Emily + Owen | Peak Edge Hotel

It all started with a cheery welcome into bridal prep at Emily’s family home, I even got given my own little champagne flute with Tom the Photographer on it, needless to say, I was made up to be included. When I met Emily and Owen during our video call way back when they booked me I found out how big music was in their lives; little did I know Emily would have a pianist playing on demand during bridal prep. Yep, one of Emily’s very talented bridal party happened to be pretty darn good on a piano!

After covering bridal prep I headed over to St John’s the Baptist Church in Dronfield; the funny connection here is that my mum reminded me I was christened here and my older sister also got married there too! I met up with Owen who I was glad to see was just the same lovely, laughing, positive person I had met when we took some stunning pre-wedding photos with Emily and Owen. During the ceremony, you really could just see how happy these guys were to get married to each other with beaming smiles on their faces and tons of laughter.

Tons of fun continued as they walked through the confetti tunnel to be greeted by hugs from everyone after they’d been showered with petals. I love this part of the day and I am often asked about it at client meetings, what happens after the ceremony, I always tell people that I won’t drag you straight into any photos, I want you to share the love with your guests and for them to have the time to say congratulations and have an embrace. After the hugs we did a few family and friends photos before heading over to Linacre Reservoir in the MG; a place that Owen and Emily had asked to go to en route to Peak Edge.

We used this time to get some really relaxed and fun couples photos, including borrowing an innocent bystander to help us throw the veil in the air for a photo too – which added to the fun. Big thanks to that lady! We arrived at Peak Edge to cheer from a few guests waiting for us and then into some games, the usual garden games and then one I haven’t seen before, Hammerschlagen! Maybe I’ve lived a sheltered life but I have honestly never seen this game before, it looked fun, the aim being to take it in turns to hit your nail with a hammer into a log, the winner being the first person to have their nail flat into the wood. I threw my health and safety hat on the floor and documented away at the great reactions it was getting.

Speeches; I always love capturing the speeches, or rather the reaction to the speeches and Emily + Owen’s wedding was full of great reactions. It was lovely to get a big thumbs up from Owen and a thank you during his speech too which was littered with some familiar Owen phrases as noted by the bridesmaids table having a little game between them. The ‘best gentlemen’ pulled off a great speech followed by a good old-fashioned toast; 2 slices of it to be exact!

I borrowed Emily + Owen for 5 minutes after their speeches during the quiet part of the evening to capture some more portraits under the beautiful fairy lights at Peak Edge – one of the lovely things about this venue which makes it perfect for some dramatic nighttime portraits. Then it was time for the real fun, the dancing, it was fantastic to see everyone up on the dancefloor after Owen + Emily’s first dance. Even better that the band who were playing are the same band that Owen plays in (after all he is a VERY talented musician!) and they even managed to get Owen on the mic to do his trademark rendition of Rapper’s Delight! Owen, you’re an impressive human being, you had the whole wedding party captivated and I was pretty darn impressed too!

Anyway enough from me, have a watch of their photo highlights video below or you can always scroll through the images underneath. Enjoy.