The priest, the photographer and the kiss

Meet Father Harry Bohan.  He’s the parish priest in Sixmilebridge, in County Clare, and I met him for the first time on Saturday. He’s well known around Clare, and further afield, for his work in the community, as the founder of the Rural Resource Organization, and for his involvement with Clare hurling, including as manager of the senior inter-county team in the 1970s. He is also not only a very nice man, but blessed with a sense humour. I know this from personal experience, having met him for the first and only time on Saturday at about 1pm. I introduced myself to him in in the sacristy of St. Finnachta’s Church, where he was about to celebrate the marriage of Sinead and Diarmaid. Having reassured him that I wouldn’t get in the way while photographing the marriage ceremony, I asked about his approach to the ceremony, and whether or not he invited the bride and groom to exchange a first kiss after the vows and exchange of rings. At least, that’s what I meant. What I actually said was, well, open to misinterpretation…

The story is better told from his perspective, so let me skip forward a little to the core of the wedding ceremony itself, and the moment when Sinead and Diarmaid were pronounced man and wife. As the congregation congratulated the couple, Diarmaid gave Sinead a kiss on the cheek. Father Bohan congratulated the couple, commented on the important part being over, and then told the congregation of a story he wanted to share with them.

“You’ll have noticed”, he began, “that Diarmaid gave Sinead a little kiss there. Well, earlier on today before mass the photographer Rónan – where are you Rónan? [cut to me raising my hand sheepishly while, knowing what is coming, I try to find a hole to disappear in to] - well, Rónan came in to introduce himself to me and having told me who he was, he then said to me: ‘Father – do you do a kiss?’”. Cue laughter from an absolutely packed church of close to 400 guests, with some of those who maybe weren’t so interested in the story a moment ago having a second look to see where I was. “It was a first for me, I tell you”, he concluded.

You know what I meant by that question, given my opening paragraph, but I’m sure you can see, as I can, how he might have been thrown by the question which was, pretty much, the first thing I said to him. In my head it all made perfect sense of course!

Skipping on again, we arrive at the drinks reception at Dromoland Castle. With this being the biggest wedding I’ve photographed, and the biggest Dromoland have ever had, I hoped that I would be able to blend into the background for some documentary images of the guests mingling and chatting and enjoying the drinks reception, especially after my recent attendance at a documentary wedding photography seminar which covered different techniques for making yourself invisible to guests. And I might well have managed to make myself invisible, were it not for one thing.  I was now known as “The Kiss Guy”. I lost count of how many people came over to me to ask if I had gotten my kiss. My favourite was the gentleman who, each time I passed him, puckered his lips and made a mwich mwich sound. In ordinary circumstances that might have even been a little bit disturbing, but it was quite funny, and I got a laugh out of it as much as the guests did. Sinead and Diarmaid got a laugh out of it too, both during the ceremony when Father Bohan told his story, and later on as I mentioned to them all the comments I was getting. So while in an ideal world I would say the photographer shouldn’t be the centre of attention at a wedding, I was happy to bring a moment of laughter to the day. Better than drawing attention to myself for all the wrong reasons, such as, say, this:

Two thank yous…

I’ll share some photos from Sinead and Diarmaid’s big day in the next two posts, but before that, I need to thank two people. I never did tell Sinead and Diarmaid this, but on Friday evening at about 6pm I started experiencing every wedding photographer’s worst nightmare – I started to feel unwell hours before the wedding. Very unwell, in fact. So much so that I had to think about a contingency plan for the wedding the following morning – a plan complicated by the fact that the wedding was two and a half hours away from me. My first port of call was the ever reliable Paul Timon, who has been my contigency plan in the past, albeit with more notice. On this occasion he reassured me that if I was really stuck, I could call on him on Saturday morning. Given that Clare is probably three and half hours from his house, that was a hugely generous offer, and one I was extremely grateful for. My other port of call was Roger Overall, who came to mind because I know he has a lot of photography contacts around the country through his involvement in the IPPA, and because I had spoken to him earlier in the week when he did a mini critique of some of my images (more on that in an upcoming post). He responded quickly with the name of a photographer closer to the wedding location, which gave me a local contact who, if he was unavailable, would no doubt have known other local photographers who might be available at short notice.

Thankfully by about 10pm, and after some rest, I started to feel not only a lot better, but also confident that I would be able to travel the next morning and would be able to photograph the wedding. Having felt sick about feeling sick, I have no doubt that having a back up plan courtesy of Paul and Roger helped me feel better. So thank you Paul, and thank you Roger.

Feeling a lot better by about 10pm also meant that when Sinead, the bride, texted at 10.30pm to see that I was all ok for the following morning, I was able to truthfully reply that I was, and that I was looking forward to seeing her in 12 hours. I’m glad she hadn’t texted at 8.30pm, because I’m not sure what I would have been able to respond then. In fact, I’m especially glad she hadn’t texted at 8.30pm given what was transpiring at her end of the phone, but that’s part of the story for tomorrow’s post.