Cross-Jones Photography were incredible from start to finish. I’d never been to a wedding before my own, so they really helped the day run smoothly. They were excellent at managing guests and getting truly beautiful shots of all the memories that we will cherish forever. Book them now!
A few months ago on a lovely sunny Sunday we had the pleasure of photographing the wedding of Dani & Ryan at Oldwalls, Gower. When we first started emailing Dani about becoming her wedding photographers little did we realise that we actually lived on the same road, it was fate! So she decided to nip up for a cuppa ASAP to check out our portfolio and make sure we were normal human beings (which I promise you we are!).
Dani is a surfer chick originally from Anglesea and Ryan is a Neath boy serving in the RAF, it was destined to be a fun wedding. Between the beer pong and some truly epic dance floor moves we weren’t disappointed. This wedding was full of fun and laughter, the bride giggled her way through her vows and the best men managed some cracking jokes that had the whole room in fits of joyous tears.
We decided to let Dani tell you a little bit more about her and Ryan’s relaxed Oldwalls Wedding herself. So here are a few of our favourite photos from their big day and some words from the bride herself.
We had been together for around 3 years. I nearly ruined the proposal as it was the hottest day of the year and I was surfing, Ryan had to persuade me to get out of the water and go out for a romantic meal at Castellamara. Ryan couldn’t fit the box for the ring in his pocket so had tied the ring to the inside of his pocket using a loose thread haha! After the meal we took a walk to look at the lighthouse and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
The planning took around 6-7 months. I loved trying on (literally) hundreds of dresses, but I think our absolute favourite was planning fun activities for the guests like our photo booth. We were so looking forward to seeing our family and friends enjoying themselves. It was really important to us it was fun for everyone.
Our theme was rustic. We love the outdoors and being a country girl I really loved that theme. We picked two colours (pink and silver) and just worked around that.
Almost everything was DIY, centre pieces, decoration, cake stand, favours, sweet table and invites! I loved making everything exactly the way I wanted to make it. It made everything so personal.
We chose Oldwalls as our venue as it was the only place that really made us feel ‘weddingy’. We weren’t going to look at it originally as it was way out of our price range but as we walked in we knew that was the place for us. Ryan just couldn’t get over that the marquee was actually a marquee!
The dress was one of the only things that really stressed me out. I live away from all my family and friends so most of the dress shopping I did alone. It was so hard to choose. I went to every shop in South Wales (practically), and I couldn’t settle on one. I never had that crying ‘this is the one’ moment which I was waiting for, but in the end I found a dress I absolutely adored in All About Eve, in Newport. However, it was double my budget! Thankfully, eBay came to the rescue and I found my exact dress, in my size, just 5 miles up the road. If that isn’t meant to be I don’t know what is
My something old was three charms from my mum’s bracelet that were put into my bouquet. My something new was a bracelet with 3 charms given to me by Ryan, then my something borrowed and blue were Ryan’s military beret badge and name patch from his uniform.
Paolo Nutini ‘Candy’, was our first dance. It was really hard to choose a song! But a month before the wedding we saw Paolo Nutini in Singleton Park and when he played Candy we knew that had to be the song for us.
Make sure you book Cross Jones Photography! They were amazing throughout the day and we would have been lost without them. As well, chill out. Weddings are fun, and looking around the room seeing all the people in the world you love all together having an amazing time is just incredible. Don’t get bogged down in the minor details, your day will be perfect anyway!
Pinterest was my best friend and worst enemy. Once you’ve bought your dress and decided your decorations, step away from the Pinterest and wedding pages/sites. You can’t change anything by that point anyway!
The dress nearly wasn’t done up properly, I lost my speech, and my littlest brother spent the entire day being very emotional as he couldn’t handle it. We also had guests split their trousers, and try to ride a sunken canoe, an incident with cauliflower and a caterpillar and a little sing along to end the night.
