A bride from Swansea woke up at the crack of dawn the day after her wedding day to go paddle boarding in the Gower in her dress.
Heather Richards married Richard Selwood on Friday at Oxwich Bay Hotel and on Saturday she took her paddleboard for a quick dip at sunrise. The 47-year-old said she woke up, opened the curtains, saw the tide was in and told everyone to get up and get out.
New husband Richard pulled on his shorts while Heather got into her dress and the couple headed to the beach with family and friends for the special moment.
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Heather, originally from Tenby, said: "It was a lovely day and the paddleboard topped it off."
Pictures from the morning show Heather paddling into a brilliant yellow sun on the horizon while her dress is silhouetted against the sky. She arrived back on the beach at Oxwich Bay with her dress wet and the bottom "full of sand". But the sea-loving couple didn't mind in the slightest.
The original plan had been to go jet skiing, she said, but the tides weren't favourable to that idea. "I had to think of something else to do," said Heather, a nail technician. "I love the sea and I love water."
Although it was sunny on Saturday, on the big day itself the drizzle had set in by the time they had to head off to say "I do" so they were driven to the hotel in a campervan, she added.
The couple have been together for 25 years, first meeting as young children when their respective parents would holiday together. They lost touch as young adults but their paths crossed again in their early twenties. It might have taken a quarter of a century to finally get married but the couple - who have a 21-year-old daughter - couldn't be happier.
Richard, 48, proposed in a pub after one of their many coastal walks, said Heather. "I turned around and he was down on one knee and he said 'Are we going to do this then'," she said. They had to wait for the pandemic to run its course before they could set a date but didn't mind waiting an extra year or two, she added.
The paddle boarding really was the icing on the cake for what was a wonderful weekend for all their family and friends. Plus, the spectacular pictures will be there for them to look at many years down the line, she added.
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