Natalie and Kyle's Wedding at The Oakwood At Ryther

I love working at new venues, so when Natalie and Kyle booked me to film their wedding at The Oakwood at Ryther near Tadcaster in North Yorkshire, I was looking forward to finding out the best locations for filming and how the venue works on a wedding day.

Natalie and her bridesmaids spent the morning getting ready in the preparation room within the main house. It was a relaxed morning and my favourite moment was when Natalie and the girls gathered for shots from a ski board. The only way this works is if everyone works as a team to down their shots in one go and, unsurprisingly, this led to a few drops being spilt, plenty of laughs and a great moment I knew I would feature in the trailers and teasers when I edited the films.

Meanwhile, Kyle was downstairs in the kitchen putting on his suit and getting the final touches to his preparation. As I walked into the kitchen, it immediately became one of my favourite spaces within The Oakwood at Ryther. Surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows and bi-fold doors, natural light pours into the room, giving me beautiful light and shade to play with when shooting Kyle’s preparations. I would strongly recommend that one party uses this space for their wedding preparations. It’s a large area, filled with clean light, designed and styled beautifully, so it looks great as a backdrop. I would use this area for more relaxed, open preparations.

The laughter didn’t end with the preparations. The ceremony featured a surprise wedding ring delivery by an owl. However, as they say, never work with kids or animals. Rather than flying directly down the aisle, the owl seemed far more interested in staying with its handler and enjoying having a look around the wedding venue. After moving closer and closer to the best man, with plenty of laughter from the guests, the owl eventually decided to make the short hop across to the best man to deliver the rings.

UKRAINIAN TRADITIONS, VODKA SHOTS AND DANCING

Natalie is Ukrainian, so a number of traditional Ukrainian customs were woven into the wedding day, adding a deeply personal and cultural layer to the celebrations. One of the highlights of the ceremony was a live bandura player performing during the service. The bandura is a traditional Ukrainian stringed instrument that combines elements of a lute and a harp. It has deep historical ties to folk storytelling, poetry and national identity, making it a perfect instrument to celebrate Natalie’s wedding and her Ukrainian heritage.

Later in the day, Natalie and Kyle were introduced into the wedding breakfast following a traditional Ukrainian bread ceremony. This centres around the korovai, a large, ornately decorated ceremonial bread that symbolises prosperity, community and the eternal bond of marriage. The bread is traditionally blessed by parents, presented to the couple, and then shared with guests as part of the celebration.

Throughout the reception, guests repeatedly chanted “Hirko!”, a traditional Ukrainian custom meaning “bitter”. When called out, the couple are invited to kiss to “sweeten” the vodka and bring good luck to the marriage. This happened many times throughout the evening and quickly became a running theme of the reception.

To round off the day, there was a surprise performance by Podilya Ukrainian Ensemble just after the first dance, followed by an even bigger moment when Natalie herself joined in while wearing her wedding dress. The energy in the room completely shifted at that point, with guests erupting in celebration as the performance turned into a full dance floor moment.

HOW I EDITED NATALIE AND KYLE'S WEDDING FILM

Natalie and Kyle’s wedding day began calmly, with a quiet morning of preparation before gradually building in energy as the celebrations unfolded. I mirrored this natural progression in the edit, beginning with the florists creating the ceremony flower arrangements. These opening shots use tight detail and texture to immediately draw the viewer in, before transitioning into wider venue visuals to establish the setting.

To ground the story, I introduced Natalie and Kyle through their own voices, with Natalie speaking about Kyle, followed by Kyle speaking about Natalie. This audio-led introduction runs over the preparation footage, gently establishing both characters early in the film and allowing their personalities to guide the narrative that follows.

As the morning progressed, I gradually increased the pace of the edit. Natalie’s father delivered a heartfelt and humorous moment during his speech, which naturally lifted the tone before the ceremony. I then used the ceremony itself as a structural turning point, building towards the first kiss. From that moment, after the guests’ reaction, the film shifts into a noticeably faster rhythm.

This increase in pace was intentional. I like to structure my films so that they evolve in rhythm and energy, rather than maintaining a uniform pace throughout. If every shot holds the same duration, the emotional impact begins to flatten. To avoid this, I vary shot lengths and use a combination of wide, medium and tight framing to maintain visual interest and guide the viewer’s attention through each scene.

The confetti moment continues this momentum, naturally leading into the more energetic part of the day. At this stage, I intentionally leaned into faster cutting and more expressive reaction shots, reflecting the atmosphere of laughter, movement and celebration. I also placed family group shots beneath Natalie’s speech about her grandfather’s shed that Kyle had built, creating a deliberate contrast between spoken memory and present-day celebration. This interplay between audio and visuals is designed to reinforce how central family was to the day, and how connected all of these relationships are.

Later in the film, I focused on highlighting the Ukrainian cultural elements woven throughout the day, including the bandura player, the korovai ceremony and the traditional vodka toasts. These moments build naturally into the evening celebrations, culminating in the Ukrainian dance ensemble and Natalie’s surprise appearance in the performance. All of this is intercut with Kyle’s speech, which ends with a heartfelt promise to Natalie.

As the film approaches the three-minute mark, I return to the couple shoot at golden hour, using two sunset shots of Natalie and Kyle together to close out Kyle’s speech. It is a familiar cinematic device, but one that feels appropriate here as the film settles into a reflective ending. The soundtrack, licensed through Musicbed, is a subtle folk-inspired track that mirrors the live music from the day. It has a gentle build that supports the emotional arc of the edit without overpowering it, working with the pace of the edit.

With a party powered by Ukrainian vodka shots, insane live music and a party crowd, Natalie and Kyle’s wedding gave me a brilliant first visit to The Oakwood at Ryther.