Faye & Tom

Faye & Tom’s August Wedding at Blackbrook House

It really is amazing how time flies! I first met Faye and Tom back in July of 2014 to discuss the photography for their Blackbrook House wedding in Derbyshire. At the time ‘next August’ seemed so far away it was difficult to really imagine it ever arriving, but no sooner had I turned my back than the big day was upon us! He’s sneaky that Old Father Time character!

A little over a year later on an August morning and I was in my car and on my way to one of my favourite wedding venues in Derbyshire; Blackbrook House. Faye and her little entourage had the custom made bridal suite for the morning. The venue has been set up for weddings and while there are no rooms to stay in, there’s a wonderful apartment-style suite for everyone to get ready in, including a fab dressing room!

I left the girls enjoying a glass or two of bubbly and some chocolate-dipped strawberries (and yes, I did sample one!) and went downstairs to see a slightly nervous Tom greeting their wedding guests as they arrived into the two receiving rooms at the front of Blackbrook House. I spotted a couple of chaps trying to figure out how to work an instant camera that had been set out for guests to take photos and stick in a guest book, so I wandered over to lend an expert’s hand. Turns out being a professional photographer doesn’t mean you can always work out where the ‘On’ switch is on all cameras! As a team we managed it in the end though.

Once the ceremony was over, everyone made their way to the front of the house where they showered the newlyweds with confetti before we took a short time out to take some group photos as well as a few laid back portraits of Faye and Tom. It was then back indoors to have a quick look at the dining room after the staff had finished turning it around after the ceremony. As the guests started to find their places and a few people treated the wedding cake to it’s own photo shoot, I left the wedding party to it for a while.

After the wedding breakfast it was time for the speeches, which as well as the usual groom and best man’s speech also featured speeches from both mum’s and an uncle. A great set of speeches and there were definitely plenty of tissues being passed around, but also plenty of smiles too.

While the room went through another transformation for the evening reception, everyone filtered out into the garden where quite an intense game of cards started up, as well as some similarly intense wine-drinking! This is also when Faye chose to throw her bouquet, which was a pretty nifty ‘breakaway bouquet’ by Nadia di Tullio which split into smaller bunches which gave all the girls a flower to catch!

As the evening grew dark it was time for the cake cutting followed by the first dance where Tom and Faye looked pretty fancy against the giant ‘LOVE’ sign on the dancefloor. After a while I said my goodbyes and left the party to wind it’s way into the night. There did seem to be an awful lot of kids running around like their shoes were on fire as I left…I blame the dozens of Krispy Kremes that had been laid out!