A Photographer’s Guide to Outdoor Weddings

5 ways you can embrace the great out­doors on your big day with an out­door wedding.

A Guide to Outdoor Weddings

Vari­ety, that’s the name of the game when it comes to wed­dings. I’m lucky that I get to see so much at the wed­dings I pho­to­graph all over the mid­lands (and beyond!)

I’ve pho­tographed wed­dings in church­es, in a Cathe­dral and in a cou­ple of decon­se­crat­ed chapels. There have been mar­riages at reg­istry offices, hotels, coun­try hous­es, barns, a cou­ple of old vic­arages, an old pub, a library, an old paint­works and even a cinema!

Of course it used to be that you could choose from a place of reli­gion or a reg­istry office. Then the Mar­riage Act of 1994 came into force which allowed oth­er build­ings to be licensed to con­duct wed­dings. After that the choice start­ed to grow and these days there’s almost no lim­it for where you can get married.

Marriage Act

Now, you might not know this (I cer­tain­ly did­n’t until I gog­gled it!) but it was Giles Bran­dreth, when he was an MP, that intro­duced the pri­vate mem­bers which ush­ered in this change in the law. So the man prob­a­bly bet­ter known for his eccen­tric taste in jumpers and being in dic­tio­nary cor­ner on Count­down also gave us the choice that we have today when it comes to get­ting married!

Although this Act of Par­lia­ment gave rise to a vast selec­tion of build­ings that con­duct a wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny, what it did­n’t do is allow peo­ple in Eng­land & Wales (it’s dif­fer­ent in Scot­land & North­ern Ire­land) to get mar­ried out­side. So you might be read­ing this think­ing ‘but Nick, your blog is called a guide to out­door wed­dings? Have you sold us a lemon here?! If you can’t get mar­ried out­side then this is going to be a very short blog’

Well, the answer is that you can get mar­ried out­side, sort of!

There has to be some sort of per­ma­nent struc­ture, like a gaze­bo, arbour, pavil­ion, that sort of thing. So to all intents and pur­pos­es the whole thing is out­side, but tech­ni­cal­ly there’s a roof over your head when you actu­al­ly say I do

This has giv­en rise to lots and lots of venues offer­ing ‘out­door’ cer­e­monies and there are also many oth­er ways you can embrace a love of all things al fres­co when it comes to your big day. So I’ve come up with my guide to out­door wed­dings to give a few suggestions!

Arriving on horseback!

1. Out­door cer­e­mo­ny, indoor reception

The pic­ture at the top of the page was tak­en at Deer Park Hall, near Per­shore in Worces­ter­shire. It shows the Bride arriv­ing for her out­door wed­ding on horse­back, as you do!

What had start­ed as some­thing of a joke with her friends that, being a horse-lover, she had to use an equine mode of trans­port became real­i­ty, (with a bit of help from her local sta­bles) as she rode down the aisle between rows of seats, sit­ting side sad­dle on her steed.

The horse then took a back seat dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, although, as you can see, he stayed to watch!

Here are a few more images from the wed­ding and of course, Deer Park Hall has deer!!

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Outdoor Wedding Guide

Anoth­er indoor ‑out­door option is Mod­der­shall Oaks in Stafford­shire. They’ve real­ly embraced the out­door cer­e­mo­ny vibe with a ded­i­cat­ed area over­look­ing their lake.

Tears galore at this wed­ding and a ring-bear­er with a dif­fer­ence, a kestrel!!!

This wed­ding was in Octo­ber and it was touch and go as to whether the out­door cer­e­mo­ny would go ahead. But the storm clouds part­ed and that kestrel got to fly!

The wed­ding break­fast was inside and although the rain came lat­er on that did­n’t stop this intre­pid from hav­ing a sparkler parade in the driz­zle and a first dance in the rain!!

Anoth­er vari­a­tion in my guide to out­door wed­dings is to have a bless­ing, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly done the legal stuff in a reg­istry office.

You can see a won­der­ful exam­ple of this in a blog about Geor­gi & Neil’s Tipi Wed­ding in Warwickshire

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2. Indoor cer­e­mo­ny, out­door reception

A Genuine Festival Wedding

Now, there are lots of wed­dings that are blessed with fine weath­er, allow­ing for much of the day to be spent out­doors. You also get quite a few wed­dings that go for a fes­ti­val vibe often with either a tipi or marquee

But the exam­ple I have here takes it a stage fur­ther. Hav­ing got mar­ried at Malvern Reg­istry Office and then had lunch at coun­try pub in the Worces­ter­shire coun­try­side they took their wed­ding recep­tion to an actu­al fes­ti­val, the Sun­shine Fes­ti­val in Upton upon Sev­ern to be precise!!

They’d been to the fes­ti­val the year before with their chil­dren and knew that it was real­ly fam­i­ly friend­ly and decid­ed it was the per­fect place for a chilled, relaxed, alter­na­tive wed­ding recep­tion with close fam­i­ly and friends

Operation Campsite

So, the day before the wed­ding, ‘Oper­a­tion Camp­site’ began and the Groom, his Best Man and some friends loaded up the van and head­ed down to Upton to set up their fes­ti­val wed­ding vil­lage com­plete with wind­break fence, drinks tent and flag pole!

At the lunch stop all the guests were giv­en ‘fes­ti­val sur­vival kits’ kits that includ­ed dry sham­poo, per­son­alised sun­glass­es and, of course, paracetamol!!

Just to add to the sense of togeth­er­ness at this wed­ding, the trans­port from the reg­istry office to the pub and then on the fes­ti­val was a red, vin­tage dou­ble deck­er bus. See­ing the bus slow­ly wend­ing its way between the rows of tents to reach their camp­site was quite a sight!

Festival Campsite Wedding!

Of course, if you’re hav­ing your wed­ding recep­tion at a fes­ti­val then you’re going to have out­door speech­es so time to pull up a camp­ing stool and crack open a tinny!!

Then it’s time to head off to the are­na to have your first dance along­side 10,000 oth­er fes­ti­val goers!!

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3. Open-air ceremony

Ok, so maybe you like the idea of get­ting mar­ried out­side but are a bit wor­ried about it get­ting affect­ed by rain?

What you need is an open-air or outdoor/indoor option!

I do realise that the last sen­tence might sound a tad con­fus­ing, so let me explain

The image above is tak­en from a wed­ding at the incred­i­ble Matara Cen­tre, near Tet­bury on the Cotswolds. It’s not like any­where else I’ve been. It’s a grade II list­ed coun­try house but with Asian influ­ences and set in beau­ti­ful gar­dens, a real visu­al treat.

One of their options for a wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny is the clois­tered court­yard, a fish-filled pool sur­round­ed on two sides with seat­ing, a plat­form jut­ting out into the water and pur­ple wis­te­ria hang­ing down.

Protected from the Elements

The day these images were shot, almost to show the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of a British sum­mer, it rained. Not the whole day, but prob­a­bly enough for an out­door cer­e­mo­ny to have been moved indoors. 

This is where an open-air cer­e­mo­ny comes into its own.

You’re able to breathe in the scents of sum­mer (or what­ev­er the sea­son), be sur­round­ed by green­ery and feel at one with nature, but you have a roof over your head.

The Bride walked down the Chi­nese clois­ter towards her Groom, with hun­dreds of origa­mi cranes above her head. Even the gold­fish in the pool popped up for air as the rain stopped. So after the cer­e­mo­ny they were able to step out on to the stone plat­form, jut­ting out into the water.

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Outdoor (ish) Ceremony whatever the time of year 

Don’t be fooled into think­ing that out­door/open-air wed­dings are pure­ly a sum­mer option. Here we have a wed­ding that took place in the mid­dle of Octo­ber, at Lyde Court near Here­ford. It has a 17th Cen­tu­ry Great Barn and, for an indoor/outdoor option, the long barn over­look­ing the wil­low lawn.

This Here­ford­shire wed­ding venue is anoth­er stun­ning place to get mar­ried. It’s full of his­to­ry and char­ac­ter, if you’re look­ing for a barn that has­n’t been gen­tri­fied then it’s perfect!

As is often the case, they’ve got var­i­ous options, both indoor and out­door. It autumn day was actu­al­ly a warm, sun­ny autumn after­noon. But the long barn has hes­s­ian cur­tains that can dropped down to at least pro­vide some pro­tec­tion from hor­i­zon­tal rain.

Marshmallows, yum yum!

There’s also no rea­son why the par­ty has to go inside, just because it’s Octo­ber and a bit nip­py. Get your­self a firepit and some marsh­mal­lows and you’re good to go!!

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4. In the Great Outdoors

Now this cat­e­go­ry of the guide to out­door wed­dings is more about want­i­ng to feel that you’re at one with nature and away from the hus­tle and bus­tle of the city, rather than hav­ing an al fres­co ceremony.

Per­haps you’ve had a Church wed­ding but want to get some fresh air in your lungs, so what bet­ter than to have a tipi or mar­quee wed­ding reception?

Malvern Hill Outdoor Wedding Reception

It gives you the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend time out­side in a gar­den or field, to be amongst Moth­er Nature, and prob­a­bly to get mud on your shoes!!

I’ve shot a few wed­dings like this and this first one, after a church ser­vice in East­nor in Worces­ter­shire had a music fes­ti­val recep­tion in a field beneath the Malvern Hills. It had a few shep­herds huts there already (can’t have the Bride & Groom slum­ming it!) and a pop-up mini camp­site for every­one else

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5. Not outdoors.….but meant to be!!

Rain, rain, go away!

If you are plan­ning an out­door wed­ding then it’s always worth think­ing what would hap­pen if it rains. Where would you have the cer­e­mo­ny, is it as nice as the out­door option?

Birtsmor­ton Court is a fab­u­lous medieval moat­ed manor house near Malvern in Worces­ter­shire. With a won­der­ful white gar­den to hold your out­door wed­ding ceremony.

Unless of course it looks like rain

This day dawned on this Sep­tem­ber day with what can best be described as change­able weath­er. One minute sun­ny, then cloudy, then show­ers, then back to sun, all in the space of five minutes

As the morn­ing passed the weath­er apps were get­ting checked repeat­ed­ly, but still look­ing unpredictable

Final­ly, a deci­sion had to be made and it was just too risky to be out in the gar­den. So Plan B it was, the glo­ri­ous 13th cen­tu­ry Great Hall, resplen­dent with wood pan­elled walls and hang­ing tapestries

The Heavens Opened

I think it’s fair to say that Bride was a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed. Espe­cial­ly as the sun was shin­ing as she made her way down the aisle. But, just as they were exchang­ing rings, there was an almighty clap of thun­der and then the heav­ens opened. Cue a ten minute down­pour, total­ly vin­di­cat­ing the deci­sion. These two images cap­ture the moment and the Brides reaction!!

But did that mean that the rest of the day was spent indoors? Hell no!! The rain stopped, the clouds cleared and the sun shone. Just in time for the drinks recep­tion so the new­ly­weds still got to enjoy being out­side on their wed­ding day

So there you have it, my guide to out­door wed­dings! Whether it’s indoor-out­door, out­door-indoor, open-air, in the great out­doors or out­doors after the rain it’s won­der­ful to enjoy the fresh air and you nev­er know, maybe the sun on your face too!!

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Some oth­er blogs that you might want to check out

31 Cool Wed­ding Venues around Birmingham

70 Ideas for Wed­ding Entertainment

How to have Awe­some Wed­ding Confetti

Alter­na­tives to a Mar­quee for your Wedding

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I hope you’ve found this guide to out­door wed­dings helpful.

If you’re plan­ning one and want any advice then please get in touch. I’d love to have a chat!