Something a little different for this week’s blog…
On 26th August I photographed the wedding of the truly delightful couple, PJ and Anna Rawson, in glorious Wiltshire. I was instantly drawn to their infectious energy and warmth and they made me feel so welcome into their family and their special day that I spent much of it feeling like I was a guest as much as their official wedding photographer!
Just last week I successfully completed The Screwball Rally, a 1800 mile European charity drive which raised money for UK charities. This epic event saw me and a very good friend drive through France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Belgium and Italy over the duration of just five days: our chosen charity was the Butterwick Hospice who provided wonderful palliative care for my mother who sadly passed away last summer following a brief battle with cancer.
The rally was an incredible experience and one that we feel honored to have made some small contribution to the £127,000 total raised by the event. You can only imagine my utter surprise and absolute delight to receive a notification from the charity that an additional (and very significant) donation had been made by none other than the newly weds, PJ and Anna, with the following note:
You went way above and beyond for our wedding day and so we wanted to show our appreciation and also help to contribute to this great cause. Much love from PJ and Anna.
I love to photograph weddings for so many different reasons: I love meeting new people and really getting to know them; I love the celebration of people making their life-long commitment to one another; I love the creative license I have to explore new and exciting ways of providing wonderful photographic memories for the couple and their families; I even love the exciting pre-wedding preparation, making final checks to my camera equipment in some hotel or b&b and falling asleep visualizing specific shots that I wish to capture; I love the emotion of the speeches, either chuckling to myself or wiping a tear or two from my eyes whilst (rather conveniently!) hidden from view behind my camera; I love the random unpredictability of the day and the challenge of having to quickly adapt to situations on-the-go…I could go on and on. So to do what I love to do only to receive this wonderful message and incredibly generous donation was exceptionally humbling: I can’t thank them enough.
For anyone wishing to read more about the amazing work of the Butterwick Hospice, please see https://www.butterwick.org.uk
A donation can be made directly to the hospice through: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MartynRussell1
With huge thanks,
Martyn
