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.

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

No doubt by now you’ve visit tons of bridal sites, read hundreds of magazines and been confronted by a whole heap of hints and tips regarding sourcing your wedding photograper.

They are all full of great advice about what your photographer should do on your wedding day, but offer scant advice as to what they shouldn’t do. There is one very very important thing that no proper wedding photographer should ever do under any circumstances at all.

Take over your wedding.

You don’t want a photographer who will treat you and your guests like cattle, you want someone who works in conjunction with you to create beautiful images on your wedding day.

It’s one of my proudest claims that I often hear from couples who use my services that their guests didn’t even know a professional photographer was at the wedding. I like to work around all the events and moments of the day, not stage manage them to suit my needs.  Some photographers feel their role at a wedding is to create some sort of universe where they are the centre and everything revolves around them. You very rarely hear magazines and websites warn against this type of photographer who can spoil your day.

From the first moment you contact me with a view to shooting your wedding photos I make it my number one priority to set you at ease, not only with myself but with the process of hiring a professional wedding photographer. Something most of us will only do once in our lifetimes.

The trick to getting the best wedding photographs you can is to be comfortable with the photographer. If he or she is a bossy boots who wants to dictate everything, then no matter how good they are, they are going to rub you the wrong way, and an unhappy bride is NOT what we are after here!

The rapport I have with my clients is one of the things that helps set my work apart from other wedding photographers in Suffolk. I make sure that you are at ease with the process of having your pictures taken and I can promise you that I will never treat you or your guests like cattle.

You wedding is a once in a lifetime event and you should enjoy every moment of it, including having me take wonderful images of you and your loved ones enjoying the day.

Something brides quite often ask me is – ‘what happens if it rains on my wedding day?’

Now that Autumn is upon us and soon we will be in the winter, the weather is playing more of a role in planning for your wedding day. While everyone knows that the “Great British Summer” isn’t exactly the most stable of weather periods, people are less worried then about the chances of it being rainy on their wedding day.

Brides are naturally worried that if it rains on their wedding day that they won’t have any good images of the wedding. After all, we generally picture sunny days and blue skies when we think of outdoor wedding photography.

A ‘proper’ professional will be able to answer any concerns you might have regarding the weather and how it will effect your images. Part of a professionals skill is to take conditions that aren’t all that favourable and turn them to the bridal couples advantage.  I have shot some wonderful images at weddings when the light has faded behind a huge cloud, or the wind has picked up and the rain has come down. Rather than throw my hands up in horror, I use the weather and create images that have a wonderful mood and feel to them.

A good example of this is rain.

I think it’s safe to say that most brides (if not ALL brides) would prefer it if it didn’t rain on their wedding day! The natural reaction is to move indoors and forget the outdoors photography. Granted, if the heavens have opened and it’s raining the proverbial cats and dogs, it may be a good idea to seek some shelter, but if it’s a light rain – crack out the brollies, chuck on some wellies and before you know it, you’ll have pictures from your wedding like no other! Another thing to consider is that after it has rained, colours are so much more vibrant – especially during autumn when the leaves are those wonderful shades of reds, yellows, golds, and oranges.

Just last week I was shooting a wedding at the Bury St Edmunds registry office here in Suffolk and the weather played a part in creating some amazing images.

Emily and Rory had booked me to cover their wedding. It was a lovely intimate affair, just themselves, family and the kids. For those of you who don’t know, the registry office in Bury St Edmunds is behind the cathedral and looks onto the Abbey Gardens. An amazing mix of wonderful trees, a whole range of buildings from Norman, Tudor and Victorian times and of course the Abbey itself. All in all, a perfect venue for wedding photography.

Unfortunately the weather decided that it was going to treat us all to a dull, grey day with persistent drizzle.  Not exactly the most ideal conditions that any bride has ever wished for. I knew that the weather was going to be like this all day so I arrived at the venue about an hour before I was supposed to to scout around and see what alternative plans I could make for the bride and grooms wedding photos.  Obviously I could shoot pictures indoors at the registry office, but I did want to try and incorporate some of the awesome backdrops into their album.

Taking that little bit of extra preparation paid off as I wandered around a corner that I hadn’t been round before and found an absolutely awesome Victorian doorway and staircase. Perfect as it was not only a fantastic setting, but also afforded the bride and groom some cover from the incessant rain while I shot beautiful pictures of them. Luckily my camera is what’s called ‘weather sealed’ – i.e it won’t freak out by being rained upon – unlike most lower end cameras, and I can be drip dried

When we got round to moving outdoors for the wedding photos, it was still raining, so I took Emily and Rory to my new ’secret’ venue along with some umbrellas and we got to shooting. It was great, the doorway and staircase framed them perfectly, the alcove kept them dry (no bride wants to have her hair get wet!) and the brollies provided a fun prop for them to play with.

All in all, a success.

If you’d like to know more about how to get the best wedding photographer in Suffolk, clicky click!