A Wedding at The Elfordleigh Hotel, Devon.
I’m still catching up with blogging about my 2023 weddings! Here’s one from The Elfordleigh Hotel in Devon. It is a fantastic Plymouth wedding venue, which offers stunning views and a variety of beautiful rooms to hold your ceremony and reception. Rebecca and Jacob chose to have their reception in the Reynolds Room, which was perfect for their very hot weathered wedding as the guests were able to easily step out and enjoy the patioed area in the beautiful spring sunshine. Their ceremony was held in the conservatory which offered bright but very soft light and was lovely for photos. The venue is beautiful as it is and does not need much decoration to make it look and feel like a wedding. But I always love seeing some personal touches with wedding décor and this couple had some wonderful personalised bunting, which helped to carry their colour scheme whilst also celebrating the couple’s careers and achievements.
Cake: Cut me off a Slice
Décor: Elfordleigh
Bunting: Made by one of the Bride’s patients
Wedding favours: Made by the Bride’s sister
Table numbers: Made by the Bride’s friend
After photographing the décor (and briefly visiting the Groom, who had just arrived at the venue) I spent the rest of the morning with the Bride. Rebecca was helped into her incredible dress by her mother and when she was ready to get married, she had two first looks - one with her grandma and the other with her father.
Dress: The Ivory Lounge
Make up: Makeup Artistry by Ella Butler
Flowers: Hannah Burnett Florist
The conservatory looked gorgeous with that soft light but unfortunately it was incredibly hot in there for the ceremony. The venue did all they could to keep people (and flowers) comfortable - doors and windows were open and they had fans going too. Although it was hot, it didn’t take any enjoyment away from the special event they’d all gathered to witness and everybody was so happy to be there.
After the ceremony, everyone filtered outside onto the patio for a refreshment and a chance to congratulate the happy couple. I never like to start the formal photos straight away as I think it’s really important for the couple to have some time to say hello to their guests. We then did a confetti aisle and went straight into the group photos after that.
The group photos were quite challenging because they were in direct sunlight and if you’ve read any of my previous blogs you’ll know that this isn’t something I recommend. Direct bright sunlight isn’t a very flattering light source as it casts a lot of shadows on your face, under your eyes, nose and chin mostly. Those shadows can sometimes be balanced by lighting the subjects and I know that some photographers do turn up to weddings with giant soft boxes on boom sticks, but my process of working is usually to try and be as unobtrusive as possible and to document the day honestly. So if the sun was so bright that it casted shadows, I don’t want to change that too much as I want my photos to be a true representation of your day. I always do my best to balance the shadows and highlights when I edit the photos of course but I’m careful not to change too much about the light, colour and tones that were present at the day. Another downside of this kind of light is that a lot of people struggle to keep their eyes open as the sun can be blinding, so there’s often a lot of squinting and eye watering going on too making it harder to get that perfect photo.
There was a little bit of speckled shade that we could have used at the other end of the patio area which would have featured the golf course in the background but it wasn’t full shade and there wasn’t much of it. The couple also really had their heart set on having the building as their backdrop for group photos so that’s where we did them. With the building as our backdrop we did have some trouble when venue staff moved in and out of the doors directly behind the subjects (collecting glasses and bringing drinks and canapés down to the guests). Unfortunately this wedding was just before Photoshop launched its AI generative fill, so I knew I needed to time my shots perfectly so as to not have photobombers in the background, as it would have taken quite a while to manually clone people out of the scene. So quite a few challenges there but we got through all of the pre-requested group photos just in time for the couple to have their scheduled trip out on the golf buggy, for their Bride & Groom portraits.
I may have mentioned this before but The Elfordleigh is also a golf club. This means this wedding venue has vast and beautiful grounds and is the perfect setting for newlyweds to have some wedding portraits. A member of staff escorted us into the golf course and we found a lovely spot in the shade for some photos. While we were out of sight of the wedding guests, Rebecca told me she was in the early stages of pregnancy and only immediate family knew at the time. So we made sure to include bump in some of the photos (not that there was a bump there at the time but we wanted to acknowledge that little Alfie was there at the wedding). When we arrived back at the hotel all of the guests were seated ready for the wedding breakfast. With the patio area completely clear of people, we took advantage and managed to fit a few more portraits in before the couple joined their guests.
We had four people giving speeches starting with the father of the Bride, followed by the Groom, the sister of the Groom (Best Woman) and then the Bride. Rebecca had arranged for a birthday cake to be presented for her new husband. Yes that’s right - it was Jacob’s birthday, that’s one way of never forgetting your wedding anniversary!
The temperature had dropped slightly and all the guests were really enjoying being outside in the sunshine. I captured candid moments but I also made a point to ask the guests if they had any photo requests. If there’s time for it I do like to give guests the opportunity for this because I’m aware that the combination of people present at the wedding, may not be all together again for a very long time. People often have friends, siblings or cousins that they haven’t seen for years or maybe they’d like a photo with their other half, just because they don’t have a lot of photos together that aren’t selfies. It only takes 30 seconds for me to get a photo of those people all together and those photos can be really valuable to so many people. Candid photos are essential in telling the story of a wedding day and I will always capture as many candid moments as I can; but it’s the group photos that people get printed for their walls, the candid’s rarely make it into a frame. Group photos are often passed down from generation to generation and treasured long after the people in the photos have passed away. Being a wedding photographer means also being a family historian of sorts, ensuring these legacy photos are captured for every family I meet - taking photos for today, but also for the generations to come.
After much fun in the sun, it was time for the cake cut and first dance. It was still incredibly bright outside but this didn’t stop the guests from getting into the party atmosphere.
DJ: Ocean City DJ’s
