Vanessa and Adam: An Intimate Scottish Coastal Wedding at Lunan House, Arbroath
A Small Wedding on the Angus Coast
Vanessa and Adam, though hailing from the North of England, chose to make a mini-getaway of their wedding weekend, and chose to get married at Lunan House in Arbroath. Lunan House sits quietly in five acres of beautiful gardens, established woodlands, and gently landscaped paths – and has the luxury of being just a stone’s throw from the gorgeous white sands of Lunan Bay.
Some wedding days are defined by scale – the long guest list, the full production of it all, two hundred guests and a thrilling multi-day program of events. Then there are days like Vanessa and Adam’s, where the celebration of closeness and family take center stage: an embrace of their relationship and the lives they have built together, with just their nearest and dearest as witnesses. Add to this a house with history, and the Angus coast just a minute’s walk away – you couldn’t ask for much more.
The Details: Personal and Particular
Before any wedding ceremony, I take a moment while the partners are getting ready, and I spend time with the details that the couple have brought along with them. These details and keepsakes are brought along to the wedding day not just because they’re beautiful to photograph – though they often are – but they often represent loved ones that are no longer with us, letters from family who couldn’t be present at the ceremony – meaningful memorabilia curated over years, each piece telling an important story about the people getting married.
Vanessa and Adam’s details were the personal kind; the ones that don’t come from a Pinterest board, but from two lives lived and woven together. While I won’t divulge exact details of these personal items on this blog – all I can say is that the collection of this couple’s details brought a tear to my eye that morning, and it reminded me of the honour I have as a photographer to be invited into these intimate rooms, tasked with ensuring these details are immortalised.
The Ceremony: Held inside the Light and Airy Main Hall
The ceremony hall at Lunan House is a beautiful room that really nurtures a small wedding – flexible to be set up to the couple’s preference, it never gives the feeling of there being empty space that needs filling. On the sunny Angus morning we were blessed with, the light from the large windows really flooded the room. From a photographer’s point of view, this is a dream ceremony room to photograph. While some flash was beneficial depending on the direction in which I was shooting, most of this ceremony was shot using the natural light of the room – which lays the foundation for us to capture the complexities of the light and the events unfolding as the couple and guests would have seen and remembered it in real time.
Adam’s reaction when he first saw Vanessa at the bottom of the aisle was heart wrenching – in half a decade of photographing weddings across Scotland, I don’t think I’ve seen this level of emotion. It’s needless to say that at any wedding, the couple are in love – but this was palpable, tangible, so visibly evident that it was impossible not to feel a pang in your chest. As a documentary wedding photographer, these are the moments I am most grateful to be present for – and they lie at the core of what makes my job so meaningful.
The quiet was broken by compassionate laughter, as people scrambled to get Adam a tissue, his son rising from the aisle behind him to help mop his face. That’s what an intimate wedding does- it concentrates everything. There’s nowhere for the feeling to go except straight into the photographs, and it shows.
The Gardens: Light, Texture and Breathing Space
After the ceremony, is when I find some of my favourite images of any wedding day. The official formality of the ceremony has passed, the joy of being married is fully setting in, and there’s a marked relaxation in how people move and hold each other. Adam and Vanessa’s years together became evident through the ease with which they moved in each other’s presence – I gave very little direction, I just left them space to breathe – to chat and debrief about the day so far, having not seen each other since the day before. This had an element of relief to it – of two people who knew they were going to be together years ago, and who were so thrilled to finally be making it official.
Lunan Bay – The Angus Coast at Its Best
With the garden as the intermediary, setting the scene for the unwinding post-ceremony, the open water of Lunan Bay opened up beyond the garden gates and took our breath away. The scale of the landscape – making us suddenly feel like very small people in a very big world – settled everyone back down. The wind whipped at us and took our breath away in the best, most exhilarating way, the noise making communication difficult – so for this part of the day, I mostly left it to the couple to chat candidly while I photographed from a distance.
On Small Weddings and Why They Photograph Beautifully
I want to say something about intimate weddings, because Vanessa and Adam’s day is a good example of what small weddings do photographically that larger weddings sometimes can’t. When there are fewer than a dozen people in a room – or a garden, or on a beach – every moment is accessible. As a documentary wedding photographer, that intimacy is a gift. The emotion is closer, the connections between people are clear as day. The Ceremony began when Vanessa’s hair was ready, when we had made some last minute adjustments to the Best Man’s cufflinks, when the Maid of Honour had made a last minute adjustment to the playlist. When everyone felt they’d taken enough photos in the garden, we moved to the sea – when we’d been windswept for long enough, we moved back to the house. The timeline moves at a human pace, rather than a logistical one.
Planning your Own Intimate Scottish Wedding?
While I only shot this wedding recently, I know already that it’s one of those galleries I will keep circling back to, not because of any single image, but because of the feeling I came away with at the end of the day. How from the moment I arrived, the second I stepped into Lunan House, how welcome I felt. The nerves that were palpable in both Vanessa and Adam’s rooms as they were getting ready. And how could I ever forget Adam’s tears at the top of the aisle, before Vanessa had even stepped foot into the ceremony hall. It was a proper example of a raw, emotional ceremony that was completely and utterly theirs – as a storytelling wedding photographer, I couldn’t have asked for more.
Adam, Vanessa – thank you for having me. For your beautiful day, stunning venue, and all the heartfelt details that make my job the best job in the world.
If you’re planning an intimate wedding on the Scottish coast, in a Scottish country house or stately home, or anywhere in Scotland where the setting means something to you – I’d love to hear about it.
Planning a wedding in St Andrews? Find out more about my St Andrews wedding photography here.
Getting married elsewhere in Scotland? I travel across the country — see my Scotland wedding photography page here.
Get in touch – let’s talk about your wedding photography.
