Lorna & Keanu’s Spring Wedding at Stradsett Hall in Norfolk.

To kick off 2021, I visited a wedding venue for the first time for an amazing celebration at Stradsett Hall. A stunning venue located a short drive from my Cambridgeshire home in Ely, Stradsett Hall is a few miles south of Kings Lynn in Norfolk.

We’ve had to wait so long for weddings, with only a handful of micro weddings during the incredibly difficult last 15 months, so it was fantastic to be able to be part of a wedding with 30 guests at a beautiful venue. It really did feel like a new beginning in many ways.

We began at Lorna’s Mum’s cottage in the Cambridgeshire countryside for a relaxed morning of preparations, with glasses of Prosecco, laughter and some tears, all in the company of the house’s many pets including Lorna’s beloved Husky “Max”.

The Wedding.

From Lorna’s Mum’s Cambridgeshire home we made the half hour drive over to the venue. The ceremony took place in the venue’s beautiful Orangery.  The glass building is bathed in stunning natural light and draped in foliage which adds to the feel of bringing the outdoors inside,  perfect for couples who wish to have a ceremony with the feel of being outside but don’t want to risk the English weather.

After the nuptials, the newlyweds headed out for a tour of the surroundings in an immaculate vintage wedding car before returning to enjoy a drinks reception in the Stradsett Hall courtyard. The 30 guests then enjoyed a wedding breakfast and speeches in the venue’s converted Old Stable.

Due to the Covid restrictions, both the newlyweds and the DJ decided on trying the first dance out in the courtyard. This proved a great success and the guests continued the partying in the same vein for the rest of the evening.

The Venue.

I am always looking to shoot weddings at new and exciting venues, especially if they offer something a little different. Stradsett Hall offers a mix of traditional and quirky. The grand house and the beautiful grounds and gardens, including the lake, are very much a typical English country wedding venue.

The Orangery and the converted Old Stable provide a more unique and rustic feeling setting within the more traditional surroundings. For wedding photographers and videographers it is a fantastic playground and there are a plethora of options for couple portraits. I captured Lorna and Keanu’s shots with  a wonderful variety of backdrops all within a 5 minute stroll of the Old Stable and we didn’t even venture down to the lakeside.

I look forward to the opportunity to shoot a wedding again here in the near future,  particularly when the restrictions of Covid are behind us and I can experience the venue working at full capacity.

Stradsett Hall

Stradsett Hall is located near the Norfolk town of Downham Market and is readily easily accessed from the A10 and can easily be reached from London, Cambridge and Norwich.

From the venue’s website:

Stradsett Hall is set within two-thousand acres of rolling Norfolk countryside, also home to the medieval St. Mary’s Stradsett church.  One of England’s finest Elizabethan manors, the Hall enjoys formal gated rose gardens, an elegant Victorian orangery and a swan lake created by revered landscapist J.C. Loudon at the turn of the 19th century.

One of England’s finest Elizabethan manors, the Hall enjoys formal gated rose gardens, an elegant Victorian orangery and a swan lake created by revered landscapist J.C. Loudon at the turn of the 19th century.

Visit the Stradsett Hall website here

Damien Vickers is a Cambridge wedding photographer shooting weddings all over the UK and beyond.