Relaxed Wedding Photography at Catthorpe Manor

On Monday 28th May 2018 I provided the wedding photography for Jenny & Mike who got married at Catthorpe Manor Wedding Photography, a small but elegant wedding venue and hotel located near to Lutterworth in Leicestershire.  Captthorpe is for me is an ideal wedding venue because when it is hired it is hired exclusively it features a very nice interior and a very nice exterior for me it is a classic English country house hotel. 

On the day itself, it was then the hottest day we'd had so far very warm weather indeed with bright blue skies and white fluffy clouds.  I had only been booked for the afternoon so as soon as I arrived I needed to get on, my first port of call was the ceremony room which is a light and airy room with large windows on one side, I took some photos in here and then went off to find Mike and best man where I did some informal portraits and then photographed the rings. 

Next, I took a few casual photos of the guests as they were arriving and then headed towards the bridal sweat to take a few getting ready photographs. On the way, I checked the lighting for the stairs (Captthorpe has nice stairs ideal for photos with the father of the bride etc) once I had found the wedding coordinator for a brief chat she showed me towards Jenny's room.  I don't often do getting ready photos because I usually get asked to meet couples at the venue so it was a nice change to take some, I knew exactly what Jenny wanted which was good quality relaxed photos. I took a few of what was going on in the room and then posed Jenny and her daughter by the window. 

I didn't want took take too long and get in their way with time moving on I went downstairs to see how what goes on, by now all the guests had sat down the ceremony room and Mike was waiting patiently at the front of the room, I took a few photos of the general scheme of the room to give an idea of what was going on and then headed back to stairs where the father of the bride and Jennys son daughter were waiting sat by a nice window area - I managed to get some really nice pictures here of Jennys children. 

Before I knew it the bridal party were heading for the stairs I took some casual pictures as they moved down the stairs then I ran ahead to get in position in the ceremony room to capture the bridal parties arrival.  The lighting conditions in the room were very good as mentioned before the room has huge windows so there where no problems here. The bridal party arrived and everybody looked stunning and then the ceremony commenced. 

The registrar did a good job of making a few jokes to ease the service along and I continued to take casual pictures of the emotions unfolding in front of me, there were a few moving readings and before long we were at the signing of the register. The next step after this was the doors to the garden being opened up, I nipped out in front to capture Jenny and Mike crossing the threshold into the garden. 

Then for the next half an hour, I took casual photos of all the guests congratulating the happy couple and enjoying themselves. Jenny and Mike had specified that they did not want loads of formal photographs so I tried to get informal groups in photographs. We did, however, do a large photo of everybody who was in attendance for the wedding taken with the group on the steps I couldn't take the picture straight on because the sun would have made them all squint. 

After sometime had passed and the hotel staff had transformed the ceremony room into the reception room I took some photos of the tables set up, the cake and the general decorations and then finally headed to the woods that butt up against the hotel for some wedding portraits - Jenny was very keen to get some photos in the woods where I found a pool of light within which to place them for some natural portraits. 

After this we headed to the front of the hotel building,  by now all the guests had been seated in the hotel for the wedding breakfast so that gave me a few more minutes to do some more wedding portraits on the steps and then with a nod from the hotel staff Jenny and Mike headed into the reception and the wedding photography for me had finished for the day - last but not least I took a photo of the venue. 

Here are a few of 400 images taken.