Becky and Ash’s colourful wedding at Dunedin Country House and our top tips for smoke bombs at weddings!
In June we took a trip east to the village of Patrington for Becky and Ash’s wedding at Dunedin Country House. We already knew Becky and Ash pretty well before their wedding day thanks to a couple of video calls and also a brilliant engagement session a few weeks earlier, we were so excited to meet their friends and family and to share the day with everybody!
Dunedin Country House wedding dream team
The backdrop for the day was the elegant Dunedin Country House, a wedding venue in East Yorkshire full of charm from the Victorian era, all set within beautifully maintained gardens.
Arriving nice and early as always to the venue, we went to say hi to the wedding dream team aka Shiela and Beth, two ladies that go above and beyond for every couple fortunate enough to get married at this beautiful venue as well as any supplier lucky enough to work here for the day. A quick run through timings and logistics for the day and we were good to go!
We also bumped into the ladies from Free Spirit Flowers while they were just finishing up their final setup for the day, their florals along with styling from Belle Bijoux all looked incredible. The cake from Tiers and Celebrations was also setup and looked fantastic, we can confirm that is was also delicious!
Getting ready at West Gate Lodge
Becky and her bridal party stayed in West Gate Lodge the night before the wedding, a self catering lodge immediately next door to Dunedin. This wonderfully spacious property was the perfect space for Becky and her bridal party to spend a night together before the big day, extending the wedding experience and fun for everybody. The spacious lodge is also a fantastic space for everyone to get ready, when we arrived Rachel and Laura were already well underway with hair and makeup, it was fantastic to catch up with Becky again and say hi to everybody else. As is our usual approach, we take a really chilled start on a wedding day when it comes to photography, focussing on introducing ourselves and chatting with everyone before we really begin photographing anybody. The first photographs we generally look for are details around the room, pulling together shoes, jewellery, flowers and any other small details that have big importance for the day ahead.
Wedding ceremonies at Dunedin Country House
The wedding ceremony space at Dunedin is an elegant and bright area full of natural light, the touches by Belle Bijoux and Free Spirit Flowers now looking even more spectacular with the room full of Becky and Ash’s favourite people. Even Charlie was there to support his humans, although the emotions were a little too much for him so he took a break outside with Wedding Woofers who made sure he was able to enjoy the wedding to the fullest too.
After a really quite moving ceremony, Becky and Ash took 5 minutes to enjoy a glass of fizz, we used this time to take everyone outside and get them armed with confetti, briefing everyone to make as much noise as they could when welcoming out Becky and Ash as Husband and Wife. A fantastic effort by every single person, this lot were NOISY and created some awesome energy, such a fun moment for the couple and some awesome images to document this. It was also really great to see some really big, brightly coloured confetti, this stuff looked awesome in the photos and added a serious splash of colour to the day.
Talking of colour, in our video calls with Becky and Ash on the run up to the wedding, they had requested photos with smoke bombs. We know this isn’t anything new in the industry but genuinely this is not something we had ever done before, Becky and Ash were fully on board to be our first! After dinner we took our opportunity and pulled out the smoke bombs which had spent the day in the side pocket of our camera bag.
Smoke Bomb Photography Top Tips
After playing with smoke bombs on one single occasion we feel we are now highly qualified to offer some tips for incorporating smoke bombs in your wedding photos.
1. Buy quality smoke bombs. The last thing you want is to pull the pin on the bomb and it fizzles out to nothing before it has even got going, you want something that gives a great amount of smoke and also last as long as possible. We had spoken with Enola Gaye at the Photo and Video show in Birmingham a couple of years ago and recommended this as a good option to Becky and Ash, Enola Gaye do a range of colours and also a range of smoke durations, we had one red and one yellow to play with and these were the longer 90 second bombs.
2. Have a plan. We are not talking about a fully rehearsed routine, but a quick run through with Becky and Ash of our vision really helped us all to make full use of the time we had with the bombs, 90 seconds went by pretty fast so we were keen to make full use of this time. Our routine was essentially a little bit of walking which looked ace with the smoke billowing out behind and then went into some extra shots where we placed the bombs on the floor to create some fantastic atmosphere in the background of some portraits.
3. Check the wind direction. If you have chosen good quality smoke bombs then you will have lots of smoke on your hands, you don’t want this to be blowing forward and creating a solid wall of smoke between you and the camera (unless of course this is the look you are going for), having the smoke blow behind looks fantastic and also prevents you from getting a face full of smoke!
4. Safety first. Smoke bombs create a huge amount of smoke and a by-product of this is heat, it is essential to handle with care and to point away from the body. Don’t be alarmed if they fizz a little when you pull the pin, this is normal but definitely gets your attention. We ensured that we cleared the area before we did these photographs and afterwards made sure the carcass of the used smoke bombs were safely disposed of.
5. Have fun. When else would you get the opportunity to play with a smoke bomb, it is your wedding day, make absolutely sure to enjoy this moment of colourful smokey joy! Enjoy the moment, enjoy each other and just go with the flow, the photos will be incredible!
Party till late, we’re there for you!
Andy from MobileDJ.co does lots of weddings at Dunedin and did a great job of encouraging people onto the dance floor to celebrate again as Becky and Ash shared their first dance, keeping the party going long into the night which made for some epic dance floor moments which we were very happy to hang around for!
We’ll always have fond memories of our time with Becky, Ash and their brilliant friends and family. Their day was packed full of colour, love and emotion and we are so happy to have been there to document it for them.
A few weeks after their wedding we received the most wonderful review from Becky and Ash, we are truly grateful for this beautiful feedback:
Best Photographers Ever!
Chris and Rachel were amazing from start to finish. Our pre wedding shoot was the ideal opportunity to get to know this amazing couple. Once our wedding day approached they were so relaxed and made a huge effort for us and our family. They blended into our wedding party and made sure we had the best photos ever. They stayed until late which meant they could get photos well into the night as well as the day. We have just received our wedding photos and we couldn't have wished for any better. The quality and volume of photos taken were outstanding. They made people welcome and my guests were so relaxed around them that it made for some of the best photos. We cannot recommend them enough and I will be sure to post reviews where ever possible. Thank you so much for being part of our day.
Your Dunedin Country House Wedding Photographers
If you are planning your wedding at Dunedin Country House and on the lookout for a couple of extra friends to come along and photograph it for you then we’d love to hear from you. Carry on exploring our little corner of the internet to see more of our work and learn a little more about us, when you are ready head over to our contact page and drop us a note to check our availability, hopefully we have your date available and we can find a moment to hop on a call to introduce ourselves!
