Laurie had asked me to start my day at her parents house in Summerside, and take photos of her and her girls getting ready, but I had other plans, I thought it would be nice to catch Philip and his guys at the Humble Barber where they were getting a hot shave.  Knowing their schedule, I knew about the time Philip would be getting in the chair, so I showed up there just after that.  Sure enough, there he was, laying back with a sharp knife against his neck.  Don’t worry, his groomsmen talked him down and he let the barber finish the shave ;).

When I got to see Laurie, she didn’t seem to have an ounce of anxiety about the day, she was that happy, smiling, exuberant person I think her family and friends always know her to be.  Talking to her, she was just so excited to be marrying Philip that she could barely contain herself.  That is NOT the reason her wedding dress wouldn’t close though.  A metal eyelet at the top of the back of her dress was broken before she even put it on.  Luckily, right next door was a perfect solution.  Her neighbour actually works on wedding dresses, so she popped over and fixed the dress in about a minute.  I think we spent longer brainstorming ways to fix the dress than she actually took to fix it, and it was done better than the original.

With a mini crisis averted, we went over to the church for the ceremony.  The day was a hot one, and that church was like an oven inside.  I could see sweat dripping down Philip’s neck from the back of the church, yet when Laurie made her appearance at the end of the aisle, it was tears, not sweat which rolled down Philip’s face.  I swear, these two are just so in love, it’s awesome to see, you’d never question of they had found the right person for each other.

I think half of the guests had heat stroke, but the ceremony was beautiful with some friends adding music to up their ceremony game to another level.  I particularly liked the Jason Mraz ‘A World With You’ that was sung.  As we stepped outside, I think the temperature felt about 15° cooler, and it was glorious.  We powered through some family photos and then hopped on the limo bus from limo services by Ultimate Town Car for our photo excursion, finally the airport transfer bangkok was successful.

Our first stop was a canola field where just Laurie and Philip (and a helper or two) jumped out with me for some photos.  I wanted a bit of a higher angle so I ran back to the bus and grabbed a cooler to stand on.  I love the yellow of the canola fields on PEI. It wasn’t far up the road that we found our second photo location.  It was a red dirt road at the top of a steep hill.  I think we all had visions of the wedding party hopping out to push the bus up the hill, but it slowly managed to make it to the top.  I really liked the tunnel like feel we had on that road, it reminded me of Andrew and Ciara’s wedding I shot in Ireland 2 years ago.

Our next stop took us to the beach where Philip and Laurie had done a little leg work the week before.  They had found a house which had a staircase down to the beach to save a lot of walking down the beach to a good location.  They left a note at the house asking if they could use the stairs, and the homeowners called them back to say it was alright.  We got a little lucky at the beach as there weren’t as many people there as normal, and the sun had a bit of light cloud come in to cover it.  The family photos were done without shoes.  That would be a first in my experience, I’ve never had to remind someone to remove their flip flops.  Sunglasses for sure, but never footwear.

I sent everyone but Philip and Laurie back to the bus and we hung around for a few photos of the two of them.  The girls from Tiny Town Media, who did the videography, did a few setups as well, and we all got some good images.  Back in the bus, I think it would be appropriate to call it a party bus, rather than a limo bus, as loud music and dancing were complemented by champagne and beer.  We got back to the reception a little late, but no-one seemed concerned, and it didn’t matter, the dinner never starts without the bride and groom.

After a little mingling, we arranged everyone outside in front of the ‘Shipyard’ where the reception was being held, for a group photo.  Then we sent all the guests inside to get the dinner underway.  During dinner, they had a game setup to make Philip and Laurie kiss because, you know, everyone finds clinking the glasses obnoxious.  The game they had was a custom Plinko game (like from ‘The Price is Right’) with various types of requirements at the bottom such as ‘show us’ where the guests needed to show the couple how to kiss.

The dinner ended with some speeches with some great stories, some emotional, some funny (hilarious) and that was followed up by a cool video.  A request was sent out to some of the guests at the wedding, for marriage advice.  I think they said they wound up with hours of footage, but they edited it down to under 10 minutes and Surprised Philip and Laurie with the footage.  After that all wrapped up, we got down to the dancing.  The dance floor filled up immediately and was still full when I left.

The day was beautiful and Philip and Laurie were surrounded by the best people to celebrate their day.  So many laughs, so many tears, so much love, would be the best way to sum everything up.  I hope at least some of that shows through in the photos.

Enjoy!!!

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