Laura & Michael’s Wedding at St Mary’s Woburn and Moreteyne Manor

This one goes back a bit. Laura and Michael got married in 2019, just before the world went slightly mad and weddings pretty much disappeared for a while. At the time none of us knew what was coming - luckily photography wasn’t my only income and I had my full time videography job to fall back on when COVID hit and I had to suspend the wedding business. But, quite a few of my photographer friends weren’t so fortunate, and some of them spent years recovering from it. Six years later, some are only just properly getting back on their feet. Sorry for a sad intro, but I feel it has to be said. Anyway...

Champagne at breakfast... why not?

I started the day at Laura’s house and knew pretty quickly this was going to be a fun one - champagne was opened pretty much as soon as I arrived hahaha - not for me of course. I don’t drink myself, but I fully understand the logic - wedding mornings can be weird, exciting and extremely emotional all at once. Everyone is excited, slightly nervous, trying to remember where everything is and pretending they are completely relaxed.

A glass of champagne probably helps. The bridesmaids were Laura’s old school friends and you could tell immediately. The stories started coming out fairly quickly... For the sake of Laura’s privacy, I am not going to repeat them, but let’s just say the recurring themes were: making out, not remembering much the next morning and quite a lot of swearing. Lovely girls. Proper wholesome.

I may have mistaken Laura’s brother for the groom

At this point I should probably admit something, before the wedding I had only met Laura because Michael couldn’t make our first meeting. So when Laura’s dad and brother appeared at the house that morning I took one look at her brother and thought:

“Oh... groom’s here.” Which seemed slightly unusual, no traditional not-seeing-the-bride-before-the-wedding thing then? It took me a moment and yes, I have been reminded of this more than once since. Fair enough - my bad for presuming hahaha.

St Mary’s Woburn

Once preparations were done I headed over to St. Mary's church in Woburn. What a place. It’s one of those churches where you walk in and immediately start looking around thinking about where you can photograph from. I met Michael properly for the first time there - yes I made sure it was the groom this time, let it go now.

Sometimes you have a very limited amount of time to get somebody comfortable around you before something genuinely important happens. You say hello, have a quick chat, get a feel for them and crack on - my experience helps I guess and maybe a little bit of personality too. Then Laura arrived and we got on with the ceremony. One massive advantage of St Mary’s was being allowed up onto the organ level which gave me a completely different view of the church and meant I could get those proper wide shots looking down across the ceremony instead of photographing everything from roughly the same height all day. Always nice when a church gives you a little freedom to move.

And then there was Michael. As Laura walked down the aisle I caught him completely breaking down, completely off guard and open. Not staged. Not prompted. Just one of those moments where you happen to be in the right place, watching the right person at the right time. That is the stuff I’m always looking for.

Confetti first, family photos second at Moreteyne Manor

After the ceremony we did the usual confetti run and then stayed around the church grounds for some of the family photographs. We had a bit of time, so instead of doing every formal photograph in one place I split them up - family photos at the church and bridesmaids and groomsmen later at the venue. Simple thing, but it gives you a bit more variety in the final gallery instead of twenty photographs with exactly the same background.

Moreteyne Manor

From Woburn we headed over to Moreteyne Manor in Marston Moretaine. The venue is an old Tudor manor with gardens around it, and at the time Laura and Michael had their reception in the marquee behind the house. When we arrived there was an acoustic duo playing smooth jazz outside, proper little garden-party atmosphere. Guests arrived and drinks appeared, and everyone gradually made their way into the marquee for the wedding breakfast. Then, came the speeches this is another part of the day where I mostly leave people alone. There’s no reason for me to interfere. Laura and Michael did all the usual wedding things... just slightly differently. Their wedding cake wasn’t really a traditional cake at all, but a stack of cupcakes. The first dance wasn’t one of the obvious wedding songs either - they went for a jazz piece. Again... very them. That’s always better than doing something simply because weddings are apparently supposed to look a certain way.

Looking back at this wedding now

Going back through these photographs in 2026 feels slightly different to looking at them at the time. This was one of my last weddings before COVID stopped everything. A few months later, weddings disappeared, photographers suddenly had empty calendars and nobody really knew how long it was going to last. I was lucky because I had another job but plenty of photographers I knew didn’t. So there is something quite nice about going back to a day like this and remembering what weddings felt like before any of that happened. A house full of bridesmaids talking absolute rubbish with champagne being opened far too early to my liking, but it's 5pm somewhere in the world right? Me mistaking the bride’s brother for her future husband was source of a joke for few people during the day - well what can I say, I deliver 100% and then some hahaha.