Summer Wedding at The Stack House, Cornwall
The Stack House is a former 19th century engine house, situated in the centre of the Cornish peninsula in Trelion. It is available to rent as accommodation, if you’re looking for somewhere really unique to stay whilst on holiday in Cornwall or you can book it as an exclusive use wedding venue. The Stack House is one of Unique Homestays’ properties. Unique Homestays are a specialist holiday letting agent that markets luxury cottages and architect designed homes across the UK and Ireland. A small selection of their homestays are also available to hire for weddings, some of which hold a civil licence for legal ceremonies and some don’t - The Stack House is one of the few that does have a civil licence, allowing you to have a legally binding wedding ceremony.
When I first arrive at a wedding venue (especially one I’ve not been to before) I like to have a look around before I find the couple. So I started off by photographing the grounds. I found the ceremony area which looked so magical, tucked away in the quarry. I also found the wedding breakfast area but I chose not to take a photo of that as all of the chairs were being used down in the quarry - it never looks right when the chairs are missing so that was a photo for later. I also found the lawn games and a small decking area. The venue is absolutely gorgeous, although it did occur to me that it wouldn’t be an ideal venue if the weather wasn’t good. The stretch tents covering the seating area in the ceremony and wedding breakfast area, would only offer so much protection from heavy winds and rain. Luckily, we didn’t have any trouble on this particular August day.
Now that I’d taken a look around the venue grounds, it was time to look inside The Stack House and find the couple. I entered the engine house on the second floor where I found the cosy kitchen, full of character and charm. The lower floor is a lounge area and above the kitchen there are steep and narrow stairs leading up to the the accommodation - a double bedroom on each of the three floors. There’s definitely something exciting about being in such a quirky building and it was a beautiful setting for the brides to get ready in.
The brides were able to avoid seeing each other in the morning by having hair and make up stationed on separate floors, but once they were both ready they did decide to hold hands either side of a door and then had a first look outside before the ceremony.
Hair - Stef Hair
MUA - Georgina Markham Makeup & Beauty
The ceremony was just perfect! Full of personal vows, laughs and happy tears.
We used the quirky engine house as a backdrop for the confetti aisle and group photos. I made sure to get a wide shot and a close up shot for each group photo that the couple requested. The wide shots were great for showing off the building but not ideal for actually showing the people in the photos (which is what group photos should all be about) so delivering a combination of the two perspectives felt like the best way forward.
We had been running a little behind on schedule since before the ceremony, so this meant we didn’t have a lot of time to work with for the bride’s portraits. But with it being a summer day and a good weather forecast, I knew we’d have time to take some more photos after the meal and speeches. At this point in the day, we also had some very harsh sunlight and I knew the light would be much nicer later on. So we just took a few photos in front of The Stack House before heading up the path so the brides could visit the cocktail bar before their meal.
Cocktail bar: The Mixer
The food was ready and it smelt delicious! Everyone found a seat and settled in for a good meal under the stretch tent. The food was served buffet style, which was brilliant because I have always enjoyed photographing ‘hands and food’, and I loved being able to get photos of the wedding guests piling up their plates. The caterer (Adam) also helped to get food on the plates so it was lovely to get some action shots of him with the guests. Adam was also so accommodating to me, making sure I got some food too, it was so kind of him to think of me. His food was absolutely delicious!
Caterer: The Aussie Smoker
The wedding breakfast was rounded off with two lovely speeches, from the fathers of the brides.
I thoroughly enjoyed capturing some candid fun in the sun. The lawn games went down a treat, especially limbo!
We were lucky enough to have a little bit of golden hour light, so it was the perfect time to take some more photos with the gorgeous newlyweds.
An evening grazing platter was served and the first dance took place down in the quarry. Unfortunately, we experienced some connection issues with the sound system in the quarry (not during the first dance thankfully) so the party was moved up to the decking area.
With the music set up to play on the decking, we thought it was a good time to cut the cheesecake before the party went into full flow. These two couldn’t help themselves and tucked straight into the cheesecake as soon as they’d cut it. But they soon heard a song playing on the decking and ran up (with their cheesecake) so they could dance whilst eating. It took a couple of minutes for their guests to join them up on the decking so it was just the two of them, dancing and feeding each other cheesecake - what a great moment to capture on camera!
The decking only offered up a small dance floor (and we had to be careful to avoid the sunken hot tub) but the energy and enthusiasm from everyone made it an awesome party! It was a unique situation for me, to photograph the dance floor outdoors with no ceilings to bounce light off. But I really loved the results I was able to get with my off camera flash and I love the pitch black sky as a backdrop.
“Leah is an absolute delight to work with and we will be recommending her to all of our family and friends. She is so incredibly professional and welcoming and everyone felt at ease in her company.
We had met Leah previously and we got on like a house on fire so on a personal level we can say that Leah has an amazing sense of humour and is generally a lovely and kind person in addition to being a talented photographer!
Leah goes the extra mile to get “the shot” and brings endless creativity to her work which makes for unique and beautiful photographs. We experienced an unexpected and significant time crunch on our wedding day however Leah took this in her stride and nothing was too much trouble.
Thank you so much for all of your time (it was a late one!!), energy, and positivity. We will be able to look back on all of our memories knowing that you have captured all of the precious (and sometimes ridiculous) moments! Thank you so much.”