What feels like an age ago I headed up into North Yorkshire to one of my fave wedding venues, Middleton Lodge.

I was up to join Liz & Mark for their pre-wedding catch up ahead of their big day in November.

I genuinely do enjoy shooting at Middleton Lodge.  It’s a charming country house buried deep in North Yorkshire that’s been converted by it’s down-to-earth owners into a brilliant boutique wedding venue.

The house is used for ceremonies & receptions and the marquee in the grounds for the wedding meal and evening celebrations

And when a wedding couple book the place, they get it for the whole weekend and can genuinely treat it like their own home!These guys are certainly looking forward to their big day there in November!

After catching up and discussing their plans, I always like to put my upcoming wedding couples through a practice shoot

It’s great to do for so many reasons, but mainly to put them at ease that it’s fun and not something to worry about on their big day.

We were super lucky that the sun was behaving…

…and had some amazing light to play inBeing practiced at the portrait shoot helps us get relaxed, natural portraits on the wedding day and generally makes the wedding day shoot quicker so Mark & Liz can get back to the canapes, fizz & celebrating with their guests!

I love this one shot on my 35mm f1.4 lens – especially the way it throws the background out into lovely blur while keeping them nice a sharp.
Pre-wedding venue visits are useful to familiarise myself with a wedding venue I’ve not shot at before, but even if I have (like at Middleton Lodge), I use these shoots as an opportunity to explore a bit further than I might have before, like here, when we stomped deeper into some of the 250 acres of private parkland around Middleton LodgeI liked this little tree-stump we found to have a sit on.

I joined these guys around the time of the Olympics so it seemed only right to pull the Mo-Bot and Lightning Bolt!A slightly less conventional, but equally ace background we found was a container around the back of the Lodge by the bins!

A little tender detail.

It was brilliant to catch up with Mark & Liz and they’ve all kinds of awesome lined up for their guests, so I’m really looking forward to joining them in November!

Bring it on…

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