Wyresdale Park Wedding Photographer

Why we love photographing at Wyresdale Park

If you have booked Wyresdale Park and are now looking for a wedding photographer, you have picked a venue with a lot of ground to cover, and that is where two of us earns its keep. The estate runs to over 800 acres at Scorton, on the western edge of the Forest of Bowland, with Nicky Nook fell on one side and the M6 a couple of miles off on the other. Garstang is ten minutes down the road, Lancaster twenty, and Blackpool and the Fylde about forty.

The weddings happen in a group of old estate barns beside the hall, all under one roof. The Chapel is the ceremony barn: a long, stone room with a log burner, seating 140. The Ceremony Garden is the outdoor option, new in 2025, a walled garden with an oak gatehouse where you say your vows under an iron dome with the Trough of Bowland behind you. The White Barn takes the wedding breakfast for up to 144 and has a mezzanine with an oak staircase, which is where the couple make their entrance and where the speeches often come from. The Atrium is the party barn, with a glazed roof, banquette seats and a bar called the Tavern, for up to 200 in the evening. Outside the barns the Reception Garden has an oak pavilion, a covered log burner and an outdoor bar, and it is where the venue puts the sunset drinks.

The hall itself is Victorian Gothic, built in the 1850s by E. G. Paley of Lancaster for the Ormrod family, and the Whewell family have owned the estate since the 1960s. The hall front faces west over the lawns. The South Lawn behind the Applestore Café has a red sandstone fountain in the middle, and the venue suggests it for the group photos. The lake is a short walk east of the barns, with a jetty and a rowing boat, and it is the photograph most couples book Wyresdale for.

Accommodation is on site. The North Wing of the hall sleeps six the night before, the Honeymoon Suite has a four-poster and a roll-top bath, and the Coach House, Keeper’s Cottage and ten Orchard Yurts between the barns and the lake put 42 of your guests to bed on the night. The bar runs to half past midnight, and the venue is dog-friendly, so your dog can walk down the aisle if you want.

Light and timing

The hall faces west, so the lawns in front of it get the afternoon and evening sun, and the Reception Garden is where the venue puts the sunset drinks. The lake is to the east of the barns, which means in the evening you are backlit on the jetty with the water catching the sky, and if we turn you round the fell is lit behind you. The Chapel is a stone barn with a log burner and normal barn windows, so we shoot the ceremony with fast lenses and no flash, and we bring flash for the White Barn speeches and the Atrium in the evening. The Atrium’s glazed roof gives good overhead light for a daytime drinks reception on a wet day. For rain, the barns are all joined under one roof, the courtyard has cover at the edges, and there is an old greenhouse behind the Loft Spa that other photographers use for portraits when it is tipping down.

Drone

Dom flies the drone. Wyresdale Park sits in open airspace: Warton aerodrome is about 23 km to the south and its flight restriction zone stops well short of here, Blackpool Airport is about 26 km away, and the Heysham power station zone is about 15 km to the north-west. The one thing we watch is Black Knights parachute centre at Cockerham, 6 km to the west, which is a notified drop zone, so we check the NOTAMs on the morning. The estate has a public café, glamping and shops, so we fly from the lake side away from anyone not in your party and we ask the venue first, since it publishes no drone policy. The barns, the lake and the fell in one frame is the shot. Add it for £149 with photography; the weather refund applies.