Blakelands Country House

This is a little blog about one of our nearest & dearest wedding locations Blakelands Country House

Blakelands Country House, set in the heart of the South Staffordshire Countryside provides a beautiful venue for your wedding or special occasion. Set in ten acres of walled gardens, paddocks and lake, offering a unique and historic setting.

Emma & Joe chose Blakelands for their beautiful May wedding, we’ve put together a selection of images from their big day.

Emma & her bridesmaids arrived at Blakelands in the morning & made their way to ‘The Loft’ – a purpose built room, perfect to prepare for your wedding day. Featuring a kitchenette area with tea, coffee, soft drinks, and those wedding essentials a chilled Prosecco, bonbons, biscuits & snacks. What’s not to love?

Blakelands Country House is absolutely charming, constructed in 1722 & lovingly restored by the family that own & have conducted weddings here for nearly 30 years. This experience, knowledge & compassion is evident throughout our time working at Blakelands. 

One of the Morgan family, either Paul, Heather, Chloe plus their A team of staff are on hand to assist to make your day run as smoothly as possible ~ you may even find a family pet around the grounds happy to see you too! 

While the wedding preparations were underway, the finishing touches were being made to decorations, beautiful flowers by Clare’s Weddings & the scrumptious cake.

Emma & Joe had opted for an indoor ceremony & were married in the magnificent Victorian Maltings Barn, festooned by sparkling fairy lights, hessian bunting & lit by wrought iron chandeliers.

Guests made their way over to the barn & the ever handsome Joe nervously waited for the arrival of his beautiful bride Emma.

Liam Price, talented acoustic guitarist serenaded the bridesmaids & Emma & her Dad down the aisle.

Rapturous applause concluded the ceremony, we all loved the images captured of Emma & Joe walking down the aisle ~ beaming smiles & hands in the air! 

The Staffordshire sunshine was beautiful & the celebrations continued, with canapés & drinks served on the lawn, an absolute wedding photographers dream ~ Blakelands has so many beautiful backdrops.

Liam continued to entertain guests in the garden, there was lots of music, laughter, catch up conversations with family & friends & much talk of how wonderful this long awaited wedding day is. 

Time for guests to be invited back into the Maltings Barn to enjoy a delicious wedding breakfast & those anxiously awaited speeches… all brilliantly performed & enjoyed by all.

After the wedding breakfast we took the opportunity to take Emma & Joe over to the lake & into the main house for some more photographs. We think this is such a lovely time to take your wedding portraits, the nerves of the day have gone, it’s a nice time for you both to just take in the day as you walk round the grounds as we snap away.

As Emma & Joe wondered back to the courtyard it wasn’t long before evening guests were arriving & greeting the happy couple. 

Liam was entertaining with his musical talents throughout the evening, this guy knows how to get the party started, we never fail to get amazing dance floor shots when we work with!  

Evening buffet was served in the courtyard as guests enjoyed their food, conversation & flowing drinks, the most impressive array of colours of this May sun were setting to the backdrop of idyllic Blakelands.

A couple of night photos with the fantastic Emma & Joe in the grounds of this lovely venue ended the night for us perfectly.

What a fantastic day  ~ thank you for having us along to capture your celebrations at Blakelands Country House.

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Manor Hill House Wedding

If you wanted to witness a beautiful family wedding, you couldn’t be more blessed than being part of Louisa & Tom’s families, throughout their day they were surrounded by the loveliest bunch of people you could ever meet! From her bridesmaid travelling half way round the world to be there on their big day to Purnell the dog ~ well this dog is a superstar & just loves the camera!

We have some photography history with Louisa’s family, my Dad photographed Louisa’s parents wedding 20+ years ago at the same church Tom & Louisa were married in, & I photographed Louisa’s brother ~ Jake, his first new born photograph! ~ now in his 20’s! He hasn’t changed a bit ..ha! He has some dance floor skills that guy & great at getting ‘everyone’ on the dance floor !

You tried your best ‘RAIN’!!  but you did not dampen any spirits, the church was packed to the rafters & by the time we all dried off & sang our hearts out, it was off to a venue we had never been to before Manor Hill House

What a lovely venue, you couldn’t wish for more attentive hosts on arrival the owners Michael & Emma were on hand with brollies to escort all the guests to a warming welcome & canapés, I love this ‘cocktail hour’ time it gives you chance to get rid of all those nerves to have a quick chat & catch up with friends & family.

Chris at Manor Hill House is there every step of your day to make sure you have everything you need & the day runs smoothly… what a team!

Tom & Louisa braved the elements & we managed to get a few photos outside & meet the most magnificent member of staff ~ horse Jack !

After a wedding breakfast with food that looked like little works of art on a plate it was time for the speeches ! I think having speeches after the meal is a great idea, the drinks have been flowing and everyone is a little merry. I always get emotional at Father of the bride speeches & Louisa’s Dad was no exception, it was a mix of reminiscing family moments & euphoria of how beautiful & brilliant your daughter looks on her wedding day. Tom did a dutiful speech of thanking all the right people mixed with bringing the house down with his whit, charm & brilliant comic timing. It was like the warm up act for Ollie the bestman ~ doff my hat to you Ollie, even the ‘cake was in tiers’..(boom tish! )

Again rain did not stop play with this amazing crowd ~ Sparklers & a spectacular firework display from Jubilee Fireworks only ignited the party spirits even more!

This is testament to a good DJ, Chris from The Best Disco.com is more than just a DJ at Manor Hill House. He kept the dance floor full all night , with little help from baby Jake, & bridesmaid Lauren helping finish the celebrations with Louisa & Tom crowd surfing!

Fantastic ! Thank you so much for having us along for your big day.

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All I want is you ….

We decided Valentine’s Day would be the perfect day to post our round up of some of our 2018 weddings… we’ve had a blast being part of these fabulous weddings, thank you for letting us capture your day, we hope you enjoy our little round up ….

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