An Editorial June Wedding at The Barn at Morley’s Hall

I could have started Olivia and Callum’s wedding gallery with a photograph of their house and been quite happy with it. The walls, the panelling, the soft furnishings. Even the bedspread where I photographed Olivia’s shoes was exactly the colour I’d have chosen. I’d gone there to photograph a wedding and was in some danger of coming home with a paint chart.


Olivia and Callum got married in June at The Barn at Morley’s Hall. It’s one of my favourite weddings I’ve photographed in recent years, and looking through it again, I think it’s the combination of two things. In the morning I had white roses, beautiful light and a bride surrounded by her three sisters. Later, I had a band playing outside and an entire wedding party dancing in the sunshine. I had a bloody lovely time at both.


Getting ready with the Chan-dashians

Olivia’s three sisters were her bridesmaids. The Chan-dashians, if you will. There’s a photograph from that morning of everyone squeezed onto the sofa together, all in white, with one pair of legs going one way and another pair going the other. Then there’s the portrait of Olivia on her own, dark hair over one shoulder, white roses in her hands, looking down at her dress. The house was neutral heaven, but it’s her little smile that makes that second photograph for me.


There’s a black-and-white close-up of hands fastening the back of her dress that I love, too. With three sisters in the bridal party, Olivia had plenty of people on hand for the practical bits of getting married. It’s also quite a thing to look back at a photograph of yourself in your wedding dress and recognise the hands in it as ones you’ve known your whole life.


A rather good spot for a wedding portrait

At The Barn at Morley’s Hall, there’s a photograph of Olivia and Callum leaning together beside a white vintage car. Behind them are those huge timber doors and all that warm red brick. Olivia’s dress and the car stand out beautifully against it, and Callum’s dark suit draws your eye straight back to the two of them. I like the scale of it. You see the whole front of the barn, but you can still see the way they’re leaning into each other.


It’s the photograph I chose to open their gallery. Given the strength of my feelings about the bedspread, that should tell you something.


The bride made the cake

Olivia runs her own cake business and made her own wedding cake. It was spectacular. I particularly love that, among all the things people could admire that day, there was one where Callum could quite truthfully say, “My wife made that.”


I did briefly consider what the equivalent would be in my line of work. Presumably me in a wedding dress, setting a ten-second timer and trying to get back into position without bringing the tripod down with my veil. On balance, I think Olivia chose the more practical profession for this particular exercise.


An outdoor dance floor at The Barn at Morley’s Hall

When the band played outside, everyone danced in the sunshine. There’s something very British about getting a properly sunny day in June and collectively deciding that whatever happens next will be happening outside. Conveniently, the band had come to the same conclusion.


This was the part I’d want Olivia and Callum to have plenty of photographs of. They knew exactly how their wedding was going to look. What they couldn’t have planned was quite how enthusiastically their guests would take to an outdoor dance floor. I love that the same gallery has room for a quiet portrait of Olivia holding her flowers and the people she loves having an absolutely brilliant time in broad daylight.


Olivia and Callum, thank you for having me. Your photographs are some of my favourites, from the morning with the girls to that last stretch of sunshine with the band. And Olivia, if you happen to remember the paint colour, I remain interested.


If you’re getting married at The Barn at Morley’s Hall, tell me your date and what you’ve got planned. I’d love to hear which details you’re choosing and who you’re most looking forward to seeing on the dance floor.