Some jobs feel like work. This one felt like coming home. When I was asked to photograph the first ever wedding held at Hylton Castle, I had to sit with it for a moment, because this was not just any heritage venue to me. It was a place stitched into my own childhood, here in Sunderland.
A castle from my childhood
I grew up in Redhouse, and the grounds of Hylton Castle were part of the backdrop of being a kid round here. I remember being told the old local legend of the Cauld Lad of Hylton, the ghost story that every Sunderland bairn seems to grow up half believing. The castle was always this grand, slightly mysterious thing in the distance, the sort of place you walk past a hundred times and never imagine you will one day be standing inside with a camera, capturing one of the biggest days of someone’s life.
So when the booking came in, it landed differently. I was not just turning up to a beautiful location. I was walking back into a piece of my own story.
The first wedding inside a restored landmark
Hylton Castle has been beautifully restored, and that restoration is a big deal. Photographers very rarely get permission to capture the inside of the building in its restored state, so to be invited in for the very first wedding ever held there felt genuinely special. There is something about being the first to document a space like that. No one had a reference for how the light would fall, how a couple would move through those rooms, how the old stone would frame two people promising the rest of their lives to each other.
Being the first means there is no template to copy. You read the room as it happens. You watch for the real, raw, simple moments that I love most, a held hand, a quiet laugh, a glance across a centuries old space, and you try to do justice to both the people and the place.
What it meant to me as a local photographer
I photograph weddings right across the North East, Yorkshire and Cumbria, and I have been lucky enough to work in some stunning places. But this one sits in a category of its own. It is rare that your work and your roots collide so neatly. The little girl who knew the ghost story of the Cauld Lad got to come back as the photographer trusted with the castle’s first ever wedding. That is not something I will forget.
It also reminded me why I do this. The best photographs are not really about grand venues at all. They are about people being honest in front of you. Hylton Castle just gave those honest moments an extraordinary place to live.
Marrying somewhere unique in the North East?
If you are planning your day somewhere with a bit of history and character, whether that is a restored landmark, an old hall or somewhere off the beaten track across the North East, Yorkshire or Cumbria, I would love to hear about it. Drop me a message and tell me your story. There is nothing I enjoy more than helping couples remember the real moments, simply and beautifully, in places that mean something.
