Skipton Castle Wedding Photographer

Skipton Castle Wedding Photographer

“Our photographer was Bethany, we did a lot of research and found Bethany’s portfolio to be outstanding. We really liked the fact that she seemed to be very relaxed and spontaneous. She got a lot of beautiful candid shots but also brought us away to take some lovely portraits. During the ceremony I didn’t even realise that she was in the room, she captured some lovely moments without being distracting and really made us feel so comfortable and put us at ease. It felt like a friend taking photographs rather than someone we had never met before.We really liked that she communicated with us a lot before the day and helped us to put together a list of group shots that we wanted so on the day she knew exactly what we wanted.”

I have so much love for Skipton Castle it is such a stunning little venue & I always love shooting there so i was excited when Rachel and Harry booked me to be their Skipton Castle Wedding Photographer.

Wedding Ceremony skipton Castle

Rachel Says;

We got engaged in August 2015. We had been together for ten years before we got engaged and always joked that there was no point in Harry proposing as he knew I would say yes so we may as well skip the engagement and just get married. In the early hours of 31st August 2015 Harry popped the most beautiful Sapphire and diamond ring on my finger while I was asleep! Obviously it was a wonderful surprise to wake up to and Harry had spent hours nervously waiting for me to be in a deep enough sleep to put the ring on.

Skipton Castle Weddings

We got married at Skipton Castle. We are both really interested in history and love visiting heritage sites and museums. So we had visited Skipton Castle together a few times and always had a lot of fun there so it was really exciting to find out that they actually hold weddings there too! Of course, I wanted the whole fairytale Princess in a castle vibe too! We had visited a few other venues but Skipton Castle just felt so special to us, everyone that works there is so lovely and genuinely wanted us to have the best day, they really put us at ease and made our wedding super special.

We just wanted to have a really casual fun wedding. It was quite small and intimate, we didn’t have a seating plan or anything like that, we just wanted everyone to mingle and have a great time. I wouldn’t say we had a particular theme but due to our own personal styles there was a bit of a vintage feel to the day, my dress was very 1920s inspired, we had a classic Bentley and wild flowers everywhere, it’s hard not to get swept up when you’re getting married in a medieval castle!

Everything was quite neutral. We had a range of different colours in our flowers and these were the only real colours on the day, at the castle and later at our reception venue too. We matched the car and the cake to the bridesmaids pale grey dress as it was important to us that everything looked quite minimal.

The Wedding Dress

I wore a Maggie Sottero dress from Abigails Bridal boutique. Looking through bridal magazines and blogs I fell in love with Maggie Sottero’s designs and I found out that Abigails Bridal Boutique are one of the few Leeds stockists. I tried on a handful of dresses but as soon as I put on ‘Ettia’ I knew that was the dress for me. It was everything I had ever dreamed of in a wedding dress and the lovely ladies at Abigails had to coax me out of it in the end as I didn’t want to take it off. I paired it with a cathedral length, swarovski trimmed veil and an art deco headpiece and felt like a total princess.

What did your partner wear and where from? Harry wore a gorgeous suit from the Kooples.  My bridesmaid wore a pale grey dress from ASOS

We hired a classic S-type Bentley from Classic and Vintage Travel in Harrogate. The car was incredible and the driver was so wonderfully friendly and surprised us with a bottle of champagne after the ceremony. He drove us out to a lovely bit of greenery in Skipton and we had some champagne and just had a few minutes to ourselves before driving to the reception. It was such a special moment and we were so grateful to the driver for suggesting it.

I had a bouquet from Natasha Coustol Floral Designs. It was a natural rustic posy bouquet and included a range of different textured pastel flowers and a few vibrant varieties with plenty of greenery and succulents. The pew ends and centrepieces were made up of the same types of flowers and Harry had a blue thistle with a touch of small pastel flowers.

Our cake was made by Fanticy in Skipton. We sat down with them and designed the cake together, it was three tiers (chocolate, lemon and fruit) and covered in textured iced petals with a pale grey ombre effect.

We wanted a Yorkshire feel to the canapés so went for mini burgers and mini fish and chips. For the reception we wanted a relaxed feel and we didn’t want a proper sit down meal. The team at Napiers were so amazing and provided us with a tapas style meal with pizzas, charcuterie boards and wonderful meats, cheeses and breads. We felt that the sharing style food really got people talking and mixing with one another.

Harry had a very special bridesmaid in the form of his family dog Scout, we were so happy that she could be at the wedding. I would recommend Skipton Castle as it is such a unique venue. The team there are so wonderful and go through absolutely everything with you in fine detail. They put together an itinerary for us and they organised a rehearsal for us the day before so everyone knew what we were doing. They all seemed genuinely happy for us and nothing was too much for them, the wedding planner even advised me on the best way to walk down the aisle without me getting me heels caught in between the ancient floorboards!

Skipton Castle wedding

Wedding Day Highlights

Our favourite part of the day was the feelings of love and happiness that we got from everyone. There was a moment just after we were married and we had just signed the marriage certificate, we looked out at the sea of smiling faces and it was so overwhelming and special to see so many of our friends and family gathered in one place to share such a happy day with us.

Honeymoon

We went to Hong Kong and Borneo for our honeymoon. After we spent a few days in Hong Kong sightseeing and eating the most incredible food and then flew out to Borneo. We spent a few days relaxing at Shangri-La’s Rasa Ria Resort & Spa and then made a trip to an Orangutan and Sun Bear sanctuary before going out to stay at Abai Jungle Lodge on the Kinabatangan River. The peace and tranquillity we experienced was out of this world and being awoken by the sounds of insects every morning was brilliant. Everything was planned to perfection, with a mix of early morning / evening boat trips and jungle walks to spot wildlife. We were so lucky to see wild orangutans, plenty of macaques, proboscis monkeys, crocodiles, fireflies, monitor lizards and a huge range of birds and insects.The most memorable moment of our whole honeymoon was when all the incredible staff at Abai Jungle Lodge sat us at a separate romantically decorated table and serenaded us with a special song to celebrate our marriage, they also presented us with a ‘Congratulations’ cake and got everybody up to dance. After our jungle adventure we then moved on to Gaya Island resort for some well needed rest and relaxation.

Bride & Groom Tips

Top tip for another bride/groom ……Remember that planning a wedding is fun! Try not to get stressed out and treat it like a special project between you and your partner. We did everything together (except for the wedding dress shopping!) and had a lot of fun. Keep on top of everything by making yourselves some spreadsheets (you can find plenty of really useful templates online) it sounds silly but was so useful to have different spreadsheets for itineraries, packing lists, budgets, vendor details etc.

You can see this beautiful wedding featured on Bride Up North Here 

Looking for a Skipton Castle Wedding Photographer? Drop me a line to chat about your wedding plans