Bartholomew Barn wedding | Erin & Oliver

A Bartholomew Barn wedding that should have been a year before.

This Bartholomew Barn wedding, for Erin and Oliver, had meant to be in July 2021. Erin had emailed me in January 2020. "Sifting through photographers it has become quite tiring to see the same photo one after another. We really love your work and your ability to use the environment around you in such a unique and creative way." They were still looking for the right wedding venue at that point. In our email exchange, a cold was mentioned by me in response to a phone chat, Erin replied "There is definitely a bug making its rounds. I’ve been battling one for a few weeks and so many colleagues and friends with one! Just that season." Ironically, just around the corner in 2020...

They then decided a phone call, "wouldn’t be necessary because your website says it all. Really think you’re the photographer for us...". They booked. A month later, Covid 19 arrived, to disrupt so many wedding plans.

Moving the wedding to the following year.

After months of lockdowns, postponements and cancellations within the wedding industry, come December 2020, this wedding was affected too. Erin got back in touch. Just 48 hours before I had shot a wedding that had to be moved 24 hours earlier, at the last minute, as more restrictions were quickly brought in for London and the South-East. Covid was still a threat to wedding days. With many of their guests coming from abroad, Erin is American, they decided to shift the wedding to May 2022.

Outdoor wedding at Bartholomew Barn

Having lived in Sussex for 21 years now, Bartholomew Barn is a Sussex wedding venue I have been to many times but not for a few years. Still a nice contained wedding venue. Big old Barn - crying out for a full-sized snooker table in there - surrounded by farming fields. A corner of one field is rented by the ban owners to create a good-sized car park. A large lawn for the ceremony, if not in the barn and a walled garden at the back for drinks and speeches.

Erin got ready, with family and friends, down the A272 at The Bothy near Billingshurst. She drove to the wedding ceremony with her parents in a VW camper van. Having previously done the legal bit, Erin and Oliver were free to create their own wedding ceremony in the open air. The ceremony, confetti, drinks, speeches and then into Bartholomew Barn for the meal, ahead of the dancing of course. A surprise for Erin's father, when he got the first dance with his daughter. (Even a dash of golden evening light)

Here are a few images from this Bartholomew Barn wedding...