Andrea and Mike's Wedding at St Nicholas Church Pevensey

This was my second Slovakian wedding, although strictly speaking I suppose it was only halfway as Andrea is from Slovakia and Mike is from England, but they had loads of traditional wedding games so I think it still counts.

They had their wedding ceremony at St Nicholas Church in Pevensey, which is a beautiful old Grade I listed building dating back to 1205. Not only that but it has a really nice, helpful, smiley vicar who is more than happy to work with with respectful photographers. Being right next door to Pevensey Castle, we obviously had to go over there for some group photographs and then some messing around on the bridge over the moat. I have heard recently that it is possible to have your wedding in Pevensey Castle but I'm not entirely sure about this and besides, with the church about 100 metres away you can have both.

From there we moved on to the Hungry Monk in Jevington for the wedding breakfast which is when the traditional Slovakian wedding games started. We had plate smashing and sweeping up, drinking either brandy or salt water, the Bride and Grooms hands got tied together and then they had to share a bowl of traditional soup. It was all brilliant fun and lovely to see these wedding traditions being done. They still have them a lot in Germany I know, but I'm sure we must have had lots of our own that seem to have been lost.

With everyone fed, watered and gamed out (for the moment), the guests headed back to Pevensey while Andrea, Mike and I went for a spin to Birling Gap and then Eastbourne Seafront for photographs by the Bandstand. The weather was lovely and we timed it just right for the best of the early evening light.

The evening reception was in a Marquee and was fuelled by lots of traditional brandy, I've tried it previously and it's scary stuff. After the first dance we were back into the wedding games. My favourite was the passing of hats from one person to another as music got faster and faster, which is actually much more fun than it sounds and had everyone in hysterics. All in all, an excellent wedding that really couldn't have been better.