Grand Villa Heights Wedding Photographer – Ravenscar, North Yorkshire

Relaxed, Natural Wedding Photography at Grand Villa Heights

If you're planning your wedding at Grand Villa Heights in Ravenscar and you're looking for a photographer who'll capture your day naturally without having you constantly posing for photographs, I'd love to hear what you've got planned.

I've photographed three weddings at Grand Villa Heights now, including two within just over a week of each other, so it's becoming somewhere I know rather well. It's certainly an interesting place to work, with those fantastic views across Robin Hood's Bay, plenty of character inside the hotel and a good mixture of places for photographs.

I've been photographing weddings throughout North Yorkshire and the North East for the best part of two decades, and my approach is fairly straightforward. I'll help organise the photographs that need organising, give a little direction when it's useful and spend the rest of the day photographing what's happening around me. I want you to have lovely photographs of your wedding, but I also want you to enjoy it rather than spend half the afternoon wondering when you're going to get back to your guests.

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Getting Married at Grand Villa Heights in Ravenscar

Grand Villa Heights, which many people will remember as Raven Hall Hotel, sits high above Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast, between Whitby and Scarborough. It's quite a distinctive place to get married, particularly if you love this part of Yorkshire and want somewhere with plenty of countryside and coastline around you.

The venue has changed quite a bit over recent years, and there's a mixture of the original building and newer wedding spaces. The Chapel Over the Bay provides an indoor ceremony setting, while couples can also explore the outdoor ceremony options around the grounds. There's also the Panoramic Suite for wedding celebrations, with views across the coastline.

One of the advantages of getting married somewhere like Grand Villa Heights is having the ceremony, reception and accommodation together. There's no need for everybody to spend part of the day travelling between locations, and from my point of view that means there's often more time to photograph the people and everything happening around them.

Of course, you're not booking a wedding venue purely because it makes life easier for the photographer, but it's something worth thinking about when you're planning the day!

Wedding Photographs Overlooking Robin Hood's Bay

The views are probably one of the first things people notice when they arrive at Grand Villa Heights. Standing up at Ravenscar, you can look across Robin Hood's Bay and along the North Yorkshire coastline, and it's certainly worth including some of those surroundings in your wedding photographs.

I've already photographed couples there in very different conditions. When I photographed Joe and Leah's wedding, we had bright October sunshine but an absolutely freezing wind coming straight off the North Sea. The views were lovely, but I certainly wasn't going to keep them standing outside getting cold while I worked through a long collection of poses.

We made the most of the light, took some photographs with the coastline behind them and then headed back indoors. Sometimes you only need a relatively short amount of time to get some really nice photographs, particularly when you already know where you'd like to go.

More recently, at Michael and Kealeigh's wedding, we had some lovely late-afternoon autumn sunshine, which gave us the opportunity to create a completely different collection of photographs around the grounds.

That's something I enjoy about returning to the same venue. The surroundings might be familiar, but the light, weather and people are different every time, and I don't particularly want to take every couple to exactly the same spot and produce identical photographs.

I also like including a few wider photographs showing the coastline. They're a reminder of where you got married, although I wouldn't want every photograph to have you looking like two tiny people somewhere in the distance. The setting is lovely, but the photographs should still be about you.

Making the Most of the Hotel's Interiors

As much as the views across Robin Hood's Bay are a big attraction, there are some lovely opportunities for photographs inside Grand Villa Heights as well.

During Joe and Leah's wedding, we used the curved staircase for a photograph looking down towards the two of them, and we also found a lovely seating area beside the windows for some more relaxed photographs together.

I think it's important to have that variety because not every photograph needs to be taken outside, and it also means we're not entirely dependent on the weather doing what we'd like.

The hotel has quite a mixture of spaces, from the older parts of the building to the newer areas used for weddings and celebrations, so there's plenty to work with. When I'm photographing a wedding, I'll usually have a few possible locations in mind and then decide what works best once I've seen the conditions on the day.

After all, this is the North Yorkshire coast, and anybody who lives around here knows that the weather can change its mind fairly quickly!

Wedding Photography That Doesn't Take Over Your Wedding

Something couples often tell me when we first meet is that they want natural, relaxed wedding photographs but aren't particularly comfortable having their picture taken.

I completely understand that, and it's one of the reasons I don't spend ages making couples work through a collection of complicated poses.

When we're taking photographs of the two of you, I'll choose somewhere suitable, have a look at the light and give you a little direction if it's needed. After that, I'm quite happy for you to talk, laugh, have a wander together and generally get on with being yourselves.

You don't need to know where to put your hands, how to stand or what you're supposed to do in front of the camera. That's something I can help with, and I certainly wouldn't expect you to spend the wedding worrying about it.

The same applies to the family photographs. We'll put together a sensible list beforehand, work out which groups are important and get them organised without spending half the afternoon searching for relatives who've disappeared to the bar.

For the rest of the wedding, I prefer to photograph what's happening as naturally as possible. The conversations between guests, people laughing, children doing their own thing and all those little moments that are easy to miss when you're busy enjoying your wedding yourself.

Quite often the photographs couples end up enjoying most are the ones they didn't even realise I'd taken.

Real Weddings I've Photographed at Grand Villa Heights

One of the advantages of booking a photographer who has already worked at your wedding venue is being able to look through photographs from genuine weddings rather than just a handful of styled portraits.

I've photographed three weddings at Grand Villa Heights, and they're all good examples of how differently people can celebrate at the same location.

Ryan and Sarah's wedding was one of my earlier visits to the venue, while Joe and Leah's October wedding included those wonderful coastal views, live saxophone entertainment and plenty of activity throughout the celebrations.

Michael and Kealeigh's wedding was only a short time afterwards, but the atmosphere and photographs were quite different. We had some lovely autumn light during the afternoon, plenty happening indoors and an evening that included sparklers and their first dance.

That's why I like showing real wedding galleries. You can get a much better idea of how I work, the mixture of photographs I take and what the venue actually looks like with a wedding taking place.

And hopefully you'll see that I'm not simply taking the same photographs at every wedding.

How Much Wedding Photography Do You Need?

Not every couple needs photography from first thing in the morning until late at night, and I don't believe in encouraging people to book more coverage than they actually want.

Some couples would like the preparations photographed, followed by the ceremony, family photographs, wedding breakfast, speeches and evening celebrations. Others are planning something smaller and would prefer photography around the main parts of the day.

I've photographed both shorter weddings and full-day celebrations, and the important thing is working out what you'd like to remember and how much time we'll need to photograph it properly.

Grand Villa Heights offers plenty of opportunities throughout the day, particularly if we're able to make use of the changing light around the grounds, but that doesn't mean we need to disappear every time the sun comes out.

I'll always suggest something if I think there's an opportunity for a nice photograph, but it's your wedding and you should be spending it with the people you've invited.

Looking for a Grand Villa Heights Wedding Photographer?

If you're getting married at Grand Villa Heights in Ravenscar, whether you know it by its current name or remember it as Raven Hall Hotel, I'd love to hear about your wedding plans.

I've photographed weddings at the venue in different conditions and know how to make the most of the surroundings without spending ages away from your guests. I'm also familiar with the North Yorkshire coastline, so whether you're planning a summer wedding or something later in the year, we can have a chat about how you'd like your photographs to work.

My aim is to make the photography feel like a natural part of your wedding, giving you a proper record of the day, from the important photographs you know you want to those little moments you might otherwise have missed.

Have a look through some of my real weddings at Grand Villa Heights, and if you like what you see, get in touch and tell me what you've got planned.

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