Louise+Alex // Old Castle Farm Wedding

Old Castle Farm Wedding Photographer

Louise and Alex got married back where Alex was born, in Worcestershire at a venue called Old Castle Farm . It was made up of a beautiful orangery, a lovely house and big open grounds. There were also lovely little cottages dotted around the property for friends and family to stay in. I was fortunate enough to be staying in one of these, which was brilliant for getting to both of them in the morning to get some shots, and I didn’t have the stress of being late for the ceremony.

Louise and Alex travel quite a lot, with work and together on holidays, they’ve also lived in quite a few places, having met while studying at Cambridge, and now living together in London. Louise’s work for Save the Children and Oxfam has also taken her all over the place, as has Alex’s consulting company. Being both apart and together all over the world is a big part of their relationship so they wanted to include this into their day. So they took the most significant places and made a little activity to represent each of them for their guests to complete. They then gave their guests a little booklet like a passport in which to collect stamps from each of the countries on completion of the little activities. These included things like playing volleyball and drinking a Coca-Cola for California, Playing croquet for Cambridge, eating a chocolate for Belgium, which is where they got engaged. There was also finding some hidden lizards for Madagascar and putting on a diving mask and having your picture taken in front of some fish for The Maldives, where they learnt to dive. I thought this was an amazing idea and meant that people were moving all over the place trying to find the different activities dotted around the venue, chatting to new people and even playing volleyball with them. Their wedding couldn’t be accused of having a lull at any point; it was so full of energy, which I think represented them perfectly. They also had a ceilidh in the evening for the dancing so they clearly wanted to keep the energy levels up throughout!

The wedding favours were a lovely addition to the tables. Each place setting had a small handmade animal toy made by refugees in Kampala, Uganda. Louise had bought them from a friend she had made while living out in Uganda. She has since then been involved in setting up an ethical crafts business, directly supporting their skills development and livelihoods.