Spring wedding at Wellington Barn

One of the first weddings we ever photographed was at Wellington Barn in Calstone, and four years later we still love going back to the venue to photograph special days and celebrations.

I think it is the location that makes Wellington Barn such a great venue, situated between Calne and Devizes in the middle of nowhere - and that is the point, there will be no gate crashers helping themselves to the Pimms, or random hotel guests checking themselves in to a room whilst you're cutting the cake. The tranquility lends itself to a relaxing and informal wedding day with your family and friends.

We've photographed quite a few weddings and receptions at the former ox barn and thought we would show a selection of photos from Laura and Paul's big day at the start of May this year. The detail that went into the decorations and personalising the day to their own style and tastes was incredible, and made it that bit more beautiful.  

Such a friendly, welcoming and fabulous couple that were a joy to photograph and share their special day with, from the arrivals of the wedding party until the end of the speeches and cutting the cake.

Spring wedding at Bath's Assembly Rooms

We photograph weddings at so many beautiful venues across Wiltshire, Bath and Somerset, and we thought it would be good to share a few of our favourites with you.  

In March we photographed Molly and James' beautiful wedding at the Assembly Rooms in Bath, and a few months later the day and venue are still so memorable, that it seemed the perfect location to start with.  If the stunning architecture looks familiar, yes you have seen it before in the film "Duchess" starring Keira Knightley. 

With very limited parking spaces around Bath in general and in particular this part of town, it was a great idea for bride Molly and her bridesmaids to get ready just around the corner in the very stylish Queensberry Hotel.

Groom James and the guests awaited her arrival in the Tea Room at the Assembly Rooms, ready for the ceremony, followed by shots of the couple at various locations on foot around the Circus and Victoria Park, before heading back for the reception and evening in the equally stunning Ball Room at the Assembly Rooms.

It was a fabulous day and thoroughly enjoyable sharing it with such a lovely couple.

Here are a selection of photos from their wedding day, taken by Jamie McDine of Wiltshire Wedding Photography.

Discovering history and the Wiltshire landscape through film

As a film director, it’s really enjoyable to see your work on the big screen at festivals, or on tv, but for me there is something even more special about sharing your skills with young people and inspiring them to produce a film for the first time. The Virtual Landscapes project gave both the group of 11-14 year olds from Westbury and myself the opportunity to explore the local Wiltshire landscape and learn about our social history, as we visited the military badges carved into the chalk hills at Fovant, near Shaftesbury.

After a steep climb on a sunny Winters day, and with a few poor choices of footwear, we reached the badges and the summit of the Iron Age hill fort, having experienced the same conditions as the soldiers who created the badges exactly 100 years ago. Exploring the site with archaeologist Rachel Foster, supported by Youth Development Coordinator Sandra Samuel, and being chased by some friendly cows at the top of the slope, the history was brought to life for us all and the ideas for film and animation were starting to flow. 

In the following 8 weeks we had film, photography and animation workshop sessions, supported by the youth workers, at Westbury Youth Centre, with a total of 18 young people engaging in the project – the 5 core members all currently putting the finishing touches to their well-earned Bronze Arts Awards project folders.

One of the highlights for me was a photography workshop we did with the group of girls, who all wanted to wear moustaches, to look more like the soldiers that created the badges. They were all incredibly quick in picking up the technical skills of using the camera and studio light, and loved posing for the camera, creating a variety of different mouth shapes in each photo so that they could create their own cartoon characters and animate them to talk in subsequent sessions. They then put themselves in the shoes of the soldiers and produced some beautiful lyrics, imagining how they would feel – and the result is a wonderful combination of film, animation, poetry and history, which I can’t wait for you all to see (or for those of you that clicked the play button before reading the text, I hope you enjoyed it)!

It has been wonderful to lead this Heritage Lottery Fund Young Roots project with Westbury Youth Centre and Wiltshire Council and I have a feeling there will be more films and animations to come out of Westbury in the near future, as there are some very talented and creative young people that now have the bug for film production!

These films were produced by young people at Westbury Youth Centre. The group visited the badges at Fovant, near Salisbury, with archaeologist Rachel Foster, to learn about the history of the location, climb to the top of the Iron Age hillfort and experience the badges from close-up.

Virtual Landscapes is a Heritage Lottery Fund Young Roots project, initiated and funded by Wiltshire Council and coordinated by Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival. The film was produced and developed at workshop sessions at Westbury Youth Centre, supported by Youth Development workers. and mentored by director Jamie McDine.

The young people that produced this film are also completing their Bronze Art Award as a result of this project.

Personal and friendly service

Your wedding day is one of the happiest and most memorable days of your life. When we photograph your wedding then we make sure it is memorable for the right reasons!

We capture beautiful pictures that really tell the story of your day, but do it in a very discrete and friendly way - ensuring that you feel relaxed and comfortable, and importantly can enjoy the day with your family and friends.

There are times we will get you to pose for photos, especially for the shots of the two of you together - but again these are all very relaxed poses, rather than the stiff, uncomfortable and old-fashioned style of wedding photos that your parents had!

It makes for great photos, natural smiles and your personalities really shine through - after all, the canvas you'll want to put on the living room wall will be a shot where you both look really happy and in love, rather than stood awkwardly like a couple of models!

We love our job and have made so many good friends from photographing weddings, and we're looking forward to seeing so many lovely couples again on their big day in 2014.

Jamie took a wonderful set of pictures which captured our day just perfectly, and he made us feel very relaxed on the day. I would warmly recommend. Cressida & Jorge

Two and a half years after our wedding, and we still look at our photos regularly with broad smiles on our faces. Jamie and Jackie did a phenomenol job of capturing the feel of the day as well as the excitement of the preparation in the morning. The fact that we received every single picture, along with a 'favourites' disc, and the fact that the pictures were absolutely stunning, are not even the main reasons why we would recommend them. It was the time they took in getting to know us as a couple and what we expected that really made them stand out. On the day, it was like having a couple of friends taking the photos for us, and to be fair we have all remained friends to this day. We also had the ceremony filmed - I would highly recommend that even if you are loosely considering this that you just go for it. Being able to watch those moments back is priceless. Jack & Nadia

Telling the story of your special day

We love taking beautiful wedding photos that are relaxed and let your personalities and happiness shine through. And when you look back at the photos, they really tell the story of your wedding day and capture those moments and emotions in every detail, whilst you and your guests were enjoying your special day together.

We thought we'd show you a selection of the natural reportage style photos from our most recent wedding, so you can see what we mean:

To view more reportage examples, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiltshireweddingphotography/sets/72157640035509375/with/12478973453/

Spring wedding at Leigh Park Hotel

One of our favourite wedding venues in Wiltshire is the beautiful Leigh Park Hotel, in Bradford-on-Avon. The ceremony room is not only very stylish, but has lots of light, thanks to windows all the way along both sides of the conservatory style room.

The gardens are perfect for guests to relax with a drink, as well as having plenty of secluded spots for us to take couples for their photos, without being watched by everyone else.

 Leigh Park's rooms are also exquisite and make the perfect backdrop for photos of the brides final preparations, as well as offering plenty of space to the bride and her bridesmaids to get ready, without tripping over each others dresses!

 These are a selection of photos from Jo and Simon's Spring wedding at Leigh Park, and with a few bookings there already, we're looking forward to photographing more weddings at the hotel in 2014.