Gloster House Wedding Photography | Anna & Cormac
Some weddings are elegant and beautiful. Some weddings are wild and fun. Anna and Cormac's wedding was the perfect mix of both.
Gloster House is one of my very favourite places anyway, a gorgeous 300-year-old Georgian estate surrounded by landscaped gardens, woodland, lakes and terraced grounds that have been carefully restored while keeping all of their original grandeur intact. Think Pemberly without Mr Darcy’s haughtiness. In fact Gloster couldn’t be further from haughty. It’s a cozy family feel here, it literally is Nigel’s family home. When you book Gloster you get the whole house exclusively for the weekend to share with your family and your people and the feeling that this place belongs to you, at least for a little while. Nigel, who runs the venue with his family, has that lovely knack of making everything feel effortless (without you ever noticing all the work behind it) and making everyone feel welcome.
It was the perfect setting for Anna and Cormac, two warm, joyful people who met at UCD and seem to have been making everyone around them smile ever since if the way all their guests react to them is anything to go by! I was already very fond of them too from photographing their friends’ Rachel and Stephen’s wedding the summer before.
Getting Ready at Gloster House
The morning was split between the bridal suite and the piano room, Anna with her sisters and best friends as bridemaids and her mum Betty got ready in the bridal suite, Cormac and the lads just downstairs in the piano room. It was a hot June day, the kind that can feel like it belongs somewhere other than Ireland, and the bridal room had that warm, slightly chaotic energy of a morning where everyone is pitching in. There were squeels of joy, tears of joy, hugs of joy, you get the picture. This day is going to be joyful… and hot. The girls took turns fanning Anna's mum as she worked through every last button on the back of the dress. Anna herself had a few tears before she even made it to the ceremony, moved by thoughtful gifts from Cormac and from her girls and then just the sight of her dad dressed up and nervous for the walk down the aisle set poor Anna off again. Weddings are, by their very nature, emotional days in the life of a family and I find that the less the photography interferes the more all that beautiful, subtle, real human emotion emerges.
The Piano Room
The lads all got each other thoughful gifts too and Cormac also got plenty of hugs from his best friends and both dads. He got ready in the piano room so he was right beside the front hall as guests started arriving. The lads had bought him a good whiskey to settle the nerves, though he may be more of a Gin man if the “Gin club” table he’d set up for the guests is anything to go by. Either way nerves were settled and Cormac mingled happily with the arriving guests before the ceremony.
The Ceremony
By the time the ceremony came around, the Dublin Gospel Choir had taken over. If you've never had a gospel choir at your wedding, it is genuinely hard to explain what it does to a room. People were on their feet. They were singing. The energy was less "formal ceremony" and more "best Sunday mass of your life" (although it was still Saturday and not mass. It was a beautiful humanist ceremony incorporating some readings in Turkish in honour of Cormac’s mum’s heritage and his special guest Granny all the way from Turkey for the big event) . Anna and Cormac just smiled at each other the whole way through, sharing little looks at the emotional parts, sharing the giggles everywhere else. When they shared their first kiss, the crowd erupted. Cheering, laughing, completely on their feet. Celebrant Louise Burchall held the whole thing together beautifully.
The confetti exit that followed was exactly what Anna had hoped for. Joy, joy and more joy. This is one of those times it’s great to have a second photography. Aaron and I photographed this day together, Aaron on the balcony in case of events like this and me on the ground covering the action closer. With Aaron covering the aerial perspective, Anna and Cormac emerged into a cloud of flower petals surrounded by all 130 of their guests, colour everywhere, everyone cheering and clapping, the gospel choir at peek joy.
The “Formal” Photographs
The portraits happened somewhere in between the confetti chaos and the drinks reception kicking off, a quiet moment for just the two of them to wander the grounds together. Gloster does something to you when you slow down and actually look at it. God it’s really gorgeous, you could take photos there all day. But we didn’t. We took enough “formal” photos that Anna and Cormac had what they wanted: happy photos of their full families and their bridal party and some classic, natural looking portraits of the two of them against the beautiful backdrop of their venue. They wandered through the grounds laughing easily, chatting, completely at ease, enjoying a few minutes alone together. The portraits made themselves. Then we got them back to the parry before they could miss a thing!
Drinks Reception & Speeches
Classic Irish weather delivered both sunshine and rain across the afternoon, and the guests simply moved with it, spilling onto the terraces when the sun came out and drifting back inside when it didn't. Both spaces are equally beautiful and Gloster is a house that's made for exactly that kind of flow.
The speeches happened from the first-floor balcony inside, which gave us the chance to photograph the whole room from above: all the guests raising their glasses in unison, both dads, Cormac and best man Scott all doing their bit. I love the mix of laughter and nerves and little emotional side looks that speeches provide. They’re such “in the moment” photographs and I love piecing together people’s love stories from all the different snippets and anecdotes of the speeches. It never gets old.
Styling
A quick note on styling before things get wild! The dining room at Gloster House is gorgeous anyway, elegant and white and daylit from that beautiful conservatory which beutiful mirrors, plants and art on the walls. But Anna and Cormac styled it so so beautifully with colourful flowers, coloured candles, elegant little Turkish ornaments for each guest and simple elegant table signs (each a favourite hangout spot from their many years together). Look how happy they looked when Nigel brought them in to see it! The cutest!
Dining & dancing (or should I say “dining while dancing”)
The catering is always great at Gloster but honestly that night I don’t know if anyone ate any dinner. Party time hit at 5.30 and hit hard. The Event Band led everyone to the dining room and then played through dinner and everything tipped over into something much wilder than a typical wedding meal. Anna and Cormac were up dancing between the tables. People were dancing on their chairs and singing with the band. By the time candles were in the air and the top table was standing on their seats waving them around, it was hard to say exactly where dinner ended and the party began. That's probably the highest compliment you can pay a wedding. I’ve been telling everyone I meet about the Event Band ever since.
It was a brilliant day. The kind that stays with you.
The First Dance (lol! They’ve been dancing since 5.30)
Dinner had to end but the party didn’t. The Event Band led everyone seamlessly into the now transformed White Room for the “first dance”, just another chance for everyone to cheer loudly for Anna and Cormac really before hitting the dancefloor for the night.
Thank You Anna & Cormac
This was the kind of day you remember.
Vendors who helped make this day so beautiful:
Venue: Gloster House, Co. Offaly Ceremony Music: Dublin Gospel Choir Band: The Event Band DJ: The Event Band Videographer: Sharon Coffey, Platinum Dress: Sharon Hoey Florist: Irish Flower Farmer Hair: Matthew Feeny Makeup: Adrianna Dryniewicz Celebrant: Louise Burchall Photography: Annie Kheffache & Aaron Daly, Kheffache Studios
In Anna & Cormac’s words
“We ADORE our photos! There’s so much joy, fun and laughter! Annie was a joy to work with from the very beginning. She made us feel completely at ease, and she was always available to answer any of our questions in the lead-up. On the day, she was like a fly on the wall and somehow captured all of our special and intimate moments. She has a fantastic eye for detail and really helped us to get exactly the photos we wanted, whilst always allowing us the space to enjoy our day. You can feel the energy from the photos and they don't feel staged. Annie was able to turn the photos around really quickly after the wedding day, and we've loved looking at them ever since!”