Daisy and Rhys, and a wedding with no seating plan
If the words “seating plan” already make your shoulders creep up round your ears, I hear you. For the lovely Daisy and Rhys’s wedding day, there wasn’t one. No place cards, no top table, no carefully negotiated seating politics. Just long tables outside a brewery, Greek BBQ, lots of daisies and everyone finding their own spot.
They planned their wedding day around ease, not tradition. And if you’re looking at a wedding venue in Sussex that lets you do the same, Beak Brewery Taproom at the foot of the cliffs just outside Lewes deserves your attention.
When Daisy first got in touch, she put it simply: “We’re hoping for a relaxed fun wedding. We want natural non-posing wedding photos and we really like your style.”
Daisy and Rhys also wanted analogue photography in the mix – always music to my ears. I shot a roll of 35mm colour film on the cult-classic camera the Olympus O-Product from 1988. Also Polaroids and Holga images.
Film slows things down too. There’s no reshooting something that’s already gone, no checking a screen. For two people who told me straight away they wanted natural, non-posed photography, that’s exactly the right tool – it forces everyone, including me, to just let the day happen.
If you love the idea of your own day photographed this way, I’ve put together a portfolio of analogue wedding photography so you can see how film, Polaroid and Holga work together across a full wedding day.
“Oh wow Lisa they are all so amazing, I’ve just had the best time going through them all.” – Daisy
CREATIVE TEAM
- Photography: Devlin Photos
- Hair & Make-Up: Ellie Nightingale
- Reception Venue: Beak Brewery Taproom
- Ceremony Venue: Southover Grange
- Film Dev + Scans: Chemistry Film Lab
Why Beak Brewery works so well for a relaxed wedding
Beak Brewery is one of those Sussex wedding venues that photographs beautifully precisely because it isn’t trying to. It’s industrial in the best sense – exposed structure, honest materials, nothing dressed up to look like something it’s not. For a couple who wanted their day to feel low-key rather than staged, that starting point does a lot of the work before I’ve even lifted a camera.
There’s an outdoor space that opens the whole thing up, which mattered here – Daisy and Rhys had their meal and first dance outside, long tables running the length of it, dressed simply with jam jars of daisies from Rhys’s dad’s garden and personalised coasters. Details like that photograph so much better than anything hired for the day, because they actually belong to the people who chose them.
Light-wise, the brewery gives you that lovely late-afternoon warmth without the harshness you sometimes get with a fully open site, and the industrial backdrop means portraits have real texture to them rather than sitting against a blank wall. For couples wanting a Sussex wedding venue with genuine character rather than a blank canvas, it earns its reputation.
