Beach & Coastal Wedding Photographer, Devon & Somerset
Notes from a wedding photographer based on Exmoor
I live twenty minutes from the Exmoor coast and an hour from the surf beaches of North Devon, and the sea has found its way into a great many of my weddings: ceremonies on the terrace at Tunnels Beaches, portraits on the sand at Croyde after a church wedding in Braunton, three weddings on the cliff top at the Sandy Cove Hotel, a wedding at Bude on the Cornish coast, engagement shoots on the rocks and shingle of the Exmoor shore, and a summer wedding on the Dorset coast at West Bay. If you want the sea in your photographs, you’re in the right part of the country and talking to the right photographer.
Coastal weddings are documentary weddings with the volume up: wind, tide, light that changes by the minute and guests who end up with their shoes off. I don’t fight any of that. I find the sheltered corner for the ten minutes of portraits, I know the tide tables for your date, and I let the rest of the day be what it is, which is usually the best party anyone’s been to.
What the coast does to a wedding day
Two things worth planning around. The light on a west-facing beach is at its best in the last hour before sunset, which in June is after nine; so the portraits often happen during the dancing, and I’ll steal you away for ten minutes when the sky goes. And the wind is real: veils, hair and table plans need to be ready for it, and the sheltered coves, Tunnels at Ilfracombe, the harbour at Porlock Weir, the lee of the cliffs at Bude, are the places for the ceremony itself.
Coastal weddings in pictures
Tunnels Beaches, Croyde, Bude and the Exmoor coast.
Beaches and coastal venues I know
- Tunnels Beaches, Ilfracombe: the private cove reached through Victorian tunnels; photographed twice.
- The Sandy Cove Hotel, Berrynarbor: a cliff-top terrace over Combe Martin Bay; three weddings.
- Croyde, Saunton and Woolacombe: church or venue weddings with the beach for portraits; Ash Barton Estate at Braunton is ten minutes from all three.
- Bude and the North Cornwall coast.
- Porlock Weir, Bossington and Minehead on the Exmoor coast; see Porlock and Minehead.
- Lympstone, Exmouth and the Exe estuary on the South Devon side; see Exeter.
Good to know
Tides. I’ll check them for your date and tell you the best half hour for the beach. Weather. Sea mist and a grey sky make some of my favourite coastal pictures; it isn’t only about sunsets. Sand and salt. My problem, not yours. Travel. The whole of the North Devon and Exmoor coast is a normal day for me; see Barnstaple.
Taking a limited number of weddings for 2027 and 2028
If my way of working sounds like your kind of thing, I’d love to hear about your plans. Drop me a line with your date and venue and I’ll tell you straight away whether I’m free.
