Some weddings feel like a whole production. Laurel and Patrick’s felt like a really good day out with the two people you like most in the world, which just happened to also be their wedding. They got married at Salt House, the honey coloured Jacobean hall near Standon in Staffordshire that a lot of you will still know as Standon Hall. Same building, same stunning formal gardens, same knack for making every photo look like it belongs on a period drama set, just a new name over the door. Laurel got ready upstairs in the bridal suite, Patrick was down in the grooms room, and 40 of their favourite people were about to watch them get married before another 67 arrived to help them party.

Getting ready

Laurel’s morning was the good kind of chaos. Dress on the hanger, veil catching the light, and her mum fastening her into the dress. Shoes went on standing up, with her mum kneeling down to fasten the strap. There was a proper big daft hug at one point that had nothing to do with hair or makeup and everything to do with the fact that it was finally the day.

Downstairs, Patrick’s morning was rings, watch, a good splash of aftershave and a dad doing the important work of getting a buttonhole to sit straight. The groomsmen in navy, one of them clearly mid joke, and a stationery flat lay that would not have looked out of place in a magazine. There is always a moment with the groomsmen where the nerves turn into laughing at each other instead, and this lot got there quicker than most.

The ceremony

Two o’clock, and Laurel had a quiet minute with her dad before they went down. That bit right before the doors open, when it is just the two of you, is one of my favourite parts of any wedding day. Nobody is performing for anyone yet, it is just two people who love each other having a private minute before the room fills up. He held her tight before they went anywhere near an aisle.

Then down the grand staircase and into the ceremony room, which had been dressed with white blossom trees and enough draped chairs and scattered petals to make the whole place feel like spring had been invited in specially.

Patrick was up the front trying to hold it together next to his best man, and did not entirely manage it. I love that bit. Nobody has ever once told me they wish their groom had looked less emotional.

Rings on, vows said, first kiss done, and the two of them signed the register hand in hand like they had been doing this their whole lives rather than about four minutes.

Confetti

Straight back out and into a proper confetti tunnel, the sort where you cannot actually see the sky for a good few seconds. Forty guests can make an impressive amount of confetti when they put their minds to it.

Family and friends

After that it was the family formals, which I like to keep quick so everyone can get back to their drinks. Patrick’s mum got an enormous hug from her son, both families lined up in the gardens, and the whole bridal party found a bit of reflective water and could not resist using it.

Golden hour portraits

April had been kind to us all day, but it saved the best light for last. We slipped off into the gardens while everyone else was on drinks, and the red maples that Salt House is full of turned the whole thing properly cinematic. There was a dip. There may have been a small amount of showing off.

Speeches, cake and the party

The reception room was set for dinner in soft blues and white blossom, and once everyone had a canape in one hand and a drink in the other the noise level went up about ten notches, which is exactly how it should be.

Laurel’s dad stood up for his speech at 6:30 and had the room somewhere between laughing and properly welling up, sometimes in the same sentence, which is the sign of a good speech if you ask me.

Then the cake, three tiers finishing in a soft blue ombre with a little floral topper, cut together at twenty past seven with the kind of laughing that suggests nobody had rehearsed who was actually meant to be holding the knife.

First dance at half seven, in black and white because some moments do not need colour to say everything they need to say, and then the DJ took over and did not stop for the rest of the night. Sparklers came out at dusk, there was at least one genuinely impressive dance floor move, and somewhere around the end of the night Patrick and Laurel were spraying champagne into the dark like they had just won something. Which, in a way, they had.

That is the thing I keep coming back to with this one. Nothing about the day was trying too hard. Laurel and Patrick were exactly themselves the whole way through, their families were warm and daft in equal measure, and Salt House did what it always does, which is get out of the way and let the light and the gardens do the heavy lifting. By the time the sparklers came out, the pair of them had gone from nervous to married to thoroughly danced out in the space of about eight hours, and every one of those hours looked like it belonged to them.

Congratulations you two. Thank you for having me.

With huge thanks to

• Venue: Salt House
• Venue styling: Little Events
• Wedding dress: Ava May Bridal
• Suits: Peter Posh
• Hair: Beau Bella Hair Designs
• Makeup: Melissa Kay Makeup
• Florist: Dried Flowers UK
• Catering: Olive Tree Catering
• Wedding cake: Eat My Muffin Bakery
• DJ: Wedding Sounds
• Videographer: Redbeard Film Co

Thinking about your own wedding at Salt House?

I am a Staffordshire wedding photographer and Salt House is one of my absolute favourite venues to shoot, from the panelled getting ready rooms to the red maples that do all the work for me at golden hour. If you are planning a wedding there, or anywhere else in Staffordshire and Cheshire, get in touch and let’s have a chat.

More from Salt House: my Salt House wedding photographer page has more real weddings from these gardens, plus what the venue is actually like to get married in.