Leigh and Merrill - wedding Botanic Gardens Edinburgh

Leigh and Merrill got married 3 weeks ago in Edinburgh, and what a wedding it was… I have to honestly say it was the most emotional wedding I have ever photographed and it was so amazing to witness how happy everyone was to see these two lovely people becoming a married couple. They are clearly so in love with each other, but also, and everyone kept repeating this through the day, they are so devoted to helping others in their everyday jobs for the health service. It was so touching to hear how much praise everyone got for Merrill who’s a pediatric surgeon.
They got married in the St Columba’s Church in Royal Mile in Edinburgh – amazing location with hundreds of tourists – there’s was about 300 of them waiting for Leigh’s arrival outside the church. After the ceremony we’ve moved to Botanic Gardens – my favorite wedding location in Edinburgh. John Hope Gateway is a fantastic venue, ideal for bigger weddings with so many photo opportunities. Again, the speeches were full of praise, fun, cracking jokes and John, Merrill’s best man, made everyone singing “merrileigh” songs. There was only one moment I did not enjoy that much – their first dance. I always considered myself as a half decent dancer, and did pretty well on my own wedding day ( with a little bit of help from the dance teacher ), but Merrill proved to me how wrong I was ( thanks Merrill :-). I’ve been a wedding photographer for a while now, so I though  know a bit about a good wedding dance but what these two did, was absolutely amazing and wild – I was surprised Leigh was still in one piece after they finished. It was absolutely fantastic, you could see that Merrill is in his element and…they didn’t even take one dance lesson. What followed was the Ceilidh dancing and I was surprised no one got injured – it was crazy :-) As a photographer I usually stay till about one hour after the wedding dance. This time I never left till nearly 2am and it was really worth it. What can I say – a really strong entry for the wedding of the decade competition.