Deer Park near Eckington in Worcestershire has been a venue I've worked at for pretty much as long as they've been doing weddings and I've been a photographer. Over my first years there, you'd get the occasional glimpse of a deer but I never really understood how it could call itself 'Deer' Park. It wasn't until around 2019 that I had an actual encounter with a deer. I was above the venue on the same hill that features in the images below, shooting into this biblical sunset and using off-camera flash, when this red deer stag wondered into the background, seemingly intrigued by what was happening. These days, the deer are a lot more used to people, and are fed in order to bring them to a convenient location (in fact the deer are so used to these interactions that if you're at the venue at sunset and making enough noise, you can draw the deer down yourself, with them expecting to be fed.)
For Emma and Richard's wedding (pictured here) we were on top of the hill waiting for what we hoped would be a fairly decent sunset, when the deer started getting a little too friendly. The thing to do with these particular deer, is to raise the palm of your hand to them, to show them that you have no food, and essentially to tell them that that's close enough. Of course, in the resulting image (main) it looks like Emma is using the Force to control the deer, and I don't mind that at all!
The word 'epic' gets thrown around a lot when it comes to weddings. I believe it's totally justified here.
Location: Deer Park Hall.
Keywords: Photographer-directed image (128).