Wedding at Kleinvallei Wedding Venue

Edward Ruthven Photography had the privilege of capturing great images of the amazing wedding Christopher and Dominique Liddell. This took place at the great Kleinvallei Wedding Venue near the Krugersdorp Game Reserve.

Their wedding was a small intimate affair with really amazing friends and family attending.

The whole day took place at two contrasting sections of the venue.

The getting ready and ceremony took place at the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue farm house and farm house pool with a huge garden.

Whereas the reception took place at a modern rustic looking section with a little garden section.

Getting Ready

The couple got ready at the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue Farm house.

Wedding Details

Our first major challenge of the day was to find a suitable spot to take photos of the rings and additional paraphernalia.

There was almost no furniture etc. in the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue farm house. Their was at least some possible lovely surfaces in the bathroom and kitchen.

We eventually settled for an outside wooden table and used pillows etc. as props for the rings etc. shoot section.

Bride

Luckily for us when we did the Bride makeup shoot we found a window that was east facing, therefore no direct sunlight to still give a beautiful lit environment. We shifted a table and chair into the room to make this possible.

We eventually found a mirror in one of the bathrooms for a mirror shot. We setup a speed-light and a scrim to create a nice light for the shot.

Some shots we took in the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue house we used available light. Set my Canon 80D to ISO 6400 and my Canon 70-200mm Mark II lens to F2.8. I am pleasantly surprised at how well this combination has worked. Yes, a full frame camera would do it better, but my gear did a very good job of it.

Groom

We then did the Groom shoots outdoors in the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue garden. The garden gave us some excellent areas to work in.

Part of our style is to shoot as close to 200mm as possible, with as much distance to the background. This garden really lent itself well to our style.

The ceremony was taking place at the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue pool. This did not give us the ability to get a lovely first look shot. We therefore mentioned to the couple a relatively new concept of the first look taking place before the ceremony.

Ceremony

Doing the ceremony outdoors is mostly amazing and prevents having huge lighting problems, except for maybe harsh shadow issues. Towards the end of the ceremony the skies opened up and rained down, forcing the ceremony indoors.

The rain subsided for a little to allow us to get the formal photos out of the way. What a lovely bunch of people giving us lovely formals, with some tom foolery also.

Reception

We had to postpone the couple shoot due to rain. We headed off to the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue reception area, which is large distance away from the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue farm house.

We took photos of the married couple entering into the devoid of guests’ reception area. This created us to fudge the entrance issue by chasing to get guests inside and then recreate the couples entrance.

We took a few photos of everyone enjoying themselves, hors d’oeuvre was then supplied for the guests, which all enjoyed.

We then went to look for alternative spots to take the couple photos while it still rained. We found a few lovely spots that would work extremely well. We then kidnapped the couple from the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue reception to get the photo’s that is making us well liked in our bracket.

The rain eventually stopped allowing us to take some outdoor photos as well.

Couple Shoot

We found if you look around properly you can get some amazing photos at the reception area, even though there is not much to work with. We as photographers always need to be more awake to our surroundings to make good of any possible opportunity that can present itself. We were able to get a few lovely photo’s in this process.

Reception

Back in the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue reception area we continued to take photos of the guests enjoying themselves. Luckily, we had set up two strobes to assist in lighting the reception area, which is not very big, but is very dark.

Here in South Africa there is still a tendency to have dark walls and ceilings which makes lighting an interesting challenge. Internationally the major tendency is towards light décor, walls and ceilings with up lighting which the more upper end venues here have followed suit on.

A suggestion from us to the wedding venue, would be to at least do some white drapes from the ceiling area.

Come dinner time we assisted in lighting up the carvery section as there was too little light for the guests to see what they are dishing up. The food was lovely and well presented. Just putting up some lights above the carvery section would help a great deal.

Couple Again

We were now able to take a few photos of the couple at the Kleinvallei Wedding Venue bonfire section, which does not normally happen at most venues. The fire light gives a nice touch of a golden glow to the couples faces.

We then took photos of the first dance, where the DJ was kind enough not to throw smoke onto the dance floor which can obscure getting any good photos of the couple.

Later on, we took photos of the cake cutting, Bouquet throwing and garter throwing. We found the lighting again a bit low to prevent easy focusing on the scene on the dance floor.

At this stage we packed up, bided the couple and some of the guest’s farewell, loaded all our equipment into the car with the rain pouring down again, and went home.

Once again thank you to the lovely married couple Christopher and Dominique Liddell’s for entrusting us with capturing their special day.