Larchfield Estate Wedding | Chloe + Dafydd

Chloe and Dafydd’s beautiful wedding ceremony and reception took place at the always amazing Larchfield Estate, in Lisburn. The pair had travelled over from Cardiff for the wedding, so it was a real coming together of family and friends from both sides of the water, with plenty of Welsh accents mixing in among the Northern Irish ones all day.

On the morning of the wedding, we met up with Chloe at her mum and dad's home in Lisburn, where she got ready surrounded by her bridesmaids in familiar, relaxed surroundings. There's always something lovely about a bride getting ready in the family home rather than a hotel room. The house was full of chatter, bubbly, and the kind of easy calm that comes from being somewhere you know well, and it made for a warm, unhurried start to the day before we all made our way over to Larchfield Estate.

Larchfield Estate Wedding Photos

Chloe and Dafydd had their ceremony in the beautiful Orangery at Larchfield Estate, and as it turned out that was a lovely spot to be on the day. As Chloe arrived, the sky decided to open, and the rain pretty much stayed with us for the rest of the day. Thankfully the Orangery is a gorgeous space in its own right, full of light even on a grey afternoon, and it gave the whole ceremony a cosy, intimate feel with everyone gathered in close. If you're getting married in Northern Ireland and worried about the weather on your big day, we have previously wrote a blog post about what happens if it rains on your wedding day.

Chloe and Dafydd were married by a humanist celebrant, and their ceremony was full of personal touches. There was a handfasting, where ribbons are tied around the couple's joined hands to symbolise them binding their lives together, and the drinking of the quaich, a lovely Celtic tradition where the couple share a drink from a cup with two handles as a toast to their future together. Partway through the ceremony, Dafydd's friends stood up and sang Calon Lân, filling the Orangery with that unmistakable Welsh sound, and it's safe to say there wasn't a dry eye left in the room by the time they finished.

Wedding Phototography at Larchfield Estate

With the rain refusing to ease off, we made good use of Larchfield's greenhouse for portraits of Chloe and Dafydd, as well as all the family and group photos. The glass and greenery gave us a lush, botanical backdrop to work with, and honestly it turned out to be one of our favourite spots of the whole day. It meant everyone could stay warm and dry while we worked through the family photos, and the soft green light coming through the glass gave the images a really unique feel that we would not have had on a bright sunny day.

As the evening rolled on, the rain finally began to ease, and we managed to get everyone out into the courtyard for the confetti run Chloe and Dafydd had been hoping for all along. It was worth the wait, with the low evening light breaking through the clouds just as everyone lined up. We then managed to talk the two of them into giving us another five minutes for some portraits out in the gardens, catching a lovely little window of calm before the party got fully underway. Those extra five minutes ended up giving us some of our favourite images from the whole day, proof that a bit of patience with the weather almost always pays off.

By the time the dancing started, nobody was thinking about the weather anymore. It was one of the most hyped dancefloors we've shot in a long time, full from the first song to the last, with guests from both Cardiff and Lisburn very much determined to make the most of the night together.

If you are reading this because you are thinking of choosing Larchfield Estate as the venue for your own wedding, get in touch with us. As a Larchfield Estate wedding photographer, we would love to help capture your day too.