Castle Twickel Wedding Part 1

Getting Married in the Netherlands

Almost a year ago I received an e-mail from my friend Seth Carnill, a rather excellent wedding photographer living in Amsterdam, asking me if I’d like to fly over to the Netherlands to shoot what would turn out to be a pretty spectacular wedding! Either this is going to be the shortest most pointless blog post, or I said yes.

So at the start of June I flew to Amsterdam, met Seth at the airport and we drove pretty much across the whole country (almost to Germany) to a little village called Delden which was to be our base for the next couple of days. I’d like to say that the two hour road trip was a pretty one, but for the most part it was just featureless motorways. Thankfully, as we neared our destination, we got to experience some of the Netherlands wonderful countryside!

Pre Wedding Party

After meeting with Liesbeth and Roderick (the bride and groom to be; who are both lovely and made us feel right at home) we had a little siesta before heading to a pre-wedding party held at a local barn. I may one day post up the photos from that, but for now, let’s stick with the wedding. It was such a huge day, it’s probably going to be too much as it is for this one post!

The day of the wedding was another brilliantly sunny day, and it was a bit bloomin’ warm too! I started the day at the Hotel de Zwaan with Roderick and his family and friends, who dropped in to the hotel’s dining room over the course of the morning to grab coffee or breakfast to fuel themselves for the day ahead.

Streets Lined with Spectators

I walked through the cobbled back streets of Delden to get to the impressive church that would play host to the wedding ceremony. I was expecting to see a few guests starting to arrive, but what I wasn’t expecting was to see the area outside of the church lined with local people looking to get a glimpse of the wedding. I felt like I was attending a movie premiere!

Liesbeth arrived looking absolutely stunning and the crowds…well…they went wild! It’s a good job I’m six foot four otherwise I fear I would have been trampled under the masses trying to get a photo! After fixing her dress, she took her father’s arm and entered the beautiful old church.

Old Blasius Church in Delden

The inside of the church is cavernous and there wasn’t an empty seat in there, so for those towards the rear they’d put up some TV screens so that they wouldn’t miss the action. Once all the guests were seated, the luckiest members of the public were invited in to stand at the back. Such a great sense of community seeing them all turn out to witness the wedding!

After the ceremony, the streets were again lined, only this time there was a line of horse-drawn carriages outside the church, waiting to whisk the happy couple and their wedding party off to the reception. Oh…I did mention that the reception venue was a castle didn’t I? No? Oh, well you’re in for a treat!

To see more from this epic wedding, click here.