Voewood has a bit of buzz around it if you are in the Norfolk wedding photography game and it pretty much deserves it. I’d heard so much about Voewood weddings and you can always detect the excitement when speaking to a fellow wedding photographer if they have just landed themselves a Voewood wedding. Alas it had eluded me for some time, so you can imagine my delight when Holly and Charlie got in touch all the way from New Zealand to say they were returning to the UK for a short time to get married, and the venue was none other than the mighty Voewood.
I didn’t really know what to expect. I’ve shot many stunning venues, so it takes more than grandeur to really blow my socks off. It takes a certain je ne sais quoi that is quite the challenge to achieve as a venue. I think one of the really charming things about Voewood is the fact that it is seemingly devoid of any staff overseeing things. It wasn’t until I was leaving late in the evening that I clocked a solitary figure hold up in a little basement office watching TV, whom I can only assume is on hand just in case; but other than him, the couple and their guests are left completely to their own devices. I’ve made no secret over the years that ‘DIY’ weddings hold a certain charm for me. Getting married on a family farm or in a back garden has a certain magic to it and I think it comes from just how relaxed everybody is when they are not in the public domain, bound by procedure and venue restrictions. With Voewood you get the best of both worlds; all the grandeur, charm and character of a stunning building set amongst beautifully landscaped gardens, combined with the ultra relaxed feel of a ‘DIY’ wedding. It was a perfect combo that made for a beautiful wedding….the gorgeous weather had a little hand in it too no doubt.
Second shooting this one with me was my colleague and friend Andrew Kahumbu and some of his images can be found below. Some photographers may call this disingenuous to display another photographer’s work mixed in with my own, but to me, these blog posts are about celebrating the wonderful weddings I get to shoot alongside some very talented photographers, so I think it only right that viewers of these weddings get an insight into the collaboration of my second shooters and I (I should also state at this point that my blog is the only place I share my second shooter’s images alongside my own, the rest of the images on my site are all mine). Enjoy!
All images copyright of Suffolk Wedding Photographer Hillier James
