The best photographs from Susie and Chris’s wedding were taken after the speeches were over.

Not before dinner, which is when couple portraits normally happen, and not in the afternoon, which is when we did the proper session. At four minutes past eight in the evening, with the last speech finished and the band not yet on, the two of them walked out the back door of Knightsbrook and onto the golf course, and were gone for thirty five minutes. That half hour is the whole argument for a June wedding, and it is the thing I would tell anyone looking at this venue.

Bridal gown hanging beside blush bridesmaid dresses on personalised wooden hangers, with a flower girl dress and floral crown at the end
Named hangers, which meant nobody spent the morning asking whose was whose

The Morning

The morning ran across a couple of bedrooms upstairs, and the thing worth knowing about Knightsbrook’s rooms is that a lot of them have balconies looking straight out over the golf course. That changes the shape of a wedding morning more than it sounds like it should.

Close up of white Air Force 1 trainers with pearl detailing beside a gold necklace in its box, pink peonies and dried pampas
Trainers, not heels, and decided long before the day

Bridal bouquets in peonies, dried grasses and pampas laid in a row along a cream balcony rail

Those bouquets are photographed on the balcony rail because that is where the light was. Nothing else in the room came close. If you are getting ready in a hotel and there is any kind of outdoor step, balcony or window ledge attached to the room, that is where your flowers and your shoes should be photographed, and it takes about ninety seconds.

Groom in a light blue check three piece suit raising a whiskey with four groomsmen in navy

Bottle of Jameson Black Barrel with tartan hip flasks, a golf flask and two wooden ring boxes on a dresser
Whiskey, hip flasks, a golf flask and the rings, all in one corner of a dresser

The groom’s side of a wedding morning is usually thin to photograph, because five men putting on suits is five versions of the same picture. What saves it is objects. Susie and Chris had gathered the whiskey, the flasks and the rings into one corner of a dresser without meaning to, and that is a photograph. If you are buying gifts for your groomsmen, keep them together in the room rather than handing them out at the door.

Bridesmaid in blush sequins crouching to lace white trainers onto the bride beneath her gown

Bridesmaid in blush sequins and a flower girl in a floral crown laughing on the balcony above the golf course

Bride in an off the shoulder lace gown and long veil on the bedroom balcony with the golf course and lake behind her
Twenty to two, on the balcony, twelve steps from where she got dressed

That photograph was taken twelve steps from where she got dressed. On a lot of hotel weddings the bride’s first full length portrait has to wait until after the ceremony, because there is nowhere to take it. Here it happened before anyone went downstairs.

Bride pinning a buttonhole onto her father’s bright blue suit while her mother watches

The Ceremony

The ceremony was in the ballroom, on the dance floor end of it, against a white draped wall with a swagged pelmet. Chiavari chairs, a white runner down the middle of the wooden floor, lanterns along both edges and petals scattered on it.

Navy braided handfasting cord with Celtic knots laid in the shape of a heart beside a booklet reading Chris and Susie’s Wedding Vows
The cord, photographed before anybody needed it

Flower girl in blush walking the white aisle runner between rows of lanterns and chiavari chairs

Bride walking down the aisle on her father’s arm, guests standing on both sides
Eighteen minutes past two

Groom wiping his eye as the bride reaches the top of the aisle

That is the whole reason a second photographer earns their fee. Everyone in the room was looking at the bride. Somebody has to be looking the other way.

Celebrant in green binding the couple’s hands with the navy braided cord
The handfasting, and the reason the cord was worth photographing earlier

Bride and groom kissing at the top of the aisle as the room applauds
Married, at about a quarter to three

Bride and groom walking back down the aisle between lanterns as guests applaud

One practical note about this room, and it applies to any hotel ballroom used for a ceremony. There is no daylight in it. Every photograph above was lit by chandeliers, uplighters and whatever I brought. That sounds like a disadvantage and on the day it is a mild one, but it has an enormous benefit later, which I will come back to.

The Long Middle

Then came the part of the day that couples worry about most at a one room venue, and it is worth being straight about it.

The ceremony ended at about ten to three. Dinner was called at half five. That is two and a half hours of drinks reception, and it is not a scheduling error, it is the price of holding your ceremony and your dinner in the same room. The staff need that window to strip the chairs, lay the tables and turn the whole thing around.

The mistake is to treat those hours as a gap. Here is what filled them.

Full bridal party of bridesmaids in blush and groomsmen in navy on the lawn, the bride’s veil laid out on the grass
Four o'clock on the lawn, with the group photographs done in one run

Groomsmen lifting the groom horizontally off the ground on the lawn

Group photographs first, on the lawn behind the hotel, done in a single run while everybody was still in one place and the bar had only been open an hour. Then the two of them, out onto the course.

The Golf Course

Bride and groom by the lake with the veil spread out across the fairway behind her
The lake edge, which is the only place here with enough clear grass for a veil that long

The golf course is the reason to book Knightsbrook, and I would say that to anyone comparing it against the country houses in this part of Meath. It is not a garden, it is not a walled courtyard, and it does not photograph like either. What it gives you is space, water and mature trees, all of it starting at the back door.

Bride and groom walking hand in hand across a timber bridge over the water on the golf course
The bridge, which is the best twenty metres on the property

There are four settings out there and they are all within a few minutes of each other: the lake with the willows behind it, the timber bridge over the water, the open fairway with the old trees on the far side, and a lily pond further out. No car, no coats, no negotiation.

Bride and groom leaning together beside the pond, her veil stretched out on the grass beside them

Twenty five minutes covered all of it, and we were back inside well before dinner was called.

The Ballroom

Bride and groom seated in carved wooden throne chairs at the top table with two model houses carrying balloon clusters in front of them
Two houses, two balloon clusters, and no other theme anywhere in the room

Look at what is on that table. Two small model houses with clusters of balloons tied to them, one at each end. That is the entire theme of this wedding, and it is the smartest decorating decision anybody made.

Single tier cake with a cluster of coloured sugar balloons and a Mr and Mrs Hughes topper on a mirrored stand surrounded by rainbow iced cupcakes
Cut at ten to five, before dinner rather than after

The balloons carry through to the cake and the cupcakes and that is where it stops. There are no signs about adventure, no printed quotes, no bunting. It is two objects and a colour, and because it is restrained it reads as personal rather than as a Pinterest board. If you are tempted to theme a wedding, take this as the model: pick one object, put it where people will actually look at it, and leave the rest of the room alone.

The cake was cut at ten to five, in an empty room, before dinner. That is worth copying too. A cake cut after dessert happens in front of two hundred people with their phones up and takes twenty minutes to organise. This took four.

Guests waving white napkins above their heads as the couple enter the ballroom
Half five, and the room had been turned around behind us

Best man speaking at the top table in front of the fairy light backdrop, the couple seated in the throne chairs

That white drape behind the top table is the same wall they were married in front of three hours earlier. The venue added a fairy light curtain over it and moved the chairs. One backdrop, two jobs, and it is a genuinely good one in both roles.

Half Eight on the Golf Course

The speeches finished at three minutes past eight.

Bride and groom on the timber bridge at golden hour, the low sun coming through the trees behind them
Twenty to nine, and the sun still well over an hour off setting

Sunset in Trim in the middle of June is just before ten. What that means in practice is that when the last speech ended, there was still the better part of two hours of daylight outside, and it was the best light of the entire day. Low, sideways, coming through the trees at the far end of the bridge rather than down over the top of them.

Bride and groom on the path beside the lily pond in the evening, her gown catching the low light
Out past the lake, on the last few minutes of the session

We were outside from four minutes past eight until twenty to nine. Nobody missed us. The tea and coffee were going round, half the room was at the bar, and the band had not set up. The couple came back in, sat down, and the evening started properly forty minutes later.

The Night

Bride and groom in the middle of the dance floor for the first dance, guests standing in a ring around them
Twenty past nine, on the same floor they were married on

Bride dancing in a ring of guests under coloured lights, her dress lit blue and pink

Planning a Wedding at Knightsbrook Hotel

That is the day. Here is the useful part, for anyone weighing this venue up rather than just looking at the photographs.

June Gives You Two Golden Hours

This is the real lesson from this wedding and it costs nothing.

At most Irish weddings there is one window for couple portraits, and it sits somewhere between the group photographs and dinner. You get it or you do not. In October it is genuinely tight. In December you are photographing in the dark by four.

In mid June, sunset is just before ten. The consequence is not that you have more time in the afternoon, it is that you get a completely separate second window, after the speeches, in better light than the first one. Susie and Chris used both. The half four session on the course gave us the bridge and the lake in flat, easy afternoon light. The half eight session gave us the sun itself.

If you are booking a June or July date, ask your photographer to hold thirty minutes after the speeches rather than trying to squeeze everything in before dinner. It is the only time in the day when nothing else is happening, and it is the only time you will get that light.

The Windowless Ballroom Is Why It Works

Here is the part people get backwards. A ballroom with no daylight sounds like a compromise, and for the ceremony it is a small one. But it also means the room looks identical at three in the afternoon and at eleven at night.

That decoupling is what makes the eight o’clock exit possible. At a venue with a glazed reception room, walking out at half eight leaves the room changing behind you and the coverage inside it inconsistent. Here the room is a fixed set. You can leave it for forty minutes and walk back into exactly the photograph you left.

The Golf Course Is the Portrait Location, and It Starts at the Door

Every portrait in this post was taken between the back door and the far side of the lake.

That matters more than variety. At a venue where portraits mean a drive, the session has to be scheduled in advance and then defended against a running order that is already slipping. Here it can happen whenever a gap appears, which in practice means it happens twice and in better light both times.

One practical note: tell the venue what time you are going out. Golfers were playing while we worked and it was completely fine, but a group photograph of twenty people is not something you want to be arranging on a fairway that somebody is about to drive down.

Trim Castle Is Ten Minutes Away and You Do Not Need It

I will be honest about this because most venue write-ups will not be. Knightsbrook’s proximity to Trim Castle gets mentioned in every list of Meath wedding venues, including ours, and it is a genuinely spectacular thing to photograph.

This wedding did not go near it, and the photographs do not suffer for it. If you want the castle walls and the Boyne in your album, budget forty minutes and a car for it and treat it as a separate excursion. If you would rather stay with your guests, the course does the job on its own. Do not book Knightsbrook for the castle and then find you never had a spare forty minutes.

Plan the Two and a Half Hours, Do Not Fear Them

A one room venue means a long drinks reception, because the staff have to flip the room while your guests are somewhere else. Two to three hours is normal and it is not a red flag.

What matters is what goes into it. Here it was: groups on the lawn straight away, couple portraits on the course, the cake cut early in an empty room, and a terrace with tables for the guests who wanted to sit. That is a full afternoon, not a gap. If you are shown a running order with a long drinks reception, do not try to shorten it. Fill it.

The Frame Worth Booking It For

The two of them on the timber bridge at half eight, with the sun coming through the trees behind them and the water underneath. It needed no car, no coat and no compromise on the running order, and it happened at a time of day most couples have already put their camera away.

Thinking About Knightsbrook?

If you want a venue where the ceremony, the dinner, the beds and the photographs all sit inside one set of grounds, and where the portrait location starts at the back door rather than twenty minutes down a road, Knightsbrook is worth the drive to Trim to see.

And if you are looking at a June date and wondering whether the long evening is worth anything: it is worth an entire second portrait session, taken in the best light of the day, at a point in the running order where nobody will miss you.

There is more on the county and the other venues worth seeing in it in the Meath wedding photography guide, and another Meath wedding, run very differently, in the Millhouse in Slane real wedding.

Have a look at wedding photography packages or get in touch and tell me about your day.