Aisling ByrnePhotography, Galway
Guests throwing confetti over a couple walking out of an outdoor ceremony under an apple tree, the groom in a tweed three piece

Photographs of the
day you actually had.

Weddings and family portraits in Ireland, photographed quietly.

03 August, twenty past two, forty seconds after the registrar stopped talking.

I photograph about eighteen weddings a year in Galway, Connemara and along the west coast, on my own or with a second shooter. Nobody gets posed and nothing gets staged.

What that means on the day

I arrive two and a half hours before the ceremony, I eat when you eat, and the only twenty minutes I take charge of are the family groups. Everything else I photograph as it happens.

More about how I work
A couple standing on a stony shore photographed from the knees down, the bride in green wellington boots under a tulle skirt
19:50. Salthill in a May gale. She brought the wellingtons; I did not have to suggest them.
An older woman fastening the back of a wedding gown, close in, lit from a window on the left
Her mother, twenty eight buttons and a hook.
A bride hand resting on a tulle skirt with a plain gold band, beside a bouquet of sea holly, gypsophila and eucalyptus
Sea holly, because it grows at the end of her road in Oranmore.

Churches have rules and most couples find out on the day.

Most Galway parishes keep the photographer behind the front pews and out of the sanctuary, and a few ask for no flash at all. I ring the sacristan the week before, shoot at f1.8 from the back of the nave, and you never hear about it.

See a full day in Moycullen
A grey limestone church with a bell tower and rose window under a flat wet sky, a guest sheltering under an umbrella at the door
Rain from eleven until four. The porch was the only dry place in the village.
Close view of a couple hands joined during the vows, his dark suit sleeve and her hand over his
The vows.
The back of a bride in a lace gown holding a cream bouquet, confetti caught in her hair
Confetti, all afternoon.
A couple stepping out of a doorway into a shower of paper hearts thrown by guests, in black and white
Out the door at half twelve.

The wedding day timeline planner

Tell me the month and the ceremony time and I will tell you where the light goes.

Galway sits far enough west that the sun sets an hour later than most of Europe on the same longitude line, and in December it is gone by half four. This is the timeline I would actually send you, built around that.

Low gold light from seven. My favourite hour of the year.

Sunset is 19:40, which is after the main course. We do twenty minutes early for safety and the real ones at 18:55.

10:30I arrive where you are getting readyThe room, the dress on the door, your mother, the shoes. Quiet, no direction.
11:10Second shooter goes to the groomOn the Full Day collection. Buttonholes, the walk in, the waiting.
12:05Dress onTwenty minutes, and the only twenty minutes of the day I ask everybody else to leave the room.
12:35I am at the church before you areLong lens, back of the nave, and whatever the sacristan told me on the phone.
13:00CeremonyForty five minutes for a full nuptial mass, half that without one.
13:45Out the door, confetti, greetingsTwenty minutes and it will feel like five. This is where the best frames of the day happen.
14:30Family groups, 10 of themThree minutes each. Write the list now and give it to a brother who knows the faces, not to me.
15:05Ten minutes with the two of youInsurance only, in case the evening turns. These are not the ones you will print.
17:00Everybody sits downI eat when you eat, which is the only way I am still upright at midnight.
18:55Back out for the lightTwenty minutes between the main course and the speeches, because the light does not get good until now and it holds until 20:05. Sunset is 19:40.
19:25SpeechesFrom the side, at 85mm, with the room in the frame behind the person talking.
21:15First danceTwo songs, available light and whatever the band has on the truss.

The Half Day stops at 16:30. The Full Day stops at 20:30, which is before the first dance, so add an hour or move the dance forward.

Send me this day

Collections

Three ways to book a Saturday.

The Half Day6 hours · 350 edited images · 6 weeks€1,450The Full Day10 hours · 600 edited images · 8 weeks€2,400The Full Day and the Morning12 hours, plus one the next morning · 800 edited images · 10 weeks€3,100

Family sessions €340. Album €480. Every figure on this page includes VAT at 23 per cent.

What is in each one

Stories

Three days, told the whole way through.

A grey limestone church with a bell tower and a rose window under a flat wet sky, a guest under an umbrella at the doorAoife and CathalMoycullen, then the lake road · OctoberA stone church, rain from eleven until four, and a hotel with orange uplighters they had asked the manager to turn off.A bride in a robe lifting her wedding dress down from a hanger in front of a bright windowNiamh and RuairíOranmore, then Salthill · MayGetting ready in the house she grew up in, a borrowed car, and a gale on Salthill promenade that ruined the hair and made the pictures.A father in a sheepskin coat walking hand in hand with a toddler along a pebble shore, calm water behindThe LanigansSilver Strand · FebruaryA family session on a cold Saturday. No outfits laid out, no looking at the camera, one small girl who wanted to be left alone with the stones.
A white nineteen seventies saloon with a ribbon waiting in the rain, seen through the open front door of a house

Saturdays go about eleven months ahead.

Send me the date, the church and the hotel. If it is gone I will tell you in the first line.

Check a date