Atmospheric Thornton Manor Wedding

One of my favourite images from this Thorn­ton Manor Wedding

Please make sure you’re sit­ting down to read this blog post. The wed­ding pho­tos are so amaz­ing they’ll knock you off your feet. Thanks to Chris Han­ley Pho­tog­ra­phy for shar­ing such a glam­orous Eng­lish wed­ding with us today.

Thorn­ton Manor is a wed­ding venue with so much romance and character

The wed­ding of Geral­dine and Richard took place at Thorn­ton Manor in Decem­ber. Cheshire’s Thorn­ton Manor is one of the most majes­tic Eng­lish wed­ding venues I’ve seen, and com­bined with Chris’s skill and imag­i­na­tion it cre­ates a mag­i­cal back­drop for these extra­or­di­nary wed­ding photos.

Beau­ti­ful pho­to­graph of the wed­ding dress on the morn­ing of the wedding

Geraldine’s dress was a stun­ning design in ice blue lay­ered silks with an ornately dec­o­rated bodice and an exquis­itely shapely train. The mul­ti­tude of lay­ers look won­der­ful in this pic­ture — very fit­ting for such a stately setting!

The detail­ing on Geraldine’s wed­ding dress is beautiful

The vin­tage style embell­ish­ments on the wed­ding dress are del­i­cately crafted with sparkling flow­ers and swirling vine details. The dress has been cre­ated with such metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail, it’s sim­ply beautiful.

Wed­ding shoe sculp­ture — this pho­to­graph is fab­u­lous, and look at those shoes!

The oblig­a­tory bridal shoe pho­to­graph is arranged with great care, using the win­dows behind to ‘frame’ the shoes between pil­lars of light: the shoes are a work of art in them­selves, a per­fect match for Geraldine’s gown.

The beau­ti­ful bride poses for a roman­tic pho­to­graph before her wedding

And a first photo of the beau­ti­ful bride: Geral­dine reclines on a chaise longue for a pic­ture before the wed­ding. What can I say.. if ever a bride looked like a princess, it’s Geral­dine. I love the way her dress stretches behind her, with the ruched fab­ric above and the richer blue inside the skirt reflect­ing onto those fab­u­lous shoes. Her hair shines in a glam­orous, nat­ural flow­ing style with a fab­u­lous hair­piece to com­ple­ment the dress.

Geral­dine poses with her brides­maids in shades of rich blue silk

The brides­maids pose with Geral­dine before the wed­ding cer­e­mony in floor length blue dresses — the smooth, straight lines of the brides­maid dresses are a per­fect con­trast with Geraldine’s dress. I love how the sun­light shines on the dresses, empha­sis­ing the flow of the silks — beautiful.

Groom Richard looks great in his blue suit, in this blue-tinged photo

Groom Richard strikes a pose out­side the venue in his won­der­ful suit with ice blue waist­coat, tie and a white rose but­ton­hole with blue. He’s hand­some and strik­ing, and the dark colours and tex­tures of this pho­to­graph, the strong lines all work to make this a fas­ci­nat­ing picture.

The bride and groom inside Thorn­ton Manor — a won­der­ful photo

Richard and Geral­dine make a great look­ing cou­ple. This is a great photo of the bride and groom with loads of sparkle in the fore­ground and while the focus is on their faces, the pic­ture takes in the lux­u­ri­ous table dec­o­ra­tions and their rich colours, high­lighted by the can­dles’ soft glow.

The con­tem­po­rary wed­ding bou­quets are stunning

The table dec­o­ra­tions may have been huge and lux­u­ri­ous, but the bou­quets held by Geral­dine and her brides­maids were orig­i­nal and sim­ply beau­ti­ful. I love this pic­ture because it resists the temp­ta­tion to crop the bou­quets and shows them in all their glory. The bride’s bou­quet looks rem­i­nis­cent of a peacock’s tail with the green fan shape and blue features.

Mar­tini glasses at the wed­ding, trans­formed into a work of art!

True to Chris Hanley’s breath­tak­ing pho­tog­ra­phy style, this shot of mar­tini glasses is rich in colour and very, very contemporary.

The music room at Thorn­ton Manor: a room with a view… and a half! Wow!

From small details to grand vis­tas, Thorn­ton Manor has it all and Chris Han­ley cap­tures this pala­tial venue so very, very well. The stun­ning music room in the manor house is an amaz­ing set­ting for a wed­ding break­fast. The blue light­ing around the room fits so well with the over­all theme of the wed­ding photography.

A wed­ding cake with a dif­fer­ence… the pho­tog­ra­phy makes this so special

I had to look at this pic­ture more than a few times to be sure it was just a wed­ding cake! It’s one of my favourite pho­tos since start­ing this blog. The angle of the shot, the warm light and tons of sparkle from table dia­monds, the reflec­tions… the cake is trans­formed into a mag­nif­i­cent sculp­ture. I’d expect to see it on the Grand Canal in Venice. Fabulous.

Stun­ning use of nat­ural sun­light and shad­ows makes an unfor­get­table wed­ding photo

Thorn­ton Manor has many gor­geous archi­tec­tural fea­tures, and Chris makes the most of these for out­door por­trait shots. I love the com­po­si­tion in this pic­ture: Geral­dine is bathed in beau­ti­ful sun­light amongst the arch­ways of the Manor House. She appears to be hold­ing court — and looks ever so regal.

Enjoy­ing the ambi­ence — Thorn­ton Manor was made for Geraldine!

The pho­tos look like fan­tas­tic fun. Geral­dine could be a model as she just loves her wed­ding gown, framed by the won­der­ful arches and pil­lars in the win­ter sunlight.

The beau­ti­ful sun­set even matches and com­ple­ments the wed­ding colours!

The sun­set was beau­ti­ful and some­how even matches Geraldine’s wed­ding dress with that icy blue high above the clouds. As the sun melts over the hori­zon, its warm glow lights this scene per­fectly, and the light and shad­ows on the train of the wed­ding gown show it off so well. How lucky to have such a stun­ning sun­set on your wed­ding photos.

A mag­i­cal, artis­tic wed­ding pho­to­graph — where Chris Han­ley really excels

Another favourite image for me, here Chris Han­ley trans­ports the bride and groom to a mag­i­cal, fairy­tale land­scape of lus­cious blues and greens, helped with Thorn­ton Manor’s gar­den lights. Again, how great is it that the colours com­ple­ment Geraldine’s dress so well!

The shad­ows in this pic­ture make it look like a stage in a the­atri­cal fairy tale

From the first pic­tures of the wed­ding day where Geral­dine posed in the gown and the pho­tographs had roman­tic pas­tel themes, now they are just full of the most amaz­ing colours. And Geral­dine sim­ply shines in the lime­light! She has a stun­ning fig­ure, and I can’t imag­ine a bride more suited to her glam­orous wed­ding dress.

The bride and groom own the dance­floor, and the room swirls around them

The move­ment in this last pic­ture of Geral­dine and Richard on the dance­floor is won­der­ful. The lights on the cou­ple, on the dance­floor and shad­ows all around just add to the magic.

Huge thanks to Chris Han­ley for sub­mit­ting this mag­i­cal wed­ding to the blog. It’s a long post, because I had to include every sin­gle one of these amaz­ing pho­tos. I couldn’t bear to miss a sin­gle one!

Please visit Chris’s web­site and wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy blog, and if you’re in Cheshire do ask Chris about your own wed­ding pho­tos — he also spe­cialises in Cher­ish The Dress pho­tog­ra­phy shoots.

If luxury’s your wed­ding thing, pop over for a peek at this Lux­ury Kew Gar­dens wed­ding next!