Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the Best of Bury St Edmunds annual birthday party at the Ickworth Hotel.

Ickworth Hotel is just outside Bury St Edmunds in the lovely village of Horringer. Recently they underwent a change in management and the new team there are doing a fantastic job! All the guests at the birthday bash were treated to amazing canapés and champaign on their arrival.

For those planning a wedding, the Ickworth Hotel is a great place to start – it’s attached to the grand Ickworth House, which makes a stunning backdrop to your wedding photography. The staff, as I’ve already mentioned, are always happy to go out of their way to make sure that everything is perfect for your intimate wedding.

While last Wednesday had nothing to do with weddings, you know me, I love talking about my wedding photography!

Aside from a chance to meet up with other members of the Best of Bury St Edmunds (BOB) group and enjoy a few glasses of bubbly in lovely surroundings – it was also a chance for Miriam Howell, the owner of BOB and Michele Bailey to hand over awards to two local businesses. I was on hand to take some images of the evening.

The main award was for ‘Retailer of the year 2009′, which was awarded to Lily Daly of Lilyo.

Here are Miriam and Michele presenting Lily with her award – also pictured is Abby Hunt of St Nicholas Hospice Care

Lilyo is a shop on St Johns street in Bury St Edmunds which sells, amongst other gorgeous things, hand crafted pearl jewellery.

Congratulations to all those who were presented with awards!

Thank you again to all the staff at Ickworth Hotel.

If you are thinking of having a wedding at the Ickworth Hotel, then I’d love to chat with you about my amazing wedding photography!

When you and your partner decide to get engaged and start planning your wedding, there will be a lot of things you’ll need to do that you’ve never done before – one of which is most likely to visit your local registry office, which in my case would be the Ipswich registry office.

There are a few steps you need to take when having a civil marriage, be it at a registry office, or a licensed venue.

Here is what Advice Guide UK has to say on the procedure for getting married at the Ipswich registry office. Though of course no matter what registry office you use in England, the advice is still the same.

“

Civil marriage ceremonies

You and your partner must give notice of marriage in your local Register Office, whether or not you wish to marry in that district. The Superintendent Registrar or Registrar in Northern Ireland then issues authority for the marriage and you may marry in any Register Office or local authority approved premises in any district.

If either you or your partner is from overseas, special rules may apply when giving notice to marry. If so, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by e-mail, click on nearest CAB.

In the period between the notice of intention to marry and the ceremony, anyone with strong grounds for objecting to the marriage can do so. Making a false statement is a criminal offence.

In England and Wales, both partners must be resident in England or Wales for seven days before notice is given (on the eighth day). A notice must state where the marriage is to take place. The marriage can then take place after 15 days have elapsed from the date on which notice of the marriage is entered in the marriage notice book. The fee for giving notice of the marriage is £30 per person. There is no requirement for the 15 day notice period if the one of the partners has been issued with a gender recognition certificate and was previously the civil partner of the person who they wish to marry. In this case, notice of the marriage and the marriage itself can happen on the same day.

In Northern Ireland, a marriage licence is called a marriage schedule. Couples do not need to have been resident in the country before getting married, provided they apply for notice from the General Register Office.

If you and your partner are visiting Northern Ireland to be married and are citizens of a country that is not a member of the European Economic Area, you may need to enclose special documentation.

Couples must submit their completed marriage notice forms and any other relevant documents to the Registrar of Marriages in the district where the marriage is to take place.

It is normal to give eight weeks notice. However, you can give a minimum of 14 days notice, although this may mean that the wedding ceremony will have to be postponed. The registrar will issue a marriage schedule. You won’t be able to get married without this. If you are having a religious ceremony, this must take place within 14 days of receiving the schedule. In addition to this, the schedule must be signed at the religious ceremony by the person performing the marriage.

The marriage must take place within 12 months from the date of entry of the notice (three months if one of you is housebound, detained or resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland). If the marriage does not take place within that time, the process must be repeated.

Procedure for marrying

You and your partner will be asked for certain information when giving notice of your intention to marry. Giving false information is a criminal offence. The information which may be required is:-

• evidence of name and address
• evidence of date of birth
• if one partner has been married before or in a civil partnership, documentary evidence that the marriage or civil partnership has ended, for example, a death certificate or decree absolute. Uncertified photocopies are not accepted. A certified copy of a decree absolute may be obtained from the court which decided the divorce. This can take about a week
• evidence of nationality.

A variety of documents can be used as evidence of the information required, but a passport, travel document or birth certificate is usually sufficient. You should contact the register office where you’re getting married for more specific advice on what they will accept.

People from overseas may be asked to show their passports. There is no legal requirement to show a passport before getting married and instead, they can produce a birth certificate (accompanied by a certified translation if necessary), an affidavit or other personal identity document.

If the registrar believes that a person is entering or has entered into a marriage for immigration purposes, the registrar has a duty to report this to the Home Office Border and Immigration Agency. The registrar must provide the Home Office Border and Immigration Agency with certain information, including the marital status and nationality of the person.

The marriage ceremony in the local Register Office or local authority approved premises will take approximately 10-15 minutes. The Superintendent Registrar or Registrar in Northern Ireland will make a short statement about marriage; you can ask the registrar beforehand to indicate what form of words will be used. It is not possible to use religious words in the civil ceremony. However, the ceremony may include readings, songs or music that contain reference to a god as long as they are in an ‘essentially non-religious context’.

Each partner is required to repeat a standard set of promises. These may not be changed, but may be added to, as long as the additions are not religious. Rings are not required but can be exchanged if the couple wishes to.

After the ceremony, the marriage register is signed by both partners. Two witnesses, who must be over 16, must also sign at the time of the marriage. Witnesses must understand the language of the ceremony and have the mental capacity to understand the nature of the ceremony. Register Office staff are not allowed to act as witnesses.

Before signing the register, you should check the information in the entry is correct. It is possible to get incorrect information in the register on marriage certificates changed if there is proof that the errors were notified at the time of the marriage. When trying to correct information at a later stage, you will have to explain in writing how the incorrect information came to be recorded at the time of the marriage and may need to provide documentary evidence to prove any statements. The process may take a long time.

A fee must be paid for the ceremony. A certified copy of the entry in the register may be obtained at the time of the marriage for a fee. Additional copies may be obtained for a further fee.

For details of the fees, contact your local Register Office or Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your local CAB, including those that can give e-mail advice, click on nearest CAB.”

The Ipswich Registry Office can be found at:

St Peter House
16 Grimwade Street
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP4 1LP

Open 9am -4pm weekdays

map

If you are planning on having your wedding at the Registry Office in Ipswich and need a photographer to cover your wedding – then contact me today at my wedding photography website.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of shooting Sam and Graham at the Angel Hotel Bury St Edmunds.

This was a special wedding for me personally as they were the first couple to book me as their wedding photographer when I moved to Suffolk from South Africa two years ago!

It was a wonderful Spring day back in May when I met them at the Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds…

Sam and Graham had chosen to have a intimate wedding with just their families and a few friends in attendance. Weddings like this have a charm all of their own, quite unlike giant lavish affairs. Indeed, one of their charms is their size.

The Wedding party all met at the Angel Hotel where General Manager Lynn Cowan met them and put them at ease with her efficient service. I always like to see this as it’s one of my own personally held beliefs that every person involved in a wedding should go out of their way to ensure that the couple are as relaxed and looked after as  possible. After all, it’s their big day, so nothing should stop them enjoying it.

The Angel is a registered venue for weddings in Bury St Edmunds. Sam and Graham had chosen to have both their service and reception there at the hotel. The service itself was a wonderful moment with both Sam and Graham looking as happy as can be. After they had signed the registry and received all the guests congratulations we moved to the Abbey Gardens for the wedding photography.

One of the benefits of shooting weddings at the Angel Hotel is that it is right across the road from the award winning Abbey Gardens – a perfect venue for a bride and grooms wedding photos.

If you are interested in hiring me for your wedding at the Angel Hotel Bury St Edmunds, then please visit my wedding photography website.

Seeing as the wedding season is taking a little bit of a breather, I thought I’d talk about some of the venues it’s been my privilege to shoot weddings at here in wonderful Suffolk.

I’m going to start off with the Grange Hotel in Thurston – A wonderful late Victorian house (well, I say house, it’s more of a mansion!) in the Tudor style, which is a very popular wedding venue here in Suffolk between Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket.

I’ve shot a number of weddings here recently and I’ve always found the staff at Thurston Grange very helpful (essential in ensuring your wedding day goes without a hitch!) and the venue is both intimate and grand. It’s got all the airs and graces you would expect from a grand country house, but with a personal touch that I know many brides like. During the summer, the doors are thrown open and your wedding guests can enjoy the wonderful garden, and in the cooler months, there are wonderfully appointed rooms inside where they will be entertained in style.

Thurston Grange is also a licensed wedding venue which means that you can have all of your wedding under one roof if you like. For those of you who aren’t getting married in a church, this can be a Godsend. English law requires that venues are licensed to have civil marriage ceremonies performed on their grounds and Thurston Grange is an approved wedding venue.

Click here to see more of my work as a Suffolk photographer.

I’ll leave you with some images taken from recent weddings I photographed at the Thurston Grange Hotel.