For me as a photographer Calke Abbey never fails to disappoint. Set in the rolling pastures of South Derbyshire, this amazing wedding venue is one of several National Trust properties that can bd hired for wedding celebrations. The wedding planner Sally for helped navigate us through getting all guests to the front of the house after the drinks to do a big group picture that Andrea wanted, and after this she arranged a golf cart to take myself, and the newlyweds on a whistle stop tour of the gardens for a few romantic pictures. It was at this point that fun became the theme. I have to point out that when I’m doing this part of the day, I’m acutely aware of time and the pressure is often on to get guests sat ready for the start of their wedding breakfast so that food doesn’t spoil. No different for this day, and even more pressure was added after taking the whole wedding party on a small hike. This being the case I start behaving like a slightly demented frantic bat, flapping around in different directions getting very excited at whatever creative options present themselves to me. There are often times when I get a little bit potty mouthed, I’m liable to ‘take the mike’ quite a lot (mostly out off the groom), and very occasionally I have a quiet whimper when I hit some artistic gold. Mostly this all adds to the fun of the experience for the couple and with these two, with a wild blowing wind make no mistake, this exactly what we had (see deckchair image).
This was a great day, it wasn’t a over the top grand wedding with too much fuss, it was all about two absolutely cracking people that fell in love, and brought all their nearest and dearest to celebrate with them. Bliss DJ rocked up for the disco, Black Peppermint looked after the food (and fed me, so thanks for that) and Honeysuckle and Castle brought it all together to make a combined level of awesome.
