Yesterday was the amazing wedding of Christie and Martin, two dancers from the Northern Ballet Company who were married at St Annes Church in Brockenhurst and then onto Rhinefield House for their wedding reception. I had met Christie and Martin way back in January 2010 at a wedding fair and immediately hit it off with them, and Christie’s family who had also come along. With significant experience of shooting at Rhinefield I was able to show them lots of relevant weddings, and they booked me the day afterwards.
Just under 18 months later, and having met with them for their pre-wedding shoot, and informally on a number of occasions (Martin is a keen photographer) and it was the turn of their wedding, and once which I had been looking forward to for some time. I arrived at Rhinefield House in the morning to photograph Christie getting ready and immediately bumped into Christine who was arranging the flowers for Exclusively Weddings our favourite and the recommended florist at Rhinefield House.
I could tell the weather was picking up while I was covering the preps, and by the time I was outside looking for the guys to photograph it had improved dramatically. The church close by was welcoming and a beautiful service ensued delivered facing the congregation from behind the altar – a first for me in 9 years of shooting weddings.
We returned to Rhinefield and I selected the front of the building to take the formal and family groups taking advantage of the shade, and protection of the wind it afforded. Running up against the time for the receiving line I moved to the rear of the house for a classic group shot of the entire wedding party followed by an image of Christie and Martin and their Northern Ballet colleagues and got a very cool shot of them all striking a pose !
Dinner and speeches ensued with some touching moments, and then I took advantage of some soft evening light to take Christie and Martin for a walk around the gardens for some relaxed and more intimate portraits of them alone before returning them in time for a cake cutting, bouquet toss, and then straight into their first dance which was beautiful. The evening was topped off with a “Frank Sinatra style” singer which got the dancers, and the other guests up onto the dance floor in the Kings Room.
Here are a selection of images from across the day.
by Mike French
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