I like photographing weddings at golf clubs, and the reason is simple. A country house gives you a beautiful building and a lawn. A golf course gives you a large managed landscape with mature trees, long views and paths that go somewhere. It is space, and space is the thing I am always short of.
Sitwell Park sits in the Rotherham countryside and does exactly that. The ground falls away behind the clubhouse so you get distance in the frame, which very few venues can offer at all.
"Sam and Josh saw each other before the ceremony. When a couple tells me they are doing a first look, that is music to my ears."
The First LookWhy it is worth considering
Sam and Josh's wedding was untraditional in one specific way: they met before the ceremony and we photographed them together beforehand.
Tradition is fine, and most couples do it the other way, and that works too. But breaking that one rule buys you something concrete. It moves a big chunk of the photography off the crowded bit of the afternoon, which means I am not racing the clock between the confetti and the meal, and it means we can be somewhere good when the light is good rather than when the schedule says so. More time is not a small thing. More time is where the creative frames come from.
It also means the two of you have ten quiet minutes together before a day in which you will not get many.
The VenueWhat Sitwell Park gives a photographer
- iDistance. The land drops away past the clubhouse, so there is countryside behind you instead of a car park. Very few venues can put a horizon in your wedding photographs.
- iiMature trees, and room under them. Big trees with space around them, which is where I put a veil and wait for wind.
- iiiThe trophy cabinet. Silver cups behind glass under the club's lettering, with a window and the sunset behind. It is the one frame you can only take at a golf club, and it is the one nobody thinks to ask for.
- ivPractical, which matters. Up to 200 guests, three miles from the M1 and M18, plenty of parking, level access, and they dress the room in house. Not glamorous. Very useful.
A Real Sitwell DaySam & Josh, autumn
Autumn is my favourite time of year to photograph a wedding and I will argue about it. The trees go brown and gold, the grass loses that hard bright green it has all summer, and everything sits together better. On a course, where most of what you can see is trees and grass, that matters more than it does anywhere else.
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First look, then everything else
We got the two of them together and photographed before the ceremony, which took the pressure off the whole rest of the day.
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Rust and red
Bridesmaids in terracotta, Josh in a grey check three-piece with a rust tie, red roses in the buttonholes and dried orange flowers at the ceremony. It matched what was going on outside the window.
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Confetti, then out onto the course
Guests packed in either side for the confetti walk, then out down the path under the trees while the leaves were still on them.
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The last of the sun
Backlit toast into the low sun, and the veil going up under the bare tree with the course behind. Then inside to the trophy cabinet with the sunset coming through the window.
"Book an autumn date at a golf club. You get the colour, the space and the light all at once, and nobody else is competing for the good spots."
PricingA full day at Sitwell Park
A full day of Sitwell Park Golf Club wedding photography starts from £1,800, with no travel charge anywhere in Yorkshire. The pricing page has what's included and the shorter options.
LocationsWhere the day happened
Venue: Sitwell Park Golf Club, Shrogswood Road, Rotherham. Sam and Josh's suppliers weren't recorded at the time, so the list stops where I can stand behind it.
