A Summer Wedding at Hendall Manor Barns, Uckfield

K&T married at Hendall Manor Barns on the first of August, on one of those properly hot summer days where everyone spends most of the afternoon looking for shade and nobody quite believes they’re at a wedding in England.

They’d met on a dating app during the strange Covid years, so it felt particularly lovely to see them surrounded by all of their favourite people, with their dog Buddy naturally playing a fairly important role in proceedings too.

In fact, Buddy produced one of my favourite moments of the ceremony. He waited until the registrar had officially announced K&T as husband and wife and then, with impeccable timing, barked once into the silence. The whole room laughed. You couldn’t have planned it better if you tried.

The Stone Barn at Hendall Manor Barns

Hendall Manor Barns is tucked away in the East Sussex countryside near Uckfield, with the Stone Barn at the centre of the wedding day.

The split-level barn meant Katie and Tom could have their ceremony, dinner and evening celebrations all in one place without the day ever feeling static. Their guests moved between the different areas throughout the afternoon, spilling outside for drinks and coming back in for dinner before the whole space changed again once the dancing started.

I always love a venue where you can photograph a whole wedding without everyone constantly having to move from one place to another. It gives the day a much more relaxed rhythm and means people can just get on with enjoying themselves.

Green, White and Black

Katie and Tom kept the styling fresh and understated, with white flowers and lots of soft green foliage from Thistle and Twine Floristry running throughout the day. Full white hydrangeas, roses and looser stems gave the arrangements plenty of texture without feeling overly formal, while the black and white stationery and table details added a cleaner, more contemporary contrast.

Their two-tier cake from Hollies Little Bakery followed the same palette, with softly textured white icing, white roses and a little greenery. Against the old brick walls of the barn it looked simple but really beautiful, particularly in the light coming through the doorway.

They also had a live illustrator, Little Moo Live, sketching guests throughout the reception, which gave people something to gather around between drinks and dinner and meant they could take home something completely personal from the day.

Wedding Entertainment: Magician Matt Parro

For a bit of extra entertainment during the reception, Katie and Tom had magician Matt Parro performing close-up magic and mind-reading for their guests. He was brilliant, moving between groups and leaving people laughing in complete disbelief at what he was doing. At one point, he even managed to change the Wi-Fi name showing on guests’ phones, which caused exactly the level of confusion and amazement you’d imagine.

Portraits Around the Grounds

Before the reception properly got underway, we slipped away for a few portraits around Hendall Manor Barns.

One of my favourite spots was outside the owners’ private house, which has this incredible old stone façade with three sweeping arches, weathered columns and leaded windows above. It’s completely different to the barns themselves and gave us a much more architectural backdrop for the newlywed’s portraits. I loved the scale of it too, keeping them quite small within the frame and letting the building become part of the photograph rather than just somewhere for them to stand.

Later, once the light had softened a little, we headed further into the grounds towards the pond. It’s bordered by bullrushes, long grasses and flashes of purple wildflowers, with the stone barn sitting behind it, so it gave us a completely different feel again.

From there, we moved on to one of the huge old trees on the estate. The canopy filtered the light beautifully, so we slowed things down for some quieter portraits before changing the mood completely for our final stop.

The Tennis Court

And then there was the tennis court.The owners very kindly let us use their private court, and I knew immediately that I wanted to do something a little different there. Against all the old stone, wild planting and soft countryside around Hendall, the clean lines and green surface felt almost graphic by comparison.

K&T walked and ran around the court, moved either side of the net and generally let me play with the space rather than treating it like somewhere we needed to take a conventional wedding portrait. The result feels much closer to a fashion editorial, but still completely relaxed and like them.

Wedding portraits don’t always need a sweeping field or a sunset. Sometimes a tennis net and a pair of newlyweds willing to humour their photographer are considerably more fun!

Speeches Before Dinner

Katie’s stepfather gave the speech before dinner and managed to get that perfect balance of making everybody laugh while also catching more than a few people off guard emotionally. There were guests wiping their eyes while still laughing, which is generally a pretty good indication that someone’s nailed a wedding speech.

It also suited the whole atmosphere of the day. Nothing felt overly formal or stiff. It was warm, funny and very much about the people in the room.

Into the Evening

By the evening, everyone had made their way back into the Stone Barn for the happy couple’s first dance and the start of the party.

Their first dance ended with Tom lifting Katie straight off the floor, completely unplanned and all the better for it. It was exactly the sort of moment I love photographing because nobody’s thinking about what they look like or where the camera is. They’re just in it.

And after a day of beautiful styling, dogs with exceptional comic timing, very hot sunshine, tennis courts, lovely speeches and lots of people who were clearly delighted to be there, it felt like a pretty perfect way to finish.

Katie and Tom were married on 1st August 2026 at Hendall Manor Barns, Uckfield, East Sussex. Their wedding was photographed digitally, with Frame by MA as lead photographer and me as second shooter. All images featured on this page were photographed and edited by me.