Norman & Jessica's Destination Wedding + Photography Adventure (Part 10)

Part 10 - Sligo

{Need to catch up? Here's the beginning, and here's Part 9 where we left off..}

Norman had been telling me about Sligo pretty much since we met, so it was really nice to finally get there and see it for myself. He didn't exaggerate - the sand dunes at the beach are stunning, and it's just generally a lovely place :) Also, the surfing scenes from Point Break were filmed nearby which is an added bonus if you happened to have a huge Point Break movie poster on the ceiling above your bed as a teenager ;) (just to be clear - that was me, not Norman!). And as usual, we pretty much had all this gorgeous scenery to ourselves..

 I love this about my husband - he has pretty much left our initials in hearts on every available flat surface we've come across (in five countries so far..). We also built a tiny Inukshuk on the pebble beach like good Canadians do everywhere :) We walked all the way to the "end" and around the corner to sit in the sun and enjoy the view and the dramatic pre-rain sky..

 After our lovely walk down the beach, we went back to the town to do some wedding photos in the pub near right near the beach. We thought it would be very "Irishy" to have Guinness - this was my first (and likely last!) sip of Guinness ever so I'm glad it was in Ireland :) They had one table (below) where you could actually pour your own pints and save yourself the trip all the way up to the bar.. I can only imagine there have been a couple of shocking credit card bills that have resulted from this!

 I have to admit to not even coming close to finishing that pint, which seemed to please the guys at the bar that we left it with ;) 

Part of what I loved about our room at the B&B was the great gold frame she had on the wall (which you can sort of see behind me in this picture on the left..) - you may recognize it as the one I ended up using for our wall art piece that was a collage of 10 images from our wedding trip and party (right) and it completely fits in with our "real life" gold frames at home!

I loved our trip around Ireland :) We saw and did such an amazing variety of awesome things, and the people of course are so lovely and friendly :) I can't wait to go back! If you're planning on going, Norman would be very happy to offer suggestions..

After our 8 days of driving around the country, we headed back to Norman's sister Elaine's place for a few days of relaxing, visiting, and planning for the family party near the end of our stay. Our next stop was Alicante, Spain! Just to give you a quick impression, this was the view if you looked up from the breakfast table where we stayed :) How awesome is that?!

Stay tuned for our Spanish adventures, coming soon!

xo
Jessica + Norman

Gown: Cabaret Vintage
Veil + fascinator: Oh Dina!
Photography: Jessica Lin Photography

Norman & Jessica's Destination Wedding + Photography Adventure (Part 9)

Part 9 - Galway to Sligo, by way of Knock and Westport


{If right now you're thinking: "Part 9?! Where the heck is the rest of the story?", don't panic! Here's where we started, and here's where Part 8 left off in case that's all you've missed..}

After leaving Galway, our first stop was Knock. If you've never been there, Knock is to Ireland sort of what Lourdes is to France. I wanted to go because I'm fascinated by how cultures celebrate and practice their religions and beliefs - one of the best pieces of television I ever saw was a British show called "Around the World in 80 Faiths" which I highly recommend if you ever have a chance to see it. I have loved all the various Virgin representations I've seen in places like Mexico, France, and even a few days before this in Cork, and have actually sort of collected her from various countries to decorate the walls of our house, although I'm not Catholic.

But somehow Knock didn't feel "spiritual" to me, it actually felt kind of weird. I don't mean to offend anybody of course, and I'm sure there are lots of people who would say it's not spiritual to me because those aren't my beliefs, but of all the religious sites and churches and cathedrals I've been to in my life, only the one in Seville compares to Knock in the way it unsettled me (in the case of Seville, I couldn't quite get over how someone at some point had spent about a jillion dollars on 5-foot tall gold statues adorning one wall about 10 statues wide and stacked 6 or 7 high..). Knock seemed like a really big parking lot surrounding a few small buildings with a couple of plaques and statues, and then a street full of very touristy shops selling plastic containers (to fill up with Holy Water), clocks with Jesus on the cross, beads for every Saint known to man, and a million other things. I have to admit to bringing home a small card showing Saint Lucy - who is the patron Saint of our street, and so seemed fitting.

Anyways, I'm still glad we went to see Knock. It was an interesting contrast from Brigid's Garden (which had much more Celtic origins), especially since we visited the two very different locations within two days.

Back on the road, we continued north along the western part of Ireland until we came to Westport. Norman had said ahead of time that it was a picturesque town, and it lived up to all expectations :) After a quick scouting trip through the very hilly core of the town, we found a place to park the car and a place to change (that's right, we didn't actually drive around wearing these clothes all day!)

Sitting in my sunporch on this very sunny Saturday, I am reminded not at all of the weather we had when we were in Ireland ;) As my lovely husband pointed out to me - you can't expect a place to have 50 shades of green without a lot of rain.. The upside to a country that sees more cloud than clear sky is that the light is great for shooting almost all the time - as long as you can miss the rain! We picked a few of our favourite locations in Westport and managed to get some pretty great images before the rain started :)

 If my house could be made from these gorgeous blue-grey and pale rust-coloured stones, that would be perfect! (who do I talk to about that..?)

 I love colour - as you may have noticed ;)  - and I especially love it when great colour combinations come together. The town of Westport will always hold a special place in my heart, for the simple reason that it seemed to me as though the people there had been kind enough to paint some of their buildings in the perfect colours to go with what we were wearing :)

Just after these last shots were taken, it started to pour rain - we didn't even have time to change back into our "normal" clothes before scurrying back to the car and continuing our trip to our final destination - Sligo. The best part about that is that when we tried to check in to our hostel by the beach in Sligo, the man there took one look at our fancy attire and upgraded us (at no extra charge!) to the classier B&B owned by the same people nextdoor :)

After settling in to our room (which I LOVED and will show you why in the next part..) we went for a quick walk to the beach and then to the pub :) To scout it out for our photos the next day, of course ;)

Sligo is so beautiful - I can't wait to show you the pictures we took in the pub, and on our much longer walk down the beach the next day... stay tuned!!

xo
Jessica + Norman

p.s. as much as we'd love to shoot every wedding in Westport, we're actually very happy to shoot weddings pretty much wherever they happen! Email us now for more information if you're looking for a team of passionate wedding photographers (and lovers of life!)

Dress: Cabaret Vintage
Headband: Oh Dina!
Photography: Jessica Lin Photography

Norman & Jessica's Destination Wedding + Photography Adventure (Part 8)

Alright - I'm slightly embarrassed at how long it's taken me to blog the story of our overseas wedding + honeymoon that happened a year ago (!) SO I'm going to step it up a bit and aim to complete the story by the end of July. It's been so nice re-living all of the amazing memories and there's a big part of me that never wants it to end, but I realize that you, the reader, may eventually want to get to the end ;) If you are new to the story and would like to start at the beginning, here it is :) If you just want to refresh your memory of what happened last, here's Part 7 - Cork to Killarney.

So without further ado..

Part 8 - Killarney to Galway


Taking the advice of the Lonely Planet guide book, we decided we need to see Eyeries as it's meant to be one of the most picturesque little towns ever in the world. It was, as this quicky little video shows..

We drove the north side of the Ring of Beara, and the whole drive was really beautiful. The biggest problem is that you want to stop every 5 minutes to take pictures (which is why we didn't actually make it all the way around the Ring!)

This is just right around the corner from Eyeries - more beautiful scenery, more beautiful light (I love Ireland!) Norman took this one of me (below, left) while I was setting up for the one of the two of us (immediately below).. there was a fair amount of chaos running back and forth and taking that jumper off and on between shots (it was freezing!), so I was always really excited to end up with an image like this one that we were both really happy with :)

Hopped out at the side of the road for this one - seemed only fair since I had my "New Bride Street" photo back in Dublin..

 And this - drumroll please - was I think my favourite view in all of Ireland :) It was called Ladies View lookout and it was simply magical..

 After such an amazing day and with my mind full of all the sights we'd seen, I had trouble sleeping that night at Paddy's Palace.. I had this panicky feeling that somehow we were going to "miss" great shooting opportunities, and that we couldn't possibly have time to really get the most of our trip. The problem is that I think once you start thinking of your trip (and especially your honeymoon!) as a list of goals of places to see and photos to take, you run the risk of not enjoying any of it. Norman and I have very different styles of approaching projects and lists (as we learned with our renovations..), so there was the added problem that we were disagreeing and that caused a lot of stress and tension on top of it all! So while I was sitting up in the middle of the night having a slight freak-out about all this, I started to do what came naturally - I made a shot list. It's funny because with other couples' weddings I make up the shot list weeks in advance, and with our own pictures here I was a few days into shooting before I actually started to sketch some ideas and list specific things I wanted to make sure we got. And even though this sounds like maybe going the wrong way about getting more relaxed, it soothed me to have a "big picture" that I could refer to. I'm so used to doing it for other people, and I think I've underestimated all this time how comforting it is to have someone take charge. So in a way I had to learn to separate myself in my mind into "the Bride" and "the Photographer" so that the professional side of me could be prepared and organized, and the personal side of me could be happy and smiling and in love. And still speaking to her Groom ;)

The next day we drove to Brigid's Garden which was fantastic. The garden is divided into four "seasons" and planted to represent the annual cycles of nature as well as the overall cycle of life - I love that they had such a beautiful concept and they did a really great job of it. This pond was full of tiny newts, which I'd never seen before, so we watched them swim around for a while before heading over to write a wish for the wish tree..

It was a really lovely day and felt a lot more like a trip and honeymoon than like a crazy assignment we'd given ourselves, which I think was exactly what we needed :)

That night after checking in to our B&B in Galway, we drove out through Salthill to Spiddal to see the coral beach (instead of sand, it's literally all tiny broken up pieces of coral!). The light was stunning for the entire drive, and disappeared just before we got there. In my new-found state of photo-zen, I tried to just appreciate the beauty we'd seen and not be disappointed in the fact that we had "nothing to show for it". I think this was the only part of our trip that was specifically a Gaeltacht area, which means they don't speak English. Other than stopping for directions once at a shop, we didn't see anyone else while we were there. 

After the beach we headed back to Spiddal town to go to Tigh Hughes pub which is famous for having Irish music and a great atmosphere. We were two of six people there that night, and were somewhat confused by the lack of liveliness until one of the men came over to talk to us. He explained that a young man in the town had been killed on the road a few days back, and out of respect for him there would be no music. We ended up talking to this man for over an hour, and he told us stories of building a hospital in the Black Forest with three guys from Belfast who showed up to work with a banjo and a guitar - it was an unexpectedly great evening. In my journal, I noted that we "managed to get back to B&B in spite of drunk navigator" ;)

Stay tuned for next time, when we visit Knock and the gorgeous seaside town of Westport!

xo

Jessica + Norman


Dress: Cabaret Vintage
Headband: Oh Dina!

Norman & Jessica's Destination Wedding + Photography Adventure (Part 7)

As we were busy getting ready for The Original Wedding Soiree bridal show tomorrow, I was thinking what better way to get prepared for talking to excited engaged couples than to think back to our own wedding last spring, and the adventure honeymoon road trip that followed.. {For you late-comers: we decided to take the wedding dress and all the camera gear with us to do our own wedding photos as we drove around Ireland! 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, Part 6 - Dublin - The Honeymoon Begins}

So - after kissing Dublin goodbye, we were on our way..

Part 7 - Cork to Killarney


In Cork we stayed above the Bru Bar Pub, which happened to be hosting a very lively stag party when we arrived at about 7pm. Once we fought our way through the crowd and up the stairs we were amazed to find how quiet our room was. After making a quick dinner of chicken penne and a salad, we went for a lovely walk out in the rain through downtown Cork. After all the driving, it was nice to get out and stretch our legs.. but of course it wasn't long until we found ourselves seated once again - this time in the greatest little pub I've ever been in. There was nothing special about it, which was part of what made it so awesome. Just a place full of old tables and chairs where friends had gathered for a drink and a laugh. We sat at the very back wall and enjoyed the fact that we were there, in that weird way where you anticipate something for so long that you can barely believe it once you are finally doing it :)

The next morning, Norman wrote our initials in the condensation on the window in our room (which later became part of our wall art canvas)..

After breakfast, we went for another walk around the town - this time with daylight and no rain - it is exactly as lovely as you imagine :)

This is the best road sign I have seen in my whole life!

Down by the river there were these huge inflatable, tire-covered fenders (bumpers for big ships)

Our next stop was Clonakilty beach, which had these amazing rocks (actually, pretty much the whole of Ireland has amazing rocks - Norman still can't believe I need so many pictures of them ;)

Our rings, hanging out with some barnacles..

Here's the thing about beaches in Ireland - they are empty. Stunningly beautiful, and empty. (Also a bit cold and windy, but perfect for walking along..)

We drove down to Mizen head, which I think must be the windiest place in the world. There was only one other person there when we got to the end - a Croatian guy who was touring around Ireland on his motorcycle - we spoke to him for a while about the great things we had all been seeing, and then wished each other happy journeys and were back on our way to Killarney..

Killarney, if you ever get the chance to go, has one of the most magical national parks ever invented by nature :) We found a place to pull the car over for some wedding pictures near this picturesque bridge - the tricky part was that it was so windy that the clouds were flying by and the light kept changing from the time I would click the shutter (on timer) to the time it actually took the picture! Norman took a few shots of me with the most beautiful light in the world, and then we set up the tripod to do one together..

It started to pour rain not long after this shot, so we were back in the car and on our way to the next adventure!

Stayed tuned for our visit to the stunning "Ladies View" lookout.. {click here!}

xo Jessica + Norman

{Getting married? We don't only shoot our own wedding in Ireland - we would love to photograph yours too... wherever it is! Email us now to set up a consultation :)  }

Photography: Jessica Lin Photography

Dress: Cabaret Vintage

Headband: Oh Dina!

Bracelet: Response Clothing

Norman & Jessica's Destination Wedding + Photography Adventure (Part 5)

First time visiting? Here's what's happened so far:  Part 1 - The Proposal, Part 2 - The Wardrobe, Part 3 - The Adventure Begins, Part 4 - The Ceremony

This week...

Part 5 - The Awesome Place We Went for Lunch After the Ceremony


I can see your eyes squinting up with doubt, I can hear you saying "why on earth would I care where you went for lunch after you got married?", but that's only because you've never seen this place:

Recommended by Norman's cousin Cathy, it's called AM:PM and was right around the corner from Belfast City Hall. It reminded me of if my dreams turned into walls :) Big gold frames, fake flowers, and purses everywhere. Chandeliers, candles, and every colour in the known universe finished off the look.

Joe & Elaine, considering their options..

Norman with his best friend Ian, who was fantastic enough to do our pictures at City Hall

This was the best lunch I've ever had :) Duck and hoisin were involved..

the first picture Norman took of his new wife :)

So - as if that restaurant hadn't been perfect enough (and of course the ceremony was perfect!) - when we headed over to Tesco to pick up some roadtrip groceries there were cupcakes! These cupcake people had never been there before, and it was like magic how they showed up for us on our wedding day :) 

My violet cupcake won the beauty contest, but Norman's raspberry cupcake was by far the yummier one

(I had changed out of my dress to go grocery shopping, but thought it best to leave my veil on haha..)

In case you're wondering why we were at Tesco on our wedding day, it's because I think we went to Tesco or Asda (the other big grocery chain) - or both - every single day we were there. Elaine can probably verify this. My lovely husband enjoys a good grocery shopping trip like nobody else I know, so much that it's actually fun to go with him :)

Plus, we had to pick up some groceries because the next day we were heading out on our honeymoon roadtrip around Ireland! This is where it gets kind of exciting - Norman had this idea for us to bring our wedding outfits and all the camera gear with us while we travelled, so that we could take our own wedding pictures in many beautiful Irishy places :) It was sometimes stressful, always windy, and a bit crazy - but the pictures are awesome! 

Here's one of my favourites...

Stay tuned for our first stop... Dublin!

xox Jessica + Norman