One of the first big days that we captured ten years ago was an Enfield wedding at the Royal Chace Hotel. Although so many of the weddings we photograph now are at destination venues around the country or in central London, it is always great to work close to home too! The Royal Chace hotel for many years has been a must visit for local couples looking for a reception venue.
In it’s favour it is licensed for ceremonies both large and smaller at opposite ends of the hotel, and has three dedicated reception spaces. We know from working there so many times how happy couples have been with the service, pricing and general quality of the venue. Some members of the wedding day team have been there for a considerable number of years, and really know what they are doing.
Liz and Ben recently bought themselves a lovely home of their own a few streets away, and felt that Royal Chace was perfect to host both their civil ceremony and wedding breakfast too. Coverage began with Liz getting ready in their Enfield “love pad” complete with mum dad and bridesmaids in helpful attendance. We soon realised from looking around the place what dedicated Manchester United fans they were! With the arrival of the Vintage Rolls Royce from Lords Cars, another wedding vendor we have worked with around London numerous times and one we recommend, we sped off to the hotel to catch Ben and his groomsmen’s preparations.
The wedding ceremony itself took place in the Mandeville Suite, and a special reading in the form of a self penned poem came from Liz’s mum. Outside the front entrance the wedding party enthusiastically threw confetti, and then the newly weds left in the wedding car for thirty minutes or so to historic Gentlemens Row in Enfield, where we met them for some couple shots. It’s always a memorable time for wedding couples not only because myself and Joanna make it fun and relaxed, but also because these are some of the very first moments relatively alone for man and wife after their ceremony. They walk talk and have a good time with us as an official Mr and Mrs!
Family photos a little later were taken care of by David on the back lawns of the hotel, while Joanna captured guests mingling and the various details of the wedding breakfast tables and room. There were lots of references from the the table plan to wedding favours featuring all things Manchester United. In fact current manager Louis Van Gaal sent them a personalised congratulations letter read out at the head table. After some fine dining, speeches and cake cutting it was time to boogie on down courtesy of Barney Grossman a fantastic DJ who runs Party Events Unlimited
First dance started oh so traditionally, but there was a twist to come as Liz and Ben a couple of minutes into their routine broke off and quickly changed into fancy dress versions of ZZ Top, which sure got the party rocking pretty quick!
Here’s are some related posts featuring Enfield, the Royal Chace Hotel and our Star Wars wedding image photographed at the hotel’s helipad, that currently features in Enfield Museum’s retrospective of 150 years of local wedding photography.
Further reading here:
Enfield Wedding Photographers
Star Wars London Wedding
And some nearby weddings that you can take a look at are here: Enfield wedding at Bush Hill Park
Update: We’ve just received this lovely review on google plus from Liz and Ben that you can read here:
“From the first day we met David and Joanna we knew we were in safe hands! They are such a friendly couple they made us feel at ease straight away and after the first consultation we had no doubts whatsoever as to who our wedding photographers would be. They listened to all our ideas and after seeing examples of their work we knew they would also have lots of fantastic ideas. They came up with a brilliant idea to shoot in a local area near the canal and it was like they had read our minds – it happened to be one of our favourite routes to walk along and feed the ducks every weekend. Before the day we compiled a list of ‘must not miss’ shots to make sure that all key players were included and no one was disappointed. A couple of days before the wedding I was getting very stressed, particularly with the weather forecasts looking ominous, but I had a phone call with David who reassured me that no matter what the weather he would get some amazing shots. On the day David and Joanna both slotted in so well that you’d just think they were other wedding guests. They made everyone laugh and feel at ease. We’ve known photographers at other weddings to be quite bossy but they managed to capture all the group shots easily and organise guests without being stressed. The big advantage of choosing Big Day Weddings is you essentially get two fantastic photographers for the price of one! In addition, you have a friendly couple who can capture male and female perspectives from multiple angles. We received our photography package this week, only 2 weeks after the big day, and we honestly cannot believe how wonderful they are! They managed to capture everything we wanted but also captured so many amazing, personal details that we didn’t even notice ourselves and it has been lovely to look back on the day through the photographer’s eyes. Our ‘couple shots’ are just outstanding and we’ve had so many compliments from family and friends to say how amazing all the photos are. As part of our package we received a USB with over 1000 images both high quality and with a folder of smaller images to easily post on social media. We had 2 x 50 minute slideshows with music to watch on DVD and we had a lovely time reminiscing with these and it’ll be a great way to show our relatives. As another personal touch they also wrote a blog on their website about our wedding with some of the best images and it was a lovely account of our day. We are both incredibly happy with our wedding photographs and how they managed to capture the best day of our lives. It was worth every single penny as we have been inundated with compliments from our wedding guests who all love the photos too. We cannot recommend them highly enough.”
Liz Worsley
See the original review here: Google Plus Big Day Weddings review
And a seperate review on Hitched from Liz and Ben: Big Day Weddings Hitched review
Post by David Green
As part of this change in the industry was the rise of the dedicated wedding blog, not run by photographers, but by people with an interest in all things wedding, and/or entrepreneurs who realised this was a commercially viable area to blog and advertise services in. Now in the UK the most powerful and popular of these seems to be at the time of writing, Rock My Wedding or RMW as it is sometimes referred to, and rightly so. It has high standards, is innovative, and always on the cutting edge of current and high quality wedding photographers and all other related suppliers in the industry.
