Ellena & Chris's Summer Wedding at St Giles House, Wimbourne, Dorset

‘The Artists Package’

Captured by Jon & Sarah

A romantic summer wedding at St Giles House, Dorset

Manicured lawns of the gentry, be darned, there were only beautiful, endless rambling meadows filled with native wildflowers at St Giles house, a beautiful ecosystem for the local bees and insects and such a good use of lawn. But we’re not here to wax lyrical about the incredible meadow at St Giles, we’re here to present to you the beautiful and endlessly lovely wedding of Ellena and Chris at St Giles house - which has to be our favourite venue to date that we’ve ever visited. It was a Jon and Sarah dream of a location - so many quirks and details from the peeling painted wallpaper on the walls of the Japenese room to the most beautiful grounds with a curious shell grotto.

An Alternative Wedding Venue in Dorset

You would'n’t ordinarily think of a manor house as an alternative wedding venue but St Giles has so much character from its exposed timbers, artfully left cracks and peeling wall papers and the curious feeling that you might encounter a ghost or two when you’re alone upstairs. It doesn’t have the bourgeoisie or stuffiness of some country house venues but rather a modern character and quirkiness in the Earl’s creative approach to its restoration. Ellena & Chris immediately fell in love with the venue after viewing a few country manor house wedding venues in Dorset and Somerset and loved all of the features of the place. We enjoyed prowling the meadows for dragonflies and wildflowers, exploring the grounds upon arrival and capturing lots of little features to help the couple remember this place that they loved so much and will hold some extremely special memories forevermore.

Chris and his groomsmen got ready in the stables accommodation at St Giles and Jon captured their morning moments of playing snooker and enjoying a glass of whiskey. The great thing about having everyone getting ready at one venue meant we had so much extra time to really get some great natural documentary and candid moments of the wedding parties getting ready and there’s just far too many to share that we love so we’ve had to reign ourselves in a bit…

Meanwhile Sarah was in the Japanese room with the bridal party where Ellena was having her hair and makeup done with the assistance of her friends and mother. It was an extremely relaxed and personal morning.

The mother of the groom and mother of the bride sharing a little moment. I love capturing natural moments like this that hold so much meaning and are just so sweet!

Guests began to arrive at the venue and it was time to get ready to head down to the ceremony room and get the party underway. Jon was still with the guys and the guests who had begun to arrive and was soaking up capturing all the hugs and meaningful moments. It was the first month since the pandemic where full sized weddings with no restrictions were permitted and even though it was by no means a big wedding, everyone hugged each other that bit tighter and cried that bit harder. It was very joyous and emotional.

Chris’s reaction to Ellena coming down the aisle is just the cutest thing ever. The love and adoration between these two was something so special. We met up a few weeks prior to the wedding to do their adventure shoot in the waterfalls of St Nectan’s Glen, Tintagel and we had so much fun frolicking in some of the most fairytale parts of Cornwall. These guys shared a love of fantasy and travel and there was definitely a magic in the air that day, without sounding cliche and cheesy, Ellena really did look like a princess who was marrying her prince in the most beautiful, romantic setting.

Natural documentary wedding photography

We seldom share singing of the register photos, they’re often a formality that most couples are indifferent to but have the photo taken for the benefit of their parents or for posterity. We always try to make it as nice as possible but quite often, the table for the signing is placed in tricky light or a dark corner. I think this has to be our favourite ever capture of the signing of the register. With the great Georgian window and the way it lights everything, it created such an elegant natural still. No posing, just a beautiful and serene moment as Ellena and Chris made their marriage official in the Dorset county marriage register.

Natural documentary at the drinks reception

Although we shoot in a natural storytelling style with minimal posing, the part after the drinks reception can be the best part of the day for candids and capturing the guests. Everyone is excited, there’s hugs firing off left right and centre and often, people are reuniting who haven’t seen each other in forever. We absolutely LOVE capturing this bit and although the sky was looking very threatening, luckily it stayed dry for a while so the guests could enjoy being outside in the beautiful grounds of St Giles for a spell before the rain rolled in. Chris and Ellena opted to have both myself (Sarah) and Jon and Jon’s special focus is natural documentary and candid wedding photography so it meant we got to spend a lot of time capturing some really cute shots of the guests having a ball. We took SO MANY PHOTOS at Chris & Ellena’s wedding and it’s been so hard to whittle them down here and just pick a few… what we share on our blogs and galleries is definitely not an accurate representation of just how many photos we take. You bet we include all the silly ones too!

May all grooms feel this level of excitement about being married! Things we love: Chris’s ecstatic expression here about having just married Ellena. Things we don’t love, groomsmen making references to ‘the ole ball and chain.’ All good vibes here thanks :P

and then… the rain began to start! A typical July summer’s day, beautiful sunshine one moment and a surprise shower the next. Still… if you’re going to be indoors for some of the day, we can’t think of a more beautiful and rambling place to be. Luckily the interiors were spacious with beautiful lighting making it easy to keep on capturing the guests indoors.

Of course not everyone wanted to come indoors from the rain… we have to admit, we do love a rain shower! It can be exceedingly romantic and atmospheric.

Analogue film wedding photography captured on Hasselblad

Our Artists package includes a couple of rolls of medium format film shot across the day by Jon who specialises in analogue film photography. We love using Kodak Portra film and Chris & Ellena’s day was an excellent opportunity to crack out Jon’s brand new 85mm lens for his Hasselblad.

The Dinner & Speeches

After a little wander around the beautiful meadows at the front of the house while the weather held, the couple headed inside for a delicious sit down dinner followed by some of the sweetest and most charming speeches ever in the beautiful library room at St Giles.

After the speeches we headed back to the grounds to catch some of the pretty evening light and pay a visit to the quirky shell grotto. Afterwards, the guests headed down to the basement for a live set of music that produced some excellent interpretive dancing :P It was a great party space and the crazy lighting made for really fun night club style photography with long exposures and playing around with the lights. The lighting throughout the day at St Giles was a photographer’s dream.