Rushall Manor Farm barn wedding berkshire Well hello there and welcome to my blog! I’m kick-starting 2017 by featuring one of my favourite real weddings from 2016 and I’m so excited to share it with you. As a Berkshire wedding photographer, I’m incredibly lucky because I’m literally surrounded by amazing wedding venues. This wedding took place at Rushall Manor Farm, which is, dare I say it, one of Berkshire’s hidden gems. As you’ll see, it’s a country wedding with a difference…

Firstly, let me just explain why I love Rushall Manor Farm so much. Well, it’s a working organic farm and trust me when I say it really works! The brilliant John Simonds Trust operates from Rushall and their aim is to educate people about farming and the countryside. So, weddings here in the atmospheric Black Barn are always individual and you’ll have oodles of opportunities to make you wedding day your own. As you can imagine, when it comes to wedding photography that makes me very happy indeed!

The wonderful Bryony and James absolutely put their own stamp on their wedding day. I loved the mix of traditional country elements and quirky touches that really showed their personalities. James is a huge fan of 007 and there were plenty of Bond flourishes throughout the day including a very special Aston Martin. It’s great to see how successfully you can bring a number of elements into your wedding theme so there’s plenty of personality on show.

Bryony and James made most of their wedding decorations themselves and all the details worked perfectly with their barn wedding. From creating the tin cans, hand-painted with Annie Sloan paint that held the dainty wildflowers and making sweet jam jar favours to stitching the super cute floral cushions, the day was full of touches that spoke volumes about this fabulous couple.

As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a barn and in the case of this Berkshire barn wedding, it took two fantastic families! A friend took on the role of florist (including a very early morning trip to Covent Garden Flower market!) and their parents even made those delicious wedding cakes. I know that Bryony and James’ guests really appreciated all of the effort that had gone into the day.

The guests also appreciated the mouthwatering afternoon tea that they were served. After Pimms and elderflower cordial on arrival, a traditional afternoon tea, including tempting sandwiches and fresh scones, was served on pretty cake stands and vintage china. That wasn’t all because even as everyone was enjoying their tea, a hog roast was already cooking away, ready for the evening celebrations. Heaven!

However, if there’s one part of the day that I’ll always remember, it has to be the bride and groom portraits. We escaped into the countryside and woodlands that surround Rushall Manor Farm to capture some very special photographs indeed. It was such a delight to share the day with this beautiful couple – even the Queen made an appearance!