An English-Bulgarian Wedding in Rural Hampshire

In August I photographed a lovely wedding for an old college friend of mine, Jonathan, and his beautiful wife Iva, who is from Bulgaria. Jonathan and Iva wanted to have their wedding near to where they live in rural Hampshire, but as Iva’s family was coming over from Bulgaria, they wanted a good mix of Bulgarian and English traditions, which made a thoroughly enjoyable and eventful wedding! They had their wedding reception at the Test Valley Golf Club in Basingstoke, and even though it threatened to rain all day (and did just at the wrong time coming out of the church!) it stopped long enough to get some beautiful photos in the grounds.

There are a couple of Bulgarian traditions, which were really interesting to learn about and photograph – firstly the breaking of a glass – the more broken pieces the better, as it represents all the happy moments in life; then the breaking of the bread – a traditional Bulgarian loaf gets broken by the bride and groom, and the one with the bigger half is said to be the dominant one in the marriage (usually fixed to be the bride!). It then gets fed to the bride and groom by their mother and mother-in-law, one bit dipped in salt, and one bit dipped in honey, to signify there will be salty and sweet parts in the marriage.

Jonathan and Iva did a magnificent first dance, which they had choreographed to the Star Trek Enterprise theme tune – Faith of the Heart by Russell Watson, followed by some traditional Bulgarian dancing, which the Father of the Bride starts off, and then everyone joins in – so much fun!

Here are just a few of the best images to tell the story of the day…

Thank you for reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed this post! If you’re getting married and still need a wedding photographer, or know anyone who does, please get in touch, share on Facebook or pass my details on! You can also see my main Weddings page for more info and images…

Many thanks, Ginny x