Cain Manor Wedding – Sarah & Mike

The blog has had an extended quiet spell lately due to assorted WordPress headaches, an extremely busy season and a few other bits and pieces such as the small matter of getting married myself! Today I’m relaunching the blog with an improved and updated layout and Sarah & Mike’s fantastic Cain Manor wedding. Despite a few previews, the blog has largely languished for almost a year (much to my shame) however on the upside it does mean that there is now a massive backlog of content just waiting to see the light. Over the coming weeks I have some seriously good stuff to share with you!

Sarah & Mike were married at Church in Grayshott before heading the short distance to Cain Manor in Churt. Sarah is the sister of an old friend of mine so it was a particular pleasure to shoot for a couple and family that I know well. The day began with a quick visit to Bel & The Dragon to visit Mike and the gents. If you’ve ever wondered how many guys it takes to attach a wedding ribbon to a rally car, the answer is lots! After that rather humorous interlude, it was off to Hindhead to Sarah’s parents house for the bridal prep. Sarah and her family run a fantastic nursing and dementia care home, Huntington House & Langham Court and they live nearby. As someone who’s father had dementia, I’d have loved to have known Sarah’s family back then! Sarah’s make-up artist was the brilliant Tania Stephenson-Oliver. Tania is an absolute genius and an exceedingly calm presence – ideal on the morning of a wedding. She’s so bloody ace that my wife, Charlotte, booked her for our own day.

The ceremony itself took place at St Luke’s Church in Grayshott and was accompanied by the most majestic choir I’ve heard in some years. As the pictures show, Sarah is irrepressibly smiley and expressive, and throughout the day she simply looked like joy personified. As a photographer I love an expressive face – it’s like working with an especially broad palette of paints. Along with the magnificent choir I particularly remember the ‘scrum’ of the vestry during the signing. Lots of emotion on display, limited space and photographic gold. Sometimes excessively ‘busy’ spaces can be photographically problematic, but in this case it couldn’t have been more perfect.

Following the ceremony we headed for Cain Manor with a brief pitstop at Huntington House for one of the most unique, hilarious and fun mid-wedding excursions I’ve ever been part of. Sarah is an accomplished horsewoman and as a little girl was given the most incredible rocking horse. I believe Sarah said that it’s one of the biggest in the whole country, so much so that it is still very much rideable by fully grown adults! It has pride of place in the care home and Sarah & Mike thought it’d be awesome to include the rocking horse in a few wedding photographs. So, enroute to Cain Manor, we stopped for a few portraits on the stairs of Huntington House, and also with the rocking horse. I still giggle when I look at the rocking horse ones now – what a prop!

I often seem to find myself at Cain Manor in the winter; snug corners, fires roaring, nights drawing in. I’m back there again this December as it happens. My particular memory of the evening was some cracking speeches, epic dance moves and Mike and his Welsh relations honouring their heritage, late in the evening, with a proper rendition of Calon Lân that would have done credit to any valleys rugby side worth it’s salt. I’m a sucker for hymns and it was magnificent.

Anyway, enough chatter. Thanks to Sarah & Mike for commissioning me to shoot their wedding, it was a real pleasure. Time for some photographs. Here’s a large helping of my favourites.