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The Batch Country House Pre-Wedding Shoot
Meeting up with our wedding couples for a ‘pre wedding shoot’ is not only a fab way to get to know each other before the big day but also we always have a bit of a laugh! We met up with Emily, Jake and their adorable puppy Molly at their chosen wedding venue The Batch Country House near Weston Super Mare. We had a lovely time exploring the gardens (Molly certainly explored it at least ten times over!) and discussing ideas for their wedding photographs. They were a totally awesome couple and we cannot wait to photograph their wedding this year. Molly will obviously play her part on the day…maybe with less energy than she did at the pre wedding shoot…but who knows! But what I do know is that it’s certainly going to be a lot of fun!
Beautiful Church Wedding with Reception at The Pig
I was so fortunate to photograph Emma & Tim’s gorgeous wedding last month. These two lovelies met on a train eight years ago after watching England play at Twickenham, exchanged numbers and with some persuading Emma finally gave in to Tim’s persistent messaging! Since they’ve got together they have travelled all over the world together (jealous much!), and a few years ago Tim went down on one knee at the top of Table Mountain in South Africa popping the question to Emma…sooo romantic…and sooo exhausting! Thankfully Tim managed to keep hold of the ring despite dropping it five times on the way up! With having to cancel four wedding dates, due to…yes you guessed it…Covid and numerous lockdowns, they finally got to say ‘I do’ at Chew Stoke church in front of twenty of their nearest and dearest. Their adorable spaniel, Marley, also made a joyous appearance to enjoy the celebrations with them. I think he got a bit overly excited but we won’t go into that! The happy couple whizzed off in a stunning red Morgan to The Pig near Bath where the celebrations continued with a bit of croquet and welly wanging. Thankfully nobody was hurt in the process! The whole day was full of love and laughter, and I’m chuffed to pieces for them both! xx
Upton Barn & Walled Garden Wedding
Upton Barn & Walled Garden is situated in rolling green Devonshire countryside with stunning unbroken views over the Blackdown Hills past the pond and fountain.
The site features a lovingly restored 17th century cider barn, stables and a secret walled garden, all with a crisp modern feel juxtaposed with charming original features.
Bianca and Rob rescheduled their wedding following several lockdown imposed moves and boy what a lovely day it turned out to be. The sun broke out, and lockdown restrictions were lifted!
…Although the Upton House team and yours truly kept our masks on when indoors!
The day broke with glorious sunshine and HEAT. Em and I set off to our separate starting positions - Em headed off to Bianca for the prep while I went to the venue to get shots of the boys getting ready. The venue was also being prepared by Rustic Love. The amazing cake was made by Daisy May,
Em had a lovely time at the bridal prep with the bride, mum of the bride, three bridesmaids and four flower girls all getting ready! It was certainly a busy house to photograph and the atmosphere was charged with excitement for the day ahead. Bianca’s beautiful make-up was by Laura Le Page.
At the venue, the guys all arrived looking very cool like they’d just walked into a Tarantino movie, all shades and cool outfits in blistering sun.
The sun continued throughout the day, but the venue has a lovely inside/outside feel and everyone moved in and out to cool down.
Upton Barn’s staff were lovely, discrete but always there when you needed them and the day went incredibly smoothly. Here is a small selection of the pictures from the day, which were presented to the couple in three complete sets, one colour, one mono and one with vintage processing.
Photographing a wedding with a large format camera
If you’ve seen our previous posts on large format photography, you’ll know that it’s quite a challenge to capture even a few photos on film during the hectic chaos of a wedding day!
Aaron and Aggie were keen to give it a try, so during a quiet time (few and far between during any wedding) we managed to set up the camera and get them to pose. The ground was soaking and we didn’t want to get Aggie’s beautiful dress muddy, but we needed the light for the camera so our only option was to pose them in the doorway to the house.
Aggie’s dad was fascinated with the camera
This limited our options a bit, but this was really a trial run and Aaron and Aggie had agreed knowing that there was a good chance we’d not get great results with the film camera. They loved the example large format pictures we’d shown them.
We took several shots and then all moved to the side of the house to take some group shots - hard enough with digital, but all the more so with an unwieldy large format camera. Especially when you factor in that the image you see on the screen is not only reversed side to side, but is also upside down!
We did confirm our suspicions though - people are fascinated with the camera and gathered around comfortably, so that’s a massive bonus!
We fired off the sheets we had prepared in film holders and then put them in the bag to process later, not really knowing that we had.
It’s always with a mixture of excitement and fear when you process important film images, and although we’d promised nothing, we felt quite a responsibility loading these into the development tank.
Success!
We actually got a few good shots, and Aggie and Aaron were very pleased with the results. If we have time and willing participants, we will definitely be repeating this experience.
Lockdown Wedding! Aggie and Aaron
It’s been a very hard year for everyone, and people who have been planning weddings have been hit particularly hard by the new regulations along with the constant changes being introduced at short notice.
So we were very pleased to hear from Aggie and Arron, who were planning to have an intimate lockdown wedding and loved our photojournalistic style of photography. When we learned that their wedding was taking place at the quirky and magnificent 13th Century manor Maunsel House, we were even more excited. The venue is set in a 2000 acre estate in Somerset and its unique features reflect the tastes and interests of its owner, Sir Benjamin Slade Bt.
The day was very emotional one as Aaron and Aggie have been together for over 20 years and had had to put the day off several times due to the ongoing pandemic. Eventually they decided to invite a much smaller congregation and use Zoom to include other relatives both near and far. The small number of guests were privileged to get to see Aggie looking absolutely radiant and beaming from ear to ear.
While the venue has bags of character, one thing that some rooms lack is light! In the more intimate spaces, where suits of armour and weapons hang on the walls along with a well worn stuffed bear, the lighting is almost non-existant! Thankfully our Fuji cameras were up to the job and we were able to capture emotions and events where it would have been impossible a few years ago.
Dawn & Ron
We had the real pleasure of photographing a particularly special wedding. Dawn and Ron got married in the beautiful setting of Kings Weston House just outside of Bristol. The house is situated looking over the port of Avonmouth which holds a very special place for both Dawn and Ron. The couple celebrated with their nearest and dearest and we had the most wonderful day witnessing such a happy occasion.
