job at taking over Studland for their day with four different locations in total, dotted around the very pretty area on the Isle of Purbeck.

I don’t think we’ve ever had to get up so early for a wedding that’s so close to our home before. Nor do I remember previously ever having to research ferry times as part of our wedding preps. But we didn’t have that far to go once we disembarked the chain ferry, and it gave us time to fuel up on apricot croissants as we made our way over the water.

Rosie and I used to work together in my days working in magazine publishing. She used to sit on the desk opposite me. She was always at work on time and I was always fashionably late (blame the bus!) so she got pretty used to seeing me with Sleepy Head.

These days, you’ll be pleased to know I’m generally a pretty good timekeeper. And rather than waste the first half an hour of work making tea and staring out of the window  I warm up with a constructive Shoe Jolly. Then I’m good to go…

Rosie had complete run of Studland Bay House for her bridal preps. It felt very grand ringing the doorbell of such a huge door. This place is fit for sleeping twelve people! I can honestly say, I’ve never had so much space for prep photography; huge bedrooms and acres of garden.

Whilst sat on the Sandbanks Ferry Ian asked me: “Umm… you know when you do bridal preps.. do you ever get offered anything? Tea or breakfast?”. “Not really,” I said. “It depends on each wedding. Sometimes I get offered tea, but never really any food.” Within about five minutes there I was being handed over a bacon bap (I’m just pointing this out on the blog so Ian is reassured I don’t get this treatment all the time. Apparently, Grooms are rubbish at offering tea ).

After dropping me off at Studland Bay House Ian made his way over to meet Steve and his Groomsmen at the Bankes Arms. Annoyingly, they’d taken their pub sign down that day so it was missing its distinctive ident.

Steve didn’t have far to travel to the Church – just a short walk up a path and through a stile.

The day before every wedding I spend quite a bit of time cleaning our lenses, sorting out batteries and memory cards and making sure the clocks are sync’ed on each camera. This makes it a lot easier to edit the weddings afterwards. As the guests were getting seated in St Nicholas Church, Rosie hadn’t even got her dress on yet. I don’t remember her being late at all, though. Either that was well-timed dressing skill or she managed to get hold of Bernard’s Watch.

Rosie and Steve’s wedding ceremony at St Nicholas Church continues in Part Two.