Autumn at River Cottage – Natural, Organic and Seasonal Wedding Inspiration

In our second of two beautifully inspiring photoshoots we’re sharing today, we’re escorting you to the natural surroundings of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage.

River Cottage has made several previous appearances on Love My Dress, it’s location and setting provide the most beautifully earthy and organic backdrop not just for a photoshoot of this kind, but a wedding too (River Cottage is available for hire as a wedding venue – take a look at these beautiful River Cottage weddings we’ve shared already).

The photographer behind these images is also well known to Love My Dress because we adore her work. She is Jo Bradbury, who tells us more below…

“The iconic River Cottage was the latest location in a series of ‘Styled Shoots with Nicola Dixon, these organised styled shoots are a wonderful way for photographers to do shoots, Nicola organises and curates everything and composes a stellar line up of venues and suppliers. We just turn up with our cameras and photograph the beautiful bounty arranged before us.”

Photography by Jo Bradbury

“River Cottage is a wedding photographers dream location, and to have the opportunity to work there in Autumn, when the garden is resplendent with produce and flowers was just too good to miss. It really was like visiting an old friend, the iconic kitchen and dining room, everything lived up to my expectations and nothing was too much trouble for the staff working around us”“The autumnal hued florals from Firenza Floral Design were out of this world. Fiona put together a beautiful array of floral installations which included two stunning bouquets, using deep plum coloured dahlias, golden Amaranthus, rusty coloured sunflowers and whispy grasses. Sarah from Styling Farm was on hand to style the beautiful table and settings, here are her thoughts on the shoot.”

“I am a huge follower of the seasons and love playing and creating with natural and organic materials. For this shoot I was entirely led by the deep and luscious autumnal flowers and deep that Fiona of Firenza Flowers chose to use and worked with various elements to compliment this.”

“I wanted to keep the 2017 love for mixed metallics alive whilst adding a level of maturity so kept to vintage brass candlesticks and tableware. Simple earthen ware crockery completed this look which was then lifted with sumptuous blousy textiles from Kate Cullen. I love the use of texture in a table scape and am a huge fan of using fruit and food to bring dishes to life and those juicy golden raspberries fresh from the RC garden worked perfectly.”

“Finally, I think if I can find a good chair for a shoot it needs to be used. They dress so well and provide a great tool for posing bride and groom both formally and informally. In this instance a simple earthy pot of beautiful British flowers provided by Fiona was the only accompaniment needed.”