Country House Wedding Photographer, Somerset & Devon
Notes from a wedding photographer based on Exmoor
The West Country is full of country houses that take weddings, from grand Georgian mansions to Arts and Crafts manors and Victorian villas, and I’ve photographed weddings at a good many of them: Brympton House three times, St Audries Park twice, Knowle Manor, Coombe Lodge, The Manor at Old Down Estate, Orchardleigh, Bridwell Park, Crowcombe Court and Syrencot House among them. I’m based on Exmoor, and most of them are within an hour of my door.
A country house is a generous place to photograph a wedding. There’s always a staircase, always a window with good light, always a lawn and a long view, and usually a room with a fire for the winter. But the thing that makes the pictures is the way a house holds people: the morning upstairs, the drinks on the terrace, the dancing in a hall that has seen two hundred years of it. I photograph in a documentary way, so what I’m after is the life in the house rather than the architecture on its own.
How I work a country house
I arrive early and walk the house before anyone’s dressed, so I know where the light will be at every stage of the day. The group photographs happen in front of the house or on the steps, quickly, and the portraits go wherever the light is best at that hour: the park at golden hour, a panelled room on a wet afternoon, the lake at dusk. Inside, I work without flash, by the windows and the fires, which is why the interiors in my galleries look like the rooms felt rather than like a catalogue.
Country-house weddings in pictures
Brympton House, St Audries Park, Coombe Lodge and Old Down.
Country houses I know in the West Country
- Somerset: Brympton House, St Audries Park, Knowle Manor, Coombe Lodge, Hestercombe, Crowcombe Court, Orchardleigh House, Old Down Estate.
- Devon: Bridwell Park, Ash Barton Estate, Huntsham Court, Woolhanger Manor, Northmoor House.
- Wiltshire and beyond: Syrencot House, Lincoln’s Inn, the Ashmolean Museum.
Good to know
Exclusive use. Most of these houses are yours for the day or the weekend, which means the morning can be photographed in the house and the evening can run late. Light. Big rooms with big windows are a gift; I’ll find the one that faces the right way for the time of day. Weather. A country house is the best wet-weather venue there is; see wet-weather weddings.
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.
