Bridwell Park Wedding Photographer

Bridwell Park is an eighteenth-century mansion in a hundred acres of parkland on the edge of Uffculme, in the Culm valley between Tiverton and Wellington, ten minutes from junction 27 of the M5. It’s an exclusive-use venue with a Gothic-style chapel in the grounds for ceremonies, a lake, deer in the park, a sweeping staircase in the main hall, a bridal suite with nine more rooms in the house and glamping beyond it, and a refreshing attitude: no corkage, no curfew and no long list of things you can’t do. I photographed a November wedding here, with low sun across the park in the afternoon and a long, warm evening inside.

For photographs it’s the park that sets Bridwell apart. The drive, the lake and the deer fields give you a different backdrop every hundred yards, and the house itself, with its hall and staircase, is made for the moments between: the walk down to the chapel, the drinks on the terrace, the speeches with the fire going. It’s a house that suits a big, generous wedding and an intimate one equally well, and the estate runs small elopement weddings as well as full weekends.

How I photograph a wedding

Documentary first. I don’t run the day or stage it; I pay attention to it, and I keep the formal part to ten minutes of group photographs and twenty minutes of portraits in the best light we can find. Natural light, no flash during ceremonies, and editing that will still look right in twenty years. I take a limited number of weddings a year, which is partly how I get to give each one my full attention.