A Glastonbury wedding

Orchardleigh House is an out­stand­ing UK wed­ding venue

I’m almost tempted to call this post ‘behind the scenes at a wed­ding’, or ‘a really real wed­ding’ because it is a per­fect doc­u­men­tary style: I found it on Joshua Archer’s blog and loved it imme­di­ately, the pho­tog­ra­phy has some­thing very spe­cial indeed. If you were won­der­ing what doc­u­men­tary style wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy was, you’re about to see the best exam­ple I’ve ever come across.

It’s a per­fect record of a wed­ding in my eyes, and focuses on the lit­tle events that take place dur­ing the day. This is one to set­tle down with and read qui­etly — you’ll love the pho­tos and it’s a truly beau­ti­ful wedding.

Ciara and William on their wed­ding day. Ciara’s smile as she glances at the cam­era is just so happy.

Over to Joshua Archer, who very kindly shared his story of the wed­ding day in words too!

“Ciara and William were mar­ried in Glas­ton­bury in May this year. This was a gor­geous tra­di­tional wed­ding with a very relaxed atmos­phere. Unfor­tu­nately the weather didn’t hold up for the first part of the day and Ciara had to be escorted into the church under the cover of an umbrella, but true to form, she took it all in her stride.

“The recep­tion was held a short drive away at the stun­ning Orchardleigh House near Frome in Som­er­set. This is a gor­geous venue and thank­fully the weather improved and we were treated to some amaz­ing views of the grounds and house.

“The most impor­tant part of this wed­ding how­ever was the peo­ple. It is a priv­i­lege to doc­u­ment a wed­ding where the guests and fam­ily are so open and warm and this wed­ding was no excep­tion. Build­ing a rap­port with peo­ple at the wed­ding is an impor­tant part of the doc­u­men­tary approach and allows me to cap­ture inti­mate moments I couldn’t oth­er­wise. Thank­fully, Ciara and William’s fam­ily and guests made this easy and it was great fun to join them on their day.”

Calm and tran­quil before the wed­ding, last minute prepa­ra­tions are made at home

Two mir­rors, nat­ural light­ing, absolute con­cen­tra­tion and a per­fect picture

The hub of all the activ­ity is this dress­ing table — day­light, mir­ror and flow­ers cre­ate a scene that the cam­era inter­prets as truly beau­ti­ful. Ciara’s dress is sculpted from del­i­cate lace with a rib­bon sash detail below the bust — she’s every bit the time­less bride.

A brides­maid makes final touches to her lip­stick, mak­ing sure everything’s ‘just so’ for Ciara’s wedding

The clas­sic wed­ding car arrives…

… and is dec­o­rated while the girls get ready inside

Orders of Ser­vice are made ready in the church

As Ciara arrives, rain falls but the wed­ding dress is kept nice and dry. The church is St Mary’s Church, Mag­da­lene Street, Glastonbury

A bird’s eye view of Ciara’s walk down the aisle

Inside the church, grown ups do grown up stuff and the little’uns read a book

The chief con­fetti thrower is at waist height today! Guests’ arms are raised in cel­e­bra­tion and the bride and groom hardly seem aware of the confetti

Cheer­ing the wed­ding car on its way

Ciara and William arrive at Orchardleigh House to make their entrance

A crowd scene at Orchardleigh — I love the infor­mal­ity in such grand settings

You can almost feel the atmos­phere and hear the chit chat echo­ing around the room.

I’d like one too, please.

Cap­tur­ing the grandeur of Orchardleigh House

Guests min­gle out­side the wed­ding venue

Right, this looks like fun. What do you want to play?

Caught unawares, this page boy looks so cute in all his wed­ding day finery

Ciara’s eyes are full of love dur­ing the first dance. The guests are the back­drop for a mag­i­cal and emo­tional moment — a pow­er­ful picture…

This is what love is all about

Smil­ing and smil­ing and smil­ing and smiling

The laugh­ter, the atmos­phere, the moment… the pic­ture on the wall

So that’s the per­fect exam­ple of doc­u­men­tary wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. And from the best — Joshua Archer is Asso­ciate Pho­tog­ra­pher for Allis­ter Free­man Pho­tog­ra­phy. He has a strong phi­los­o­phy and focus on qual­ity over quan­tity. He told me, “I always look to cre­ate a unique approach or style that doesn’t seek to copy any­one else and com­bines a lit­tle humour into my pho­tog­ra­phy, help­ing to keep an ele­ment of fun involved.

“I like to stay as unob­tru­sive as pos­si­ble dur­ing the wed­ding day, which is not to say I hide behind bushes or under tables, but I work around the bride, groom and guests with­out con­trol­ling or dic­tat­ing how the day unfolds. I find this allows me to cap­ture much more hon­est, pow­er­ful moments and allows me to get close to the ‘action’ with­out get­ting in the way.”

Quoted from renowned UK wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Allis­ter Freeman:

“Joshua places great impor­tance on hav­ing intu­itive peo­ple skills, his easy man­ner enables him to be part of and, most impor­tantly, be able to iden­tify with, very per­sonal and pri­vate moments.…. his strong inter­est in fine art and social doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy means he approaches wed­dings in an uncon­ven­tional way and con­tin­ues to pro­duce our trade­mark, thought pro­vok­ing doc­u­men­tary coverage”

www.documentaryweddingphotographer.co.uk