Norman & Jessica's Destination Wedding + Photography Adventure (Part 6)

First of all, my deepest apologies for being so delinquent over the past couple of months - life sometimes gets in the way of blogging ;) So - without further ado - the much anticipated continuation of our adventure around Ireland with a wedding dress and a camera! (Need to catch up? Here's Part 1 - The Proposal, Part 2 - The Wardrobe, Part 3 - The Adventure Begins, Part 4 - The Ceremony, Part 5 - The Awesome Place We Went for Lunch After the Ceremony)

I know it's been a while, so I'll refresh your memory - in a nutshell, Norman proposed to me a month before we were to be married at Belfast City Hall, we decided it would be a great idea to do our own wedding photography - and to do it all around Ireland on our honeymoon road trip and in Spain while we were there for a week. Crazy? Yes. Awesome? Double yes :)

We arrived in Northern Ireland the evening of May 3rd (after very little sleep in the previous 24 hours), spent the following day running around taking care of last-minute details, and then got married May 5th at 11am (for those of you who love jet lag as much as I do, that's 6am to our Toronto-adjusted selves). In spite of the fact that I think we were running on pure adrenaline (and Love!), it was an awesome and perfect day :) Our plan was to leave the next morning to start our 8-day road trip around Ireland...

Part 6 - Dublin - The Honeymoon Begins

Of course, by the time we went for a walk with Elaine and Yogi in the morning, took a few pictures of my beautiful bouquet - made by Norman's lovely cousin Joanne - 

finished packing, went to Tesco (again!) for groceries, had a lovely cup of tea with Elaine in her sunny back garden, and loaded up the car, it was 3pm (!) so it was almost 7pm by the time we found our hostel in Dublin. This experience of trying to navigate a new town while sleep deprived reminded me of all my attempts to get through Montreal in less than two hours. 

The highlight of our arrival in Dublin was this sign (which is totally real):

The hostel we stayed in was a converted church, and the dining hall looked like it was straight out of Hogwarts :) Notice the backpacker stained glass window..

While checking out the map of our neighbourhood, I found this awesomely appropriate little street nearby:

This is the famous Ha' Penny Bridge in Dublin - getting this shot involved parking illegally and sprinting down the street to do a few quick shots on the bridge while people stood behind Norman looking at me like I was crazy..

... and then sprinting back up the street to the car before it could get towed (not the way to start a road trip!), pausing briefly to get a shot of us together with the bridge in the background. "Ha' Penny" is a quick-talking way of saying "Half Penny", which is what the toll used to be on this bridge many moons ago.

After much meandering, we made our way up to Phoenix Park which is a massive and beautiful park in Dublin. Norman took me to see this field where the deer hang out (we joked that it looked like they were at deer-church). There were tons of them, and they were pretty used to having people around, so we were able to get pretty close before they scampered off.

In case you are looking at this picture below and thinking - as I am - "Jessica, you look very awkward and like you've never had your picture taken before" haha - THIS is why I strongly encourage all my couples to have engagement photos done, so that they don't look this uncomfortable in their wedding photos ;) 

Whereas my lovely husband is totally used to having someone point a camera at him all the time :) Pictures like these next two are exactly why I wanted to do our own wedding photos (apart from the awesomeness of being able to choose our locations as we went and spend the better part of two weeks doing them!) These are two of my favourite pictures that I've ever taken of Norman..

What we don't have pictures of (thankfully!) is the part where we changed back into our driving clothes at the side of the road that runs through the park - of course as soon as you think the coast is clear, random cyclists appear from out of nowhere LOL.. there was of course comfort in knowing that we'd never see them again ;)

It took us another couple of hours to find our way out of Dublin and on our way to Cork - stay tuned for the most hilarious road sign I've ever seen! {click here for the next installment!}

xo

Jessica + Norman

Planning a destination wedding? We'd love to come along to capture your adventure too! Email us to tell us about your plans :)