Herefordshire was not a county I’d visited before for a wedding photography booking prior to Meredith & Iain’s gorgeous day. Bredenbury Court Barns is located about 35 minutes west of Worcester, in beautiful rolling countryside.

Like so many other stories of 2021 brides and grooms, Meredith & Iain had originally planned to marry the previous year, 12 months earlier to the weekend. Indeed, at the time of committing to the venue, it was still very much a construction site, and Meredith & Iain needed to take on trust that it would be as magical as the Bredenbury Court Barns team assured them it would be.

Bredenbury Court Barns – First impressions

In October 2021, as I like to do with all venues I’ve not worked at before, I met up with Meredith & her mum, Lorrie, to go for a wander and see exactly what we had to work with. Make no bones about it, Bredenbury Court Barns is stunning. It’s beautifully finished throughout, and the floor-to-ceiling glass panelling on two sides of the wedding breakfast room shows off the venue’s surroundings to its fullest. The big wooden beams are just lovely, too. It really has been done very well indeed.

The Big Day

Preparations

Fast forward a month to the wedding day itself. Having built in some slack to ensure traffic on the longer-than-usual transit to the venue wasn’t a problem, I arrived quite a bit earlier than scheduled. Meredith was very happy for me to start snapping straight away. Her and her girls were in various stages of readiness in the fantastically spacious bridal prep room. As well as quite a bit of natural light entering the space, there was also a wall of mirrors on one side and a few others dotted around elsewhere. It just made it a really nice, easy space for everyone to work in without being in one another’s way. As bridal prep continued, the personal touches were being added to the ceremony and wedding breakfast rooms. Lorrie had created (with some electrical assistance from someone else) a number of amazing fake trees, which featured prominently in the day. The wedding breakfast room, in particular, looked incredible, with all of the lights reflecting off the glass walls.

The Wedding Ceremony

Before we knew it, it was ceremony time. Bredenbury Court Barns also boasts a very light and airy ceremony room, with windows down one side and sky lights in the ceiling. Even on a rather grey autumnal day, as this one sadly was, there was no shortage of light to work with.

Group Shots

After the beautiful ceremony, and with daylight starting to fade, we headed outside for the group shots. The big tree in the grounds was still full of autumn colour, so it wasn’t hard to decide where to do those.

The Bride & Groom

The newlyweds and I then went for a little wander, though I was conscious that the temperature was dropping, and Meredith had only a shawl to offer her protection from the cold. Sadly, there was to be no sunset.

The Confetti Shot

While we’d been outside, Olivia, the wedding co-ordinator, and her amazing team had pushed the chairs back in the ceremony room so that we could do a confetti shot. This is the first wedding venue I’ve ever worked at where you HAVE to do confetti inside! It actually worked really well. I used a combination of quite a slow shutter speed and a blast of flash to freeze the couple but also get motion in the confetti as it was thrown.

The Wedding Breakfast

Speeches

Iain was nervous about doing his speech, so I had encouraged he and Meredith to get them out the way prior to food being served during our initial meeting. It’s an increasingly common thing, and it saves nervous parties from sitting there panicking while they eat (or don’t eat!), rather than enjoying the day, which is what it should be about. The speeches were all incredibly heart-felt and it was clear that the happy couple mean the absolute world to their families and friends.

Sparklers!

Once everyone had eaten, we headed back outside, where it was now considerably more windy than it had been just a few hours earlier. Meredith had been very keen to do some sparkler shots, so that’s what we did – it was the day after Bonfire Night, after all! Again, Olivia was incredibly helpful in assisting us in setting it up!

Cake Cut & First Dance

Meredith & Iain cut their beautiful cake, which had been crafted by the, sadly, retiring Kerry Tucker, and enjoyed their first dance as husband and wife.

The Bride & Groom P2

I’d got my portable studio lights with me, but given how windy it was, I didn’t really expect a positive response when I gave Meredith the option to go back out again for another play. I was wrong, though, and they fully embraced it once more. Slightly less wind would have made things easier and probably a bit more rewarding, but I think it was still worth doing.

Silent Disco

Finally, Iain had organised a silent disco, which was quite good fun to photograph.

That’s a wrap!

And so my booking ended and with it my 2021 wedding season! It had been another very enjoyable day with genuinely lovely people, and this is just a tiny fraction of the images I could have shared. Wishing Meredith & Iain all the very best for long, happy, healthy and prosperous lives together.

Further Information

You will find further information about my wedding photography services on the following pages: My Wedding Photography Packages How I Work – Wedding Photography by Karl Drage A Typical Wedding Day – Documentary Wedding Photography by Karl Drage Portfolio – Wedding Photography by Karl Drage Why Can Wedding Photography seem so Expensive? Questions you should ask a wedding photographer

Get in Contact

If you’d like to enquire about my availability, to discuss other options or if you have any queries, please use one of the methods on the Contact Us page to get in touch. While I am based in Northamptonshire, I am willing to travel out of area, though please be aware this may bring with it an additional cost.