Liam & Sam's Wedding at St Leonard's Church, Loftus, With Photographs at Skinningrove Beach
I've photographed weddings all over North Yorkshire and the North East over the years, but there's always something nice about working close to home, especially when you've got places like St Leonard's Church in Loftus and the coastline around Skinningrove practically on your doorstep.
Liam and Sam chose St Leonard's Church in Loftus for their wedding ceremony, and afterwards we made the short journey down to Skinningrove Beach for some photographs of the two of them before heading off to their reception. With a lovely autumn theme running through the wedding and some very lively waves providing the background for our photographs at the beach, there was plenty to work with.
Liam & Sam's Wedding Ceremony at St Leonard's Church in Loftus
St Leonard's is a lovely old church in the centre of Loftus, with some beautiful features inside that make it an interesting place to photograph a wedding. The stained-glass windows, dark wooden panelling and detailed woodwork around the altar give the building plenty of character, and it's somewhere that works particularly well for the wider photographs that show the setting as well as the couple.
Church weddings are always a little different from photographing ceremonies at hotels and other wedding venues because you have to work around the service itself, the available light and whatever restrictions may be in place. My approach is to keep out of the way as much as possible, make sure I'm in the right position for the important moments and let the ceremony happen without turning it into a photoshoot.
During Liam and Sam's ceremony, I was able to include some of the beautiful interior of St Leonard's in their photographs, particularly the wooden screen and the stained glass behind the altar. I always like taking a few wider photographs during a church wedding because they give you a sense of where everything happened, rather than every image being a close-up of the couple.
Of course, the people are still the most important part of the photographs, and one of my favourites from the ceremony is Liam and Sam making their way back down the aisle together while their family and friends applaud around them. Those are the moments you don't really need to organise because everybody is reacting to what's happening, and they're usually over before you know it.
We also managed to get a few photographs of the two of them together inside the church, making use of the lovely woodwork and the light coming through the windows before we headed off for the next part of their day.
A Trip to Skinningrove Beach for Wedding Photographs
After leaving St Leonard's, we headed down to Skinningrove Beach for some photographs before Liam and Sam joined everyone at their wedding reception.
Skinningrove is somewhere I know well, and although it might not immediately spring to mind when people are thinking about locations for their wedding photographs, the coastline around East Cleveland has plenty to offer. You've got the beach, the rocks, the open sea and a landscape that can look completely different depending on the weather and the time of year.
On this occasion we had bright sunshine, blue skies and some fairly impressive waves crashing against the rocks behind us, which certainly gave the photographs a bit of character. There's something I really like about using the actual surroundings rather than trying to make everywhere look like a perfectly manicured wedding venue, and Skinningrove gave us a very different backdrop to the church we'd just left.
I wanted to give Liam and Sam some photographs that made use of the coastline without spending ages taking them through one pose after another. We worked with the sea behind them, took some closer photographs and made use of Sam's veil for a slightly different perspective as well.
I've always preferred giving couples a little direction when they need it and then allowing them to get on with being themselves. I'll look for the right background, work out where the light is falling and make adjustments where necessary, but I don't want people feeling as though they're standing in front of a camera waiting for their next instruction.
It's particularly useful when you've got somewhere like Skinningrove because the landscape is already doing quite a lot of the work for you. The sea and those crashing waves provide plenty of interest in the photographs, and you can create a good mixture of images without having to move very far.
I think the photographs of Liam and Sam with the sea behind them work really nicely alongside those taken at St Leonard's. You've got the traditional church setting for the ceremony and something completely different for their photographs together, yet both locations are part of the same little stretch of North Yorkshire.
A Lovely Autumn Theme
I also wanted to include a photograph of Liam and Sam's wedding cake because the autumn theme really caught my eye.
The cake was decorated with orange and white pumpkins, autumn leaves and little pine cones, with their initials sitting inside a heart on the top. The colours worked really well together, and it was one of those details that was worth taking a few minutes to photograph properly.
I always make a point of photographing the little things couples have chosen for their wedding, whether that's the flowers, the cake, the rings or decorations around the venue. Quite often there's been a lot of thought put into them, and although the day itself goes by quickly, it's nice to have photographs of those details alongside everything else.
And with the autumn colours in Sam's bouquet and Liam's buttonhole too, it was nice to see those warmer tones appearing throughout the photographs.
Wedding Photography in Loftus, Skinningrove and East Cleveland
One of the things I enjoy about photographing weddings around Loftus and the surrounding villages is the variety of locations we have available without travelling particularly far.
You can have a traditional church ceremony at somewhere like St Leonard's and then be down on the coast within a short drive, whether that's Skinningrove, Saltburn or somewhere else along this part of North Yorkshire.
For couples planning a wedding locally, it's worth thinking about whether there is somewhere nearby that means something to you or would work well for a few photographs together. It doesn't have to be somewhere grand, and you certainly don't have to spend an hour away from your guests to get photographs that are a little different.
Sometimes a short stop on the way to the reception is all that's needed, particularly when you've got a photographer who already knows the area and can work out what is practical within the time available.
Liam and Sam's wedding was a good example of how two completely different locations can work together. The church gave us those traditional ceremony photographs, the beach gave us the opportunity to do something different with the two of them, and the autumn colours running through the day brought a lovely bit of warmth to the photographs.
Planning Your Wedding in Loftus or Along the North Yorkshire Coast?
If you're planning a wedding at St Leonard's Church in Loftus, or anywhere around Skinningrove, Saltburn and the North Yorkshire coast, and you're looking for relaxed wedding photography without spending half your day posing for the camera, I'd love to hear what you've got planned.
I've been photographing weddings around North Yorkshire and the North East for the best part of two decades, and I know this part of the coast particularly well. Whether you're planning a traditional church wedding, something smaller or a full day of celebrations, we can have a chat about your plans, the locations you're considering and how much photography you'd actually like.
My aim is to give you a proper record of your wedding, including the photographs you know you want and all those little moments happening around you that you might otherwise miss, while making sure you've still got plenty of time to enjoy the day with your family and friends.
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