The first thing you need in a wedding photographer is that they show up on the day. Simon Whitten gets from Venice to London under an ash cloud …

Thursday AM

I am wrapped up in a honeymoon photo-shoot with clients in Venice when my phone rings: “Have you heard the news? – UK air space is being shutdown this evening from 7pm”.

Oh dear … we are booked on a flight that afternoon to get back to the UK with a clear full day between our shoot in Venice and a wedding on the Saturday.

The airline Jet2.com’s website is useless, as are their emergency contact numbers. Not a single one of their phone numbers work as all of the Press this number now options have been disabled.

Thursday PM

Go to the airport for further info. Of course there’s none … and no one there from Jet2.com.The phone lines still don’t work and both of the single internet connections in Marco Polo airport are out of order.

Brainwave: book a flight now with Easyjet from Venice to Paris, then get home on the cross channel Eurostar train service.

Get photographers Steve Ramsden and Ryan Browne on standby to cover the Saturday wedding. (Steve was already committed to another job, but big thanks to Ryan for covering if needs be).

Get last flight out of Venice to France, the last flight to land in Paris before French airspace is shutdown at 11pm, approximately five minutes after we land.

Closer to the UK, but not there yet!

Close to midnight and we need internet connection in Orly airport … fine if you bought pre-paid access from the shop before it closed at 10pm! Sweet-talk a charming lady at an info desk, who hands over her computer with internet connection.

But Eurostar is booked solid for the next 3 days … Calais to Dover ferry is also booked solid for foot passengers for the next two days … but space is still available for car passengers.

Attempt to book car.

Every car rental in Paris area is booked out.

The airport closes and we lose our internet connection.

Find hotel. It’s 178 euros a night, but at 1.00am, we barter to 148 euros (we
need their wifi connection).

We spend all night checking every conceivable option open to us and in the end manage to book a lunchtime ferry from Cherbourg, 200+ miles away, to Portsmouth in the UK.

Only problem is, the train that will get us there is booked out and not showing any availability for rest of day.

Other options considered:

1: Book a car with a compulsory return-to-Paris option, but dump in it Cherbourg.

2: Negotiate with the night porter for his brother to drive us to Cherbourg. Negotiations break down over costs (he wants 500 euros).

3: Break and enter a WWII Normandy landing museum to steal an amphibious vehicle.

4: Apply for jobs as cleaners on ferry and jump ship on arrival in the UK.

5: Jump on the back of a lorry and enter the UK as legal illegal immigrants.

Friday AM

Go to train station and manage to book lunchtime tickets to Cherbourg and change our ferry tickets from the lunchtime to the evening ferry.

Friday PM

Evening ferry is late, but eventually, just after 11.00pm, we reach England, where a car is waiting.

Saturday AM

I get back home at 5.30am and manage 2-1/2 hours sleep (after 1-1/2 the previous night) before spending all day shooting a wedding.

The irony of the story is that the vicar failed to make the wedding, and the ceremony had to be taken by the curate. Where was the vicar?

Stuck in Venice!

Girls, here’s a tip.

Go out and buy yourself a nice big folder. The ring binder type is good. Something that you can keep adding to.

Call it your ‘Wedding Folder’.

The only reason I know anything about this is because Kayla bought a ‘Wedding Folder’ the day after we got engaged. And the only reason I’m talking about it is because it became our most important wedding planning resource.

Kayla divided it up into sections – receipts, ideas, booking forms, correspondence, stationery… that kind of thing.

In that folder went everything even remotely related to our wedding: pictures of dresses, hair styles, suits, cakes, flowers etc that we liked.

Info packs from venues we’d visited, emails from suppliers we were using, receipts for every-single-little-thing we bought.

Copies of all our stationery, fabric samples of dresses and copies of our vows and speeches.

That folder became our wedding bible and the single most helpful wedding resource we had. Having everything in one organised place in a form we could take to consultations, rehearsals and family meetings, meant no mis-communication or second guessing. About anything.

Now our wedding is over, our wedding folder has become like a journal, telling the story of the path we travelled.

We’ll treasure looking through it, pulling out our invites, laughing at the amount on the receipt for the dress (instead of sweating about it), and remembering one of the most exciting, scary, frustrating and enjoyable times in our life.

Trust me, you’ll come to obsess over, and love, that Wedding Folder.

Cheers, Nigel