Whiston Manorial Barn wedding photography, Rotherham

Amanda & Neil’s wedding in Rotherham

Finally, I managed to photograph Amanda and Neil’s wedding at Whiston Manorial Barn in Rotherham. Covid was the culprit and I’ve actually lost track of the number of times the wedding was postponed, it got to the point where the wedding date was changing day by day, week by week.

” We got the champagne and relived our wedding again. Yes we cried and laughed and saw things we hadnt seen on our big day. We fully understand now how you win awards by capturing stories just amazing photos thank you so much”.

The wedding day

Finally it was the day of the wedding. I arrived at Amanda and Neils home in the morning. Both Neil and Amanda was at the house getting ready, which isn’t really the traditional way to do things but with the chaos of Covid, they just wanted the day to go ahead.

There was a fabulous atmosphere of excitement in the air and I just got to work capturing everything. I always love the morning of a wedding, it’s something very special and this certainly was the case, especially after the crazy lead up to the wedding.

Horse and Cart

Neil had been given the job of organising the wedding transport and he had convinced Amanda that a horse and cart was going to pick her up. I had been given the heads up that this wasn’t the case but all morning he kept the rumour going. As it was raining Amanda was somewhat worried, which probably isn’t the best for a wedding day but it was funny.

Neil had actually hit the ball out of the park and had organised a beautiful Aston Martin for him and his son and a Stunning, elegant Rolls Royce for Amanda (sorry I’m not Jeremy Clarkson so can’t tell you the exact models)

I loved capturing the excitement when Amanda saw an Aston Martin and Rolls Royce rolling up their street. These are the little differences that matter when I’m capturing a wedding.

The Ceremony

I arrived at the fabulous Whiston Manorial wedding barn to photograph the ceremony. The weather wasn’t great but that certainly wasn’t going to change anything. I went into the barn and found my spot, I knew it was my spot as I actually had a laminated square telling me where I was allowed to stand. I think registrars have especially enjoyed the new rules they can impose with Covid weddings, but the main thing was that the wedding was going ahead.

I could see that Neil was a little nervous as he was a lot quieter than he had been during the wedding morning which is usually the case, it was finally time for Amanda to walk down the aisle.

Amanda looked stunning and could see the excitement on Neil’s face, it had been a crazy journey and it was finally over. I had been given strict instructions not to move from my square but it was wedding time and a fabulous ceremony.

“Here’s what you could have won”!

After the ceremony, the bride and groom walked down the aisle with the guests following and headed into the main barn. The barn looked amazing! It had been decorated in an Autumnal theme and really did look something special. This was a really strange moment, as no one knew what we were allowed to do. Due to Covid restrictions, the wedding wasn’t allowed to take place. We were fortunate as we were permitted thirty minutes to capture a few people. I thought the perfect analogy was The Bullseye wedding as Jim Bowen used to say before pushing out a speedboat “let’s have a look at what you could have won” and this was the same.

Rules

When we walked into the barn, no one knew what they were allowed to do. Face masks on or off? Are we allowed group photos? Are the guests allowed to talk and hug? Who knew? After a few minutes, we decided to take a few pictures, crack open some bubbly and have as much as a party that we were allowed. The managers of the Barn didn’t let us know how long we had so it was all a bit strange. The show must go on so we just did our best to have a bit of normality.

Get outside and relax

After our half an hour inside the barn it was time to get outside. Amanda wanted a few photos at a nearby bridge so everyone had a little walkabout. The weather had improved slightly, however, it was still raining a little. Although the weather was still not brilliant and it was pretty dark it just felt more relaxed than the rest of the day. We could start to misbehave and have fun. I could just capture folk messing about and it seemed like all the rules went out of the window. I really enjoyed the people and these fifteen minutes where everything seemed more relaxed. We had a quick group shot near the barn, headed to the bridge and even had a little bit of confetti.

The day was fab, Amanda and Neil and their friends were brilliant! All they wanted to do was to get married and they did it. Congratulations!

I’m looking forward to capturing their party in the future without any face masks but what a ride.