St John’s Wonersh & Barnett Hill wedding – Wendy & John

Although I’ve been lucky enough to photograph weddings in many far-flung places from Mexico to the Middle East, the Channel Islands to Inverness, it’s really nice to photograph a very local wedding – and it doesn’t get any more local than the church of St John the Baptist in my home village of Wonersh, Surrey!

Wendy and John are stalwarts of the congregation at St. John’s (the groom John is a former churchwarden) so it was a full house in the church for their wedding ceremony, with many friends from the village filling every available pew alongside Wendy and John’s respective family members.

The service was ably conducted by the Rev Debbie Sellin, who I have to say is one of the friendliest and most accommodating vicars that I have had the pleasure of working with – and I’ve met lots of ministers and celebrants in my time! While the most important thing is always the wedding service itself not the photography, it’s a great help to me as a photographer to be allowed to move around the church during the ceremony so as to have flexibility in the way I document the event for the couple (needless to say I try to be as unobtrusive as I can, and have my cameras set to “silent mode”).

Actually it was a bit of a “Vicarfest” (if I may use that term!) as there were quite a few Wonersh ministers past and present, including Geoff Wattley, Liz Tilley, Patsy Kettle, as well as former vicar of St John’s Tom Farrell, who also spoke at the reception. Apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone!

After the church service everyone moved to a marquee on Church Green where tea and cakes was served, speeches delivered, and the wedding cake cut. We did a couple of family group photos, then it was time to move to Barnett Hill for the family reception and wedding breakfast.

Oh wait, I haven’t mentioned the weather yet! Of course if was a flawlessly sunny day – despite heavy showers being forecast they failed to materialise, so we had perfect weather for the occasion.

Barnett Hill served an excellent buffet, there were a few more speeches and toasts, and then it was on to the dancing – accompanied by the fabulous voices of Katie and Emma aka The Nightingales.

Here as always is a selection of my favourite images from the day…

St Johns church Wonersh