Shottle Hall Wedding Photography: Laura & Chris

“A day full of love, laughter, tears and dancing!” Laura & Chris

As a wedding photographer I’ve had my fair share of emotional clients. After all, if you can’t shed a few happy tears on your wedding day, when can you? And some people are just a little bit more prone to letting that emotion out. This wasn’t the first time that I’ve had a client in happy tears just before the ceremony, crying whilst being hugged and supported by their best friend. I think it’s a sign of just how much the whole wedding means to them. Chris was just lucky that his Best Man, Nick, had such a good shoulder for crying on!

Laura and Chris met when they were just 17 and 18 respectively, introduced to each other by friends at the ever-so-romantic Zanzibar in Derby! They already have one amazing reason to be happy: their beautiful daughter! She stayed close to Mum during the morning preparations back at Laura’s parents’ house, joined by Laura’s sisters and Mum and Dad. Laura’s friend Vicki prepared the girls’ hair for them, and did an amazing job on each one.

After that we made our way to the beautiful Shottle Hall where Laura could finally put on her stunning Mimi Toko gown. Laura had spent two years scouring blogs and magazines in order to plan the rustic, elegant look that she wanted for the venue details. In the end she had a little help from Charlotte at Pretty Little Things.

“I had done loads of research into the kind of look I wanted on the day, however, as we got married at 12:30, I knew that we would not have enough time to set everything up. I also wanted the run up to the wedding to be as stress free as possible. Luckily for us, Charlotte from Pretty Little Things, came to our rescue. Charlotte offered an on the day set up service as well as prop hire. We hired several items from Charlotte, including the window table plan, brass candlesticks, blackboard easel and Kilner drinks dispensers. Charlotte also set up our beautiful dessert table. We had decided to hold a great wedding bake off for our guests to get involved in. Charlotte used a variety of crates, log stands and bell jars to style the dessert table and it looked absolutely fantastic! I made all of the signage myself, as well as the mojito favours ( these went down extremely well and we had lots of fun making them!). A very good friend of mine very kindly brought us a large quantity of gypsophila and pink astilbe from a flower market as a wedding present. We placed these in Kilner jars, various vases and watering cans to help decorate the rest of the venue. These flowers really complemented to beautiful blooms created by our florist, Helen, of The Flower Mill.” – Laura

I’m happy to confirm that the details all looked incredible. I’m even happier to confirm that the Bake Off idea was inspired… and delicious!

The ceremony was an emotional rollercoaster, full of tears and laughter. Chris was the worst, but Laura joined in too, as did her sisters during their reading! Walking out of the room as husband and wife, accompanied by their gorgeous daughter was definitely the highlight of the day.

The rest of the day continued in a similar vein, although with a little more dancing! The evening entertainment was provided by the brilliant The Four Mupeteers. There was also a surreal moment when Ben nudged me and pointed over to a van where my brother was unloading his DJ rig. It turned out he was the DJ for the evening, in between the Mupeteers’ sets!

I am so, so pleased to have shared in Laura and Chris’ big day! Congratulations to them both again!

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