Langley Castle Winter Wedding

Langley Castle was the venue for Harriet and Davids masked mayhem.

(the wedding invites were planned to use that term ! ).

what is the reason for that, you ask . . . .

well - the theme for this rather lovely wedding was a masked ball.

dress code : black tie. oh, and errr ... masks. venetian masks.

so where do we get a venetian mask the guests ask . . . .. .

t'internet of course. (that's where I got mine).

oh . . I'd better mention .. Harriet (the bride) likes black and white images,

so there aren't many colour ones on this page.

I arrive and immediately spot a vandalised . . . sorry . . . bridalised car. could this belong to Harriet ?

yep . car belongs to Harriet, the car decoration above was courtesy of Harriets autospraying Ltd
the girls were located indoors, partaking of drinkies.

err. shy little bridesmaid . . . ... well, maybe . .

the shy little bridesmaid reveals herself to be the ringleader of mayhem

ah . . but they can look sweet when they don't know a picture is being taken

a team of specialist fluffers and plumpfers attend to Harriets dress,
(fluffing and plumpfing a wedding dress can get you a NVQ level 3 nowadays . . )

so . . . what do you do for a living ?

I'm a fluffer and plumpfer. . . . . a good intro line for a conversation.

one groom (David) on the left

and one, err. best man on the right.

I told you it's a masked ball, didn't I.

they're probably grinning at my attempt to look cool
whilst I'm taking their picture with a venetian mask perched on my head.

ah. look . . .one of those noisy Scottish rocket launcher things, perched on this mans shoulder.

they're absolutely deafening when you're close to them

so loud that the Piper is now called 'sorry' or 'didn't quite hear that'

This wedding was very close to Christmas,

The holly in the doorway supplied courtesy of Harriets Hollypicking ventures Ltd

Harriet explained that she picked the holly herself,
having scrambled up various trees to get it apparently . . .

you can JUST make out a guys face in the centre of this image

that's David's beaming smile - which is far more visible on the full size image

note the little children standing to the right of the image

the ceremony is in full flow and has a junior audience at the back of the room

it's all over in a trice and our Scottish friend,
Mr 'whaddya say, speak up laddie, I can't quite hear you for the noise from this thing'
leads Harriet and David down the aisle,

Langley staff await with drinkies
(I think this was mulled wine, and it looks like a tray each from this picture )

David, wine clasped firmly in right hand,
finds that Harriet has boobytrapped the doorway with mistletoe.

gotcha.

here we see back pressure from the bagpipes inflating the pipers face.

within ten minutes - his face had inflated to a tremendous size
and he was last seen drifting like a hot air balloon over the battlements
whilst making a vaguely Scottish droning sound.

this little girl introduced herself as Zoe.

Zoes surname is . . willyoutakemypicture.

every ten mnutes, I saw this girl walk in front of my lens and say

hello, I'm Zoe, willyoutakemypicture . . . . . . so I did.

something tells me she'd like to be a bridesmaid someday.

check out the smile that she's beaming out when she's given a bouquet to hold for a minute.

Ah yes, did I mention that this wedding was late in the day ?

late on a Winter day, means sunset comes and everything goes dark.

you can see the sun dipping through the trees as a confetti storm swirls around Harriet and David.

anyway . . . it gets dark. (that's sort of normal around here when the sun goes down)

Harriet then said 'ooh look at the moon' take a picture of it, won't you.

so I go into Astrophotography mode.
stalking about . . .looking for a picture of the moon that might look good in the album.

oh yes - a feature of this wedding was . . . candles. . . . lots of candles.

so this is the cutting of the wedding cake lit by . . you guessed it . .. candles

After the meal, the masked ball begins,

this guy kept popping in front of my lens,

he had a vaguely scary looking mask

I forgot to mention, David is a GP.

the masked bunch above are members of 'the practice'

so . . imagine for a moment, you're feeling really unwell,
so you go to see a Doctor . .
which one of the above would you choose . . ?

personally, I think that all doctors ought to wear masks sometimes.

Hah . . can you imagine being prescribed something by the masked feller at top left for example . .

as the evening draws on, some masks are flipped on top of heads

the guy above takes on the appearance of a wierdly feathered penguin

and as the evening draws on, Harriets little girl needs some comfort from mum.

another oddly feathered character is spotted in a corner . . this is getting to be fun.

I've definitely got competition with this guy, every time I see him, he's gripping a camera,

with a mask like that - you'd assume he nicked the camera !

technical adjustments carried out by a lady. (they're better at this sort of thing . always have been . . )

I couldn't resist this one - is it a hairstyle or a set of wings ?

I'm really keen on this mask theme,
though god knows what I look like, because I'm wearing one too.

(my mask is also on top of my head for a lot of the time)

Ah . the dance. to the music of the Paul James Band I believe.

and just before I leave, I take a picture of David kissing Harriet on a crowded dance floor.