Half a decade ago, not long after starting out in my wedding photography adventure, I created a styled shoot based on Neil Gaiman’s poem ‘all I know about love’. I’m a bit of a Neil Gaiman fangirl! I confess I have ugly cried when meeting him once at Hay on Wye Festival. Years on, when he had seen these photos, and then shared the Rock n Roll Bride blog link on his twitter I had another day of excitable heart palpations. The traffic broke their blog temporarily and it won me first place in their top 10 non-real wedding features of 2018.
So these photos are 5 years old and I have come far since then and have recently celebrated my 6th year in business! It is time to put these photos into the archive as my portfolio is needing to show where it is at. If you are looking to see my work and thinking about booking me then bear in mind this is old work!
This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.
Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.
It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean.
Somebody’s got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.
It’s not two broken halves becoming one.
It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.
So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.
Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours,
and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.
And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.
And that’s all I know about love.
– A wedding poem by Neil Gaiman –
Credits:
Photography & Production: Stephanie Green Weddings
Styling: Blonde Army
Hair & MUA: Larisa Moldovan
Flowers: Sula Flowers
Dress: Jan Si Fashion
Venue: The Tufnell Park Tavern
Tableware: Of Special Interest
Models: James Naden & Lucy Cates
