A sunlit day at Castle Durrow

Kellie and John got the weather. Anyone who has planned an Irish wedding knows how much luck that involves, and at Castle Durrow it changes the day completely, because the front of the house faces a wide lawn with nothing to interrupt it. On a grey day that lawn is a nice space. In sunshine it becomes the best room at the venue.

The house sits in the village of Durrow in County Laois, which is worth knowing when you are planning travel. Guests are not driving down a long private avenue in the dark at the end of the night, and that has a habit of keeping people at the party later than they intended.

Some venues need to be worked around. This one mostly needs to be pointed at.

The elevation does the work

The front of the house is symmetrical and generous, and it gives us something most venues cannot: a single wide shot that establishes the entire wedding in one frame. We use it at the start of a film and often at the end, and it means we spend less time hunting for context and more time on people.

The flip side is that a building this handsome tempts everyone into standing in front of it and posing. Get your one or two proper photographs of that, then go and do something else. The footage that lasts is you walking and talking, not you arranged.

Inside, and the light in the afternoon

The reception rooms have tall sash windows on the front elevation, so through the afternoon there is directional light coming in without us adding anything. Speeches in that light are lovely. If you have any say over the seating plan, ask to be positioned so the light is coming across you rather than from behind, and your speeches footage will be noticeably better.

Worth planning for

• Claim the lawn for the drinks reception. If the forecast allows it at all, be outside. The front of the house is the reason to book this venue and the reception is when you get to use it.
• Keep one slot free late in the evening. Ten minutes outside once the light drops gives the film an ending. It is the single most useful thing you can put in a timeline.
• Do not schedule portraits at noon. Overhead midday sun is the one condition this house does not love. Mid afternoon or evening is far kinder.

Castle Durrow is a straightforward venue to film well, which is not a small compliment. Plenty of beautiful buildings fight the camera. This one does not.