Review of Hedsor House, Buckinghamshire wedding venue

Review of Hedsor House.

First of all, to be clear this is not going to be a standard wedding venue review. This will be from the videographer’s perspective, and will not be covering the cost, capacity or customer service of the venue.   In this review will be talking through what it was like to film here and what you can expect from your wedding videographer, and therefore in turn your wedding video at this venue. The aim of this is for couples planning a wedding to get the best out of their wedding videoography, whoever you hire for as your videographer.

Hedsor House is a stone’s throw from Heathrow airport, set in the Buckinghamshire countryside and has been the backdrop of both TV shows and Hollywood films. This really must be one of Buckinghamshire’s premier wedding venues. Initial impressions as you arrive are the size of the place and the privacy it offers. Set within acres and acres of its own grounds, you have space, solitude and best of all from filmmaker’s perspective no major roads, traffic or public passing by. The only ‘disturbance’ and I use this term extremely lightly is that is under the Heathrow flight path, but the noise is negligible.

The main House itself is impressive without being overly grandiose. With plenty of space and no general public walking in front of camera you have the opportunity to get some beautiful establishing shots. We love these shots as videographers, but surely as bride and groom, if you’ve gone to the expense of hiring such a gorgeous setting for your big day you also want this captured? If you can’t be proud and slightly boastful on your wedding day when can you be?

From the grounds around the house this venue allows for great examples of one of my favourite shots, the wide time-lapse shot. The stunning effect you get of sped up motion showing the clouds soaring over an impactful building. We were lucky to have blue skies and white fluffy clouds in August which really added to the effect. These shots make either a great opening to any wedding video or a bridge between an opening montage and the ceremony.

As I’ve just said, we had great weather on the day we were there, therefore we had the luxury of having the ceremony, well in this case the Nikah, (Muslim religious ceremony) outside. The actual civil service was then held inside after, but we’ll come on to that. The outdoor space was fantastic, with the house as a great backdrop. The only thing to look out for as mentioned earlier is the occasional plane flying over, but as with all weddings let alone outdoor ones, microphones on the bride and groom are essential.

After the ceremony, there were plenty of grounds for the bride and groom to escape away for 20 mins with the photographer to get some intimate private shots as a newly married couple. We went and used a newly planted wood down by a small wooden gazebo as the light was perfect coming through the trees. But if the light wasn’t great on your day I probably wouldn’t recommend that as the trees were still staked, and therefore it wasn’t overly beautiful. Instead I would recommend the gardens out to the right hand side of the main house with the ponds, due to the lovely flower beds and hanging garden.

The interior of the building is just as ornate as the exterior views are grand, and there is plethora of opportunities for picturesque or elaborate shots. There is a majestic sweeping stair case, numerous balconies overlooking the main hall and large mirrors; this place really provides for the whole repertoire of artsy cinematic wedding shots. All in all on the day we used 4 internal and 3 external locations, including the grand dining room and the majestic main hall for the civil ceremony, plus there are further reception rooms. The couple also had full use of the Bridal suite and adjoining rooms. The bridal suite had dual aspect windows letting in tonnes of light to get those great getting ready shots, having a cheeky glass of champagne with your bridesmaids and of course making sure the capture the beautiful wedding dress.

Ok then, so the highlights. The place, the views and the space. The additional reception rooms are great for allowing your guests to spread out in the evening. There are great spaces for setting up a photo booth, and for filming a wedding video guest-book. This venue has everything you need to provide the perfect back drop for a stunning HD wedding DVD.

So what were the draw backs? If you have a larger than average amount of guests the main hall might be a little tight. The space for guests is fine, especially as there’s a gallery balcony, but once they’d set up the registrar’s table it was a little cramped filming from the front. So I would recommend in this case you would need two camera operators. One to film from the front left, over the grooms shoulder getting a great shot of the bride, and then one from behind.

All in all a breathtaking venue, and although our one camera full day package produced a beautiful video of the day, this is a venue that would truly benefit from our 2 camera deluxe package. When looking to hire a wedding videographer for Hedsor house, make sure your videographer has plenty of time to capture this entire fantastic venue, to produce a stunning cinematic wedding video.

By Filmmakers of London – London Wedding videographer