Fingask Castle Wedding

Capturing Happiness: A Fingask Castle Wedding Photographed in a Relaxed Documentary Style

A wedding day is a whirlwind of emotions, from nervous anticipation to sheer joy and laughter. It’s a day filled with unforgettable moments and my job, as a documentary-style wedding photographer, is to capture it all for you without interfering more than necessary. Not everyone likes having their photograph taken, and I have always accepted that and offered a much more relaxed and natural style of wedding photography.

Fingask Castle, nestled in the heart of Scotland’s stunning Perthshire countryside, is a dreamy backdrop for a wedding. There are even guinea fowl scurrying around the topiary and collection of statues and sculptures. I’ve photographed many weddings at Fingask Castle over the past few years, enjoying every one of them, and I was genuinely looking forward to returning there for Craig and Megan’s wedding.

Things didn’t quite go to plan though. Craig and Megan’s Fingask castle wedding was the very last of my Covid rescheduled weddings (I’m glad I can finally draw a line under that time…). They booked their wedding back in 2020, and the original date was supposed to be August 2021. As we all know, a lot happened in 2020 / 21 so they, like so many other couples, decided to push back their wedding and, in their case, they went all the way to August 2023!

Each Fingask castle wedding I’ve photographed has been quite different. I photographed a lovely one last year where the wedding ceremony was outside on the lawn. I have photographed a Buddhist wedding ceremony and even a wedding where the bride and groom’s motorbikes took centre stage.

I think Fingask castle is such a great venue because it is a beautiful old castle, set in wonderful grounds, and, importantly, you are free to use it however you wish. As a documentary wedding photographer there are loads of wee nooks and crannies to utilise, beautiful vistas and a wonderful staircase. Even when the weather is a bit iffy (pretty normal in Scotland) there is still plenty of scope for nice photographs.

Craig and Megan wanted their wedding day at Fingask castle photographed, but they didn’t want everything staged and they definitely didn’t want to spend a lot of time posing for photographs (who does right?!). I was able to move around the different areas of the castle all day, hunting out small groups of people relaxing, playing a game of chess (yes, really) or enjoying some canapés in the courtyard amongst the flowers there.

We still made a few family group photos (I even included one in this blog post since folk often ask whether I actually do them) and slipped off for a few minutes to hide amongst the trees for a few pictures. There was even a magnificent sunset that beautiful August day and in just five minutes we had nipped out, made some stunning photographs, and returned to the evening reception. If the light is nice in the evening I always say that it is definitely worth taking a moment to head out – you definitely won’t regret it!

There are so many wonderful castles to hold your wedding in Scotland it’s almost ridiculous. Another couple of favourites of mine are Drumtochty Castle and, for something a bit further south, Culzean Castle in Ayrshire.