Two tiny figures stand on a rocky outcrop above a fog-filled valley in the Cooley Mountains.

COOLEY MOUNTAINS, IRELAND54.0533°N, 6.2750°W · OCTOBER · ELOPEMENT

THREE DAYS THEY ALMOST MISSED

I was already booked. Normally, that is where the story ends.

Jule asked me to photograph their wedding in a tiny village in southern Germany. The dress was handmade. The music would be Irish. Half the ceremony would be in English, the other half in German. It sounded exactly like the kind of wedding I would have wanted to be at.

I couldn’t. I was already booked.

Normally, that is the whole story. You send the disappointing email, feel bad for a minute, and everybody moves on.

Jule didn’t.

At the end of her first message, almost as an afterthought, she wrote that she and Rory lived in Ireland. Small brick house. Close to the sea, close to the mountains. They had maybe twenty decent photographs together, most of them taken with a phone.

If I couldn’t photograph the wedding, maybe I could come to Ireland afterwards. They would put their wedding clothes back on and have their own Irish version.

Was that a slightly mad solution to a very simple problem? Yes. Did I want to do it? Also yes.

Jule had come to Ireland as an au pair four years earlier and fallen in love with the younger brother of her host father. Rory. An Irish music professor, eleven years older, who apparently laughed a lot and could make anybody feel at home. Her words, not mine.

They spent three years living in different countries while Jule finished university in Germany. By the time she wrote to me, they finally shared Rory’s house in Dundalk.

Before replying, Jule had searched enough of the internet for Rory to tell her to stop stalking us and just send the bloody email.

Good advice.

Two months after their wedding, we met for the first time in and around Dundalk. No ceremony. No guests. No schedule pretending to be more important than the people following it.

Just three days and an idea none of us had tested before.

Empty coastal road curving between brown hills beneath a cloudy sky in County Louth, Ireland.
Wide view across Carlingford Lough toward distant hills beneath a heavy grey sky.
Dark rocks and cloudy sky reflected in a shallow pool along the Irish coast.
Jule and Rory stand small on rocks overlooking the coast, her white dress moving in the wind.
Jule and Rory embrace among dark coastal rocks with the sea behind them.
Jule turns toward Rory on the rocky shore, wearing a white dress and flower crown.
Jule and Rory hold each other beside breaking waves on the Irish coast.
Jule seen from behind in a white dress and flower crown, looking across the sea.
Close view of Jule holding a dried flower bouquet against the lace of her dress.Black and white photograph of a dried flower bouquet resting in long grass.
Jule and Rory stand together on a broad rocky shoreline beneath a pale sky.
Jule and Rory sit apart on rocks above the sea, connected by the line of the coast.
Black and white detail of Jule's lace dress and bare feet while walking hand in hand.Black and white close portrait of Jule and Rory holding each other with their eyes closed.

Jule and Rory walked up here fairly regularly. Doing it in wedding clothes was Jule’s idea. Rory’s first reaction was basically: What the fuck? You really want to take the good clothes into that mud? She did. He came with her.

Fog covers the slopes and valley of the Cooley Mountains.
Two tiny figures stand on a rocky outcrop above a fog-filled valley in the Cooley Mountains.
Jule and Rory stand together on a broad mountain ridge beneath low cloud.
Jule and Rory walk away across a foggy mountainside toward the valley.
Jule and Rory walk hand in hand across a windswept hillside beside a large boulder.
Jule and Rory run uphill through the fog, her white dress lifted by the wind.
Jule and Rory climb a steep grassy slope into low cloud in the Cooley Mountains.
Jule laughs as Rory holds her on a foggy mountain ridge.
Jule and Rory embrace beneath an open grey sky on a mountain slope.
Close view of Rory's hands wrapped around Jule's knitted shawl.

These are my favourite photographs from that day. They have all the atmosphere and almost none of the usual wedding bullshit. That is probably why I still love them.

Jule stands alone in dense mountain fog, wrapped in a light shawl.Portrait of Jule in a flower crown against the muted Irish coastline.
Jule stands alone on a distant ridge beneath a pale, foggy sky.
Close portrait of Jule smiling with dried flowers held between her teeth.
Jule laughs while Rory holds her on a foggy hillside at dusk.
Close view of wet shoes standing on dark rock in the mountains.
Jule and Rory sit close together on a mossy ridge above the valley.
Layered dark rock surface with pale lines and wet patches.
Jule and Rory kiss on a country road, reflected upside down in a rain puddle.
Stone houses of a village below a fog-covered mountain in County Louth.
Jule and Rory stand small beside a long brick wall in an Irish village.
Jule and Rory hold each other quietly in front of a weathered brick wall.
Jule and Rory walk hand in hand through tall ferns and grass.
Jule and Rory stand apart beside an old stone wall, looking in different directions.
Jule looks toward the camera while Rory stands farther away near a stone wall.
Jule and Rory stand close together, seen through bare branches.
Jule laughs while Rory holds her among thorny branches.
Jule and Rory hold each other beneath bare trees, framed by branches.
Jule and Rory rest together on a rock in the hills.

Across the lake was part of the Vikings set. The midday light was shit, so photographing it was pointless. We turned around and went into the little patch of woodland instead. The set never made it into the photographs. The trees did.

Jule and Rory stand as small figures inside a dark pine forest.
Jule and Rory embrace where a shaft of light crosses the forest floor.
Black and white portrait of Jule and Rory with their faces close and eyes closed.
Village street with stone houses and a foggy mountain rising behind the rooftops.
Jule and Rory walk through golden moorland in casual clothes, viewed from behind.

By then, the original idea was long gone. Good.

Warm light breaks across fog and the slopes of the Cooley Mountains.
Jule and Rory stand apart on a hillside in warm evening light and face each other.
Black and white close portrait of Jule resting her head on Rory's shoulder, both eyes closed.
Jule and Rory hold each other closely in soft evening light.
Jule and Rory stand small in a wide mountain landscape lit by low evening sun.
Black and white close portrait of Jule laughing over Rory's shoulder.Close view of Jule's and Rory's hands touching in evening light.
Jule and Rory stand together in the hills behind a soft foreground of grass.
Jule and Rory embrace on a misty mountaintop above a lake and valley.
Empty road curving through a foggy pine forest on a mountainside.

There is no wedding in these photographs.

Jule and Rory had already had that day in Germany, surrounded by their families and friends. Ireland was never a reenactment. Nobody had to pretend to say yes again because a photographer had missed it the first time.

They put the clothes back on. That was about as close as we got.

At the time, I thought we had found a practical answer to a booked date. I couldn’t photograph the wedding, so we made something else. Three days instead of one. Ireland instead of Germany. Fair enough.

I’m writing this more than ten years later, and I don’t think that anymore.

I keep coming back to how little it would have taken for these photographs not to exist. One unavailable date. One email Jule nearly didn’t send. One moment in which Rory could have told her the internet stalking had gone far enough without adding that she should write to us anyway.

That’s it. That is how close it was.

I’m glad she sent the bloody email.

Jule and Rory had already married in Germany when we met in and around Dundalk, County Louth. Their three-day Ireland couple session moves between the coast, villages, the Cooley Mountains and a small patch of woodland beside a lake overlooking part of a Vikings set. Documentary and cinematic photography, with room for weather, distance, movement and deliberately made portraits.

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