One of the most enjoyable things about working as a professional photographer is being able to travel to a number of different locations and work with all kinds of clients. I really love the couples I work with and a lot of the venues I work at but we were desperately excited about shooting this wedding for Kelly and Niall. Firstly because they’re a really great, charming and fun couple. Secondly this wedding was a renewal of the vows, so less pressure there. Thirdly and finally, we got to travel to the Scottish Borders for the first time.

Kelly and Niall originally had a small wedding ceremony about one year ago but always wanted to have a larger ceremony in front of their family and friends so chose to do a handfasting (can you believe I shot two handfastings in a week!). What an awesome wedding this was. Everyone was absolutely lovely, so so nice, and the venue itself is really beautiful. Kippilaw House (http://www.kippilaw.com/) sits just outside of Melrose and is a really beautiful country house with really nice owners and just everything about the place is great.

One of the things we notice at weddings, and this is in no way a criticism, is most weddings have really standard food. Chicken breast/beef etc and for the most this is perfect. Kelly and Niall were kind enough to feed us and what a meal. We had langoustine and smoked salmon for starter and for the main course we had roasted leg of lamb. Leg of lamb is one of the most expensive parts of a lamb but by far the most delicious. The owners arranged for caterers and both the owners and the caterers were a delight to deal with. The chef even recognised the restaurant that Liv works at so they had a really nice little chef chat.

This wedding was also really nice to shoot as Kelly and Niall wanted really relaxed documentary style photos. With a lot of the weddings I shoot I can’t really shoot in this style too much, it looks strange for smaller weddings, but in the end we took close to 1000 photos and I eventually brought down the total number of photos to around 400.

Note: There are probably way too many photos below but I just had to include this selection. Hope you enjoy.

I included the photo above as it sums up the feel of the day; relaxed! Everyone on the day was really relaxed.

The fabulous kitchen!

Kippilaw House has these wonderful old chairs that they used for both the ceremony and the reception. Kelly and Niall made a point of using furniture that was already in the property.

People watching the Rugby World Cup earlier in the day. I admit I had a few sneeky peeks.

Kelly’s room had so much space and light so we could arrange the dress in a number of different positions. At the time of shooting the dress we had blazing sunshine and it was impossible to hang it in the window but I really like this arrangement.

The obligatory sandwich and makeup shot.

We didn’t shoot a lot of group shots, maybe 20 or so, but for each formal group shot we took we also took an alternative fun shot. Great fun!

Niall with Kelly’s father.