Sarah and Gary were married back in late November at one of my favourite Kent wedding venues – Hotel du Vin Tunbridge Wells – so it was an honour and pleasure to provide their wedding photography. If you’re getting married at Hotel du Vin and want to inquire about your wedding photography, do please Get in touch.
Bridal Prep & pre-ceremony
On arrival at the hotel, I captured the amazing details in the Ruinart ceremony room – there were gorgeous flowers everywhere, all created by Katherine from Florist In The Forest. Once those details were in the bag, I headed up to the bridal suite to join Sarah, the girls, and one cheeky little chap (lots more of him to come later!) for hair and makeup.
One great plus point of having everything under one roof is that during downtime in bridal prep, I was able to nip downstairs to meet up with Gary and the boys and photograph their buttonholes going on, plus guest arrivals.
Before a quick run back up the stairs to join the girls and my favourite cheeky chap – he kept us all entertained! Pretty soon it was time for Sarah to get into her stunning wedding gown – I popped back in to capture the finishing touches, and her Dad’s amazing reaction to seeing her in the dress!
The Wedding Ceremony
Once everyone was dressed and ready to go, I photographed the wedding party coming down the lovely atmospheric staircase at Hotel du Vin, before making my way into the Ruinart Room to capture the touching ceremony.
Reception Drinks
The weather wasn’t brilliant unfortunately, but another plus point for Hotel du Vin Tunbridge Wells is that it’s so atmospheric I think it works really well on those winter days – we made our way round to the tea lounge for reception drinks and canapes, where Sarah and Gary welcomed their guests. After a few minutes I took Sarah and Gary outside for a few quick couples portraits under cover, before photographing the group shots under the portico at the front of the hotel.
Once the groups were shot, it was candids all the way whilst the Ruinart Room was being expertly switched around and set up for the wedding breakfast.
Hotel du Vin is a dog-friendly hotel so I had great fun photographing a lovely interaction between my favourite little chap and his surprise at coming across a dog in reception – a bit wary at first but then with some encouragement from the owner, eh was in his element!
The Wedding Breakfast
Once the room was nearly ready, I nipped in to start photographing the stunning details – the room looked amazing with Katherine’s stunning floristry and atmospheric candles everywhere! A nice touch was the scratchcards for all the guests – didn’t hear any winners though unfortunately…
Once ready, everyone made their way through to the room for the wedding breakfast – the food at Hotel du Vin was superb, as always!
The Speeches
And then onto the speeches – slightly unusually, Sarah gave a speech with Gary doing the honours giving out the presents, followed by the best man, and then finishing off with Sarah’s dad, whose speech finished off with musical accompaniment by the DJ (hence the unusual ordering).
After the speeches, I took Sarah and Gary into another room at the hotel – the lovely Havana room – warm, atmospheric light is great for some nice romantic couples portraits.
The Havana room is synonymous with cigars (hence the name) and the guys didn’t disappoint – obviously these days the cigars were taken outside, but great fun to photograph the varying reactions as the guys experienced them!!!
First Dance
All to soon it was time for the evening to really kick off as Sarah and Gary took to the dancefloor. Due to the wet weather, we hadn’t been able to use the lovely rose-petal confetti, so Hotel du Vin kindly allowed this to happen indoors – a great addition to the first dance!
After confetti everyone joined in. Sarah’s dad had alluded to his amazing dance moves during his speech, and he didn’t disappoint!!
Congratulations to Sarah and Gary!
All wedding photography images copyright David Burke Photography 2018