Wedding Photography at Stonehenge & The Hawk Conservancy Trust
On 22nd April 2017 I provided the wedding photography for Sarah and Brett held at Stonehenge in Wiltshire and The Hawk Conservancy Trust in Hampshire.
I had done some work previously for Sarah and when she mentioned that she would like to employ me for her wedding at Stonehenge I was over the moon. Stonehenge is right up there as a national landmark with the Houses of Parliment and Big Ben.
I booked a hotel in Amesbury as the wedding day started at 6.00 am when all the guests met in the car park of Stonehenge to take the shuttle bus to the Stones. My working day started here, it was half light with a glimmer of orange on the horizon. I wanted to capture in the build-up of the guest arriving at the bus stop plus the orange horizon.
The dress code for the day was casual except Sarah and Brett were wearing capes and the high priests had traditional clothing on. Once at Stonehenge proper security advised us that we had exactly one hour for inside the stones and strictly no touching stones. Immediately ran ahead to capture landscape pictures of the stones before the procession arrived.
Pretty much as soon as the procession had arrived in the circle the service started, where I spent my time moving in and out of the stones capturing the emotions of the ceremony it was very unusual to be able to move 360 degrees around the subject. Usually, registers or vicars don't like to photographers to move too much in services, this was not the case here although I had two security guards watching my every move.
The ceremony lasted 45 minutes which left not much time to get some portraits of the Sarah and Brett and also allow them some time to take the scene in. I took some 500 images in the hour available I don't think I have ever taken so many images in such a short amount of time but I have never been to a wedding at Stonehenge before and didn't want to miss a single detail.
Then before I knew it the hour was over with a security guard ushering us back to the shuttle bus then straight back to the visitor centre.
After a small break and a half hour drive up the road, the next part of the wedding was at the Hawk Conservancy Trust. By now the sun was really shining, the morning at Stonehenge was quite dark and overcast but not now the sun shone.
Next up was a blessing in a wildflower meadow covered in cowslips, literally thousands are far as the eye could see. The blessing was very calm and tranquil then after the blessing, there was some confetti which made some beautiful pictures.
The rest of the day was spent watching the birds of prey shows interweaved with a three-course meal. It was a spectacular wedding day the handfasting ceremony in the morning was amazing and then wildflower meadow and the birds of prey it was fantastic. I rounded the day off with some portraits of Sarah and Brett in the wildflower meadow and then drive back to Warwick through the Cotswolds as the sunset - what a day!
