Orton Hall weddings - A Photographers perspective
/orton hall, The Village, Orton Longueville, Peterborough PE2 7DN
Why Orton Hall is great for wedding photos
Orton Hall wedding venue in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire is great for wedding photos and this blog post explains why.
It’s hard choosing a wedding venue, so I thought having a photographer’s perspective would be helpful. Especially as I’m one of their recommended photographers.
Orton Hall was a 17th Century Manor House, but now it’s a hotel and spa with an indoor pool. There are 70 rooms and the hotel is 5 minutes from Peterborough city centre, so there’s room for all your guests.
Let’s take you through the typical stages of a wedding and the benefits of choosing Orton Hall for each of those stages.
Getting ready in the morning
The bridal suite has a 4 poster bed and every room has grand high ceilings and huge windows and luxurious curtains. This provides plenty of light and a great spot for photographs when you’re getting ready.
Once you’re ready it’s just a quick stroll down the stately switch-back staircase to your ceremony.
The Ceremony (inside and outside)
There are 4 indoor options for an indoor ceremony, or you can get married outside in the bandstand. Indoors I’ve only ever photographed ceremonies in the beautiful conservatory which seats 90 people. The bandstand seats 60.
The conservatory and the bandstand are both lovely choices but I personally prefer the conservatory. This is because when you’re under the band stand (any band stand - not just Orton Hall’s) the light on you is much darker than the light on the guests outside in the sunshine. This means the guests tend to be a bit ‘over-exposed’ (ie. Too bright) in the photos. Again, this would be the same for any Band Stand wedding. That said, if you have your heart set on an outdoor wedding then I’ll still be able to get lovely photos for you.
Group photos
Group photos are done in the courtyard which is right between the conservatory and the bandstand so guests won’t have to walk much at all.
For the big group photo of everyone I bring my ladder, but Orton Hall are able to unlock one of the upstairs rooms to get an aerial view (if the room isn’t being used).
The great thing about the courtyard is there’s a good backdrop in two different directions.
This means that if it’s sunny I’ll make sure the sun is behind the guests so they’re not squinting and won’t have harsh shadows on their faces; and if it’s cloudy I have the guests face into the light.
The outside of the conservatory also has some steps which are helpful for posing larger groups.
The wedding breakfast and speeches
The wedding breakfast is usually held in The Great Room. It has extremely high ceilings and large chandeliers and a very grand bay window.
The head table normally lines up in front of a large fireplace which gives a great backdrop for the speeches. It also faces the bay window so plenty of natural light hits the people doing the speeches, but not so much that it’s harsh.
Romantic photographs
Perhaps my favourite thing about Orton Hall is that it has 20 acres of gardens for us to explore!
There’s a wonderful range of scenery including:
An avenue of huge, ancient conifers
Snowdrops in February, daffodils and bluebells in spring and honeysuckle in summer
A mini-hedge maze
Great views of Orton Hall from under an ancient oak tree
But what if it rains?
No problem, we can get beautiful indoor shots using beautiful window light and the staircase… and if you’re feeling brave we can go outside and get shots like this…
The evening party
The Great Room makes a grand backdrop for the cake cut and first dance.
What’s also nice is that Orton Hall has 4 spaces right next to each other and they all have a different vibe.
The Great Room is where the large dance floor
Right next to the Great room is the conservatory which gets used as the chill out area.
The bar is on the other side of the conservatory
Finally, there’s the courtyard to enjoy the evening air, with plenty of tables and chairs.
This mixture of locations ensures all the guests are happy and gives the photographs a mixture of settings and styles.
Orton Hall scores well in every area, plus it’s 10 mins from our home so I can throw every ounce of my energy at your wedding without saving any for a long drive!
To find out more about my services and what makes me different from other wedding photographers then pop over to my wedding page.
“Dan, we cannot thank you enough for being the best photographer we could have wished to have! We booked Dan from 12 midday to 10pm on the hottest day of the year (30+ degrees in September) and not a minute went by when he was not capturing the very essence of what was the best day of my life!”
