The Villa Wrea Green Wedding Photographer

Why we love photographing at The Villa Wrea Green

If you are after a wedding photographer for The Villa at Wrea Green, we are Lee and Dom, two photographers from Poulton-le-Fylde, and this is how we would work your day there. The Villa is a 19th-century gentleman’s house on Moss Side Lane, on the edge of Wrea Green, the village with the big green and the duck pond between Kirkham and Lytham. It has been a hotel for years and it is now a four-star country house with 31 bedrooms, so the wedding party can all stay, and the morning after is part of the weekend rather than a drive home.

The rooms run in a sensible order for a wedding. The Hall is the ceremony room, oak-beamed with chandeliers and a big fireplace as its focal point, and it takes 150. The Octagon is the outdoor option, a purpose-built chapel in the walled garden behind the Pavilion, licensed all year subject to the weather, and it seats 19, so it is for a small ceremony with everyone else standing round. The Piano Lounge is next door to the Hall and shares a patio with it: a high-ceilinged room with silver chandeliers, its own bar, a piano and the sweeping staircase up to the Bridal Suite. That is where the arrival drinks go. The Pavilion is the big one, a self-contained suite with its own bar, a stage and a dance floor, taking up to 300 for the breakfast and the evening, and it opens onto the private walled garden.

The Villa Wrea Green wedding photography is a mix of inside and out. The house gives us the Hall fireplace, the Piano Lounge staircase and the restaurant; the grounds give us the terraces, the walled garden, the parkland approach and, five minutes away, the village green itself. Other photographers who work there make a point of a short second portrait session in the evening, between the breakfast and the party, and we would plan the same, because the light on the terraces is better at seven than at two.

Both of us come to every wedding. Our Full Day is £1,049 in the week and covers the Bridal Suite in the morning through to the first dance in the Pavilion. A Half Day from £599 covers the Hall ceremony and the drinks. Travel is on the standard terms on the prices page.

Light and timing

The Hall is a warm, beamed room with a fireplace, and warm rooms eat light. For the ceremony we use what the room gives us, a fast lens and no flash, so the atmosphere stays the way you chose it; then for the signing and the exit we add a little bounced flash so skin stays natural rather than orange. The Piano Lounge is brighter, with high ceilings and the chandeliers, and it is a good room to photograph in without lights. The Pavilion is a function suite built to look like a marquee inside and lit for a party, so for the speeches and the first dance we set up two off-camera flashes, one on the speaker and one on the floor, and the room keeps its mood while faces come out clean. Outside, the walled garden is sheltered and the terraces catch the late sun, which is why we plan the second portrait session for the evening rather than trying to do everything at two in the afternoon when the light is overhead. The house is in open parkland, so there is wind, and the walled garden is the answer to it. On a wet day the Hall, the Piano Lounge staircase and the restaurant are enough to make a full set of photographs without anyone stepping outside, and confetti waits for a gap in the rain on the patio between the Hall and the Piano Lounge.

Drone

The Villa is inside the flight restriction zone for BAE Systems Warton, about 4.3 km to the south, so the drone cannot fly without Warton’s permission. We ask air traffic control there ourselves before the day, and we price the drone as an optional add-on at £149 with photography, refunded if Warton says no or the weather stops us. The house in its parkland, the walled garden and the Pavilion from above make a good set when we can fly. We keep 50 metres from your guests and from the hotel’s other guests, and we check Drone Assist on the morning. More on our drone page.