There are venues where you photograph the couple and the building stays politely in the background. Old Thorns is not one of them.
A driftwood elephant the size of a car stands in reception. Beside it, a giraffe. Behind that, a wall of framed black and white photographs stacked floor to ceiling. Walk through to the ballroom and you’re under a mirror ball with art deco panelling and a chevron dance floor. Step outside and you’re on a terrace flanked by stone lions, looking across a championship golf course towards the South Downs.
It is a lot of venue. Which is exactly why I enjoy working here.
Where Old Thorns is, and why couples choose it
Old Thorns Hotel and Resort sits in Liphook, Hampshire, just north of Petersfield and a few minutes off the A3. The estate runs to around 400 acres of Hampshire countryside with views towards the South Downs National Park, and the golf course was designed by Peter Alliss.
For couples in my area, the location does a lot of work. It’s roughly half an hour from Chichester and Goodwood, five minutes from Haslemere, and straightforward from London and the south coast. Guests travelling from opposite directions can all get there without a two-hour drive, and with over 150 bedrooms plus self-catering apartments on site, most of them don’t need to drive home at all.
That last point matters more than couples expect. When guests stay over, the evening runs longer and looser. Nobody is watching the clock for a taxi. Some of the best frames I took at this wedding were after eleven.
The ceremony spaces
Old Thorns is licensed for civil ceremonies and has several rooms to choose from, which is unusual for a venue this size.
This couple married in the Hampshire Suite. It’s the room I’d point most couples towards if they want daylight in their ceremony photographs: exposed timber beams, exposed brick, and a wall of tall windows looking out across the course. The room came from the original farmhouse the resort grew up around, so it has bones the newer spaces don’t.
The alternatives are worth knowing about. The Walled Garden is an outdoor ceremony and drinks reception space for up to around 150. There’s an on-site chapel. And for larger weddings, the Grand Ballroom has a mahogany bar, a sunken dance floor and a stage with a starlit backdrop.
Between them, they cover almost any size and mood. Which is the real argument for a venue like this: you’re not making your wedding fit one room.
The morning
The groomsmen were outside the entrance in grey three-piece suits, purple ties, calla lily buttonholes, doing what groomsmen always do about forty minutes before a ceremony, which is stand around pretending they aren’t nervous.
Six bridesmaids in deep purple tulle with white lace bodices lined up along the balcony above the lobby. The bride came down past the driftwood giraffe on her dad’s arm, which is a sentence I’ve never written about any other wedding.
The ceremony
Vows in the Hampshire Suite with the windows behind them. I shoot ceremonies from the back and the sides rather than standing in the aisle, so what you get is the room as the guests saw it, plus the details nobody else notices. Held hands. A registrar’s paperwork on a white-clothed table. The groom’s face.
Then arms in the air, a full-room cheer, and confetti waiting outside.
Group photographs on the terrace
We did the formals on the terrace steps between the stone lions, with the balustrade and the course behind. Six bridesmaids, seven groomsmen and a large extended family, and it still took under twenty-five minutes.
That’s not a boast, it’s a practical point. Group photographs are the part of the day that overruns and eats into everyone’s drinks reception. The way to avoid it is a short list agreed in advance and one loud person from each family who knows who’s on it. I’ll walk you through this before the day.
Couple portraits across the estate
This is where Old Thorns earns its reputation for photographs.
We took a golf buggy out across the course to the lake, which has a fountain in the middle and willows along the far bank. Twenty minutes, no guests, no schedule. The buggy ride itself produced one of my favourite frames of the whole day, the two of them turning round in the back seat, half laughing at how ridiculous it was.
Back inside, we shot portraits by the driftwood elephant with the photograph wall running down the right-hand side. It’s a backdrop you won’t get anywhere else in Hampshire, and in a set of wedding images it’s the frame people stop on.
The variety is the point. Within twenty-five minutes we had open countryside, water, and a lobby that looks like a film set. Most venues give you one of those three.
The Gatsby Ballroom
Speeches happened under the mirror ball, with candelabras down the long tables, gold panelling on the walls and a guest in heart-shaped sunglasses in the second row.
The Gatsby Ballroom is beautiful and it is dark. Warm tungsten uplighting, black and white monochrome deco, and a huge glitterball throwing light in every direction except the one you want it. Rooms like this are where the difference between photographers stops being about taste and starts being about equipment.
I bring my own lighting to every wedding and I use it properly in these spaces: light shaped and angled so faces stay clean and the room still looks like itself. It’s the same reason I bring professional lighting into clients’ homes for newborn sessions. Control the light and you stop being at the mercy of the room.
First dance on the chevron floor, then the floor filled: parents dancing, bridesmaids in a huddle, someone in orange bunny ears. That’s the part of the night I shoot hardest.
Getting married at Old Thorns
A few things I’d tell any couple booking here.
Ask which room you’re in for the ceremony and go and stand in it at the time of day you’ll be marrying. The light is completely different across the spaces.
Build in twenty minutes for portraits somewhere on the estate. The buggy ride to the lake is worth the time and your coordinator will arrange it.
Consider the sunset. The course faces towards the Downs and late light across open ground is the best of the day. If your evening reception starts at seven, stepping out for ten minutes at half past eight will get you images you can’t get at any other point.
And book somewhere for guests to stay. It changes the evening.
Old Thorns wedding photography FAQs
Where is Old Thorns?
Liphook, Hampshire, GU30 7PE, off Longmoor Road at Griggs Green. It’s just north of Petersfield, close to the A3, with Liphook railway station nearby.
How many guests does Old Thorns hold?
The venue is licensed for civil ceremonies for large numbers across its rooms, with the Grand Ballroom taking the biggest receptions and the Hampshire Suite suited to smaller weddings. The Walled Garden seats around 150 for outdoor ceremonies.
Do you photograph weddings across Hampshire and West Sussex?
Yes. I’m based in Chichester and cover both counties, including Petersfield, Liphook, Midhurst, Arundel, Goodwood and the South Downs.
How do you photograph dark reception rooms?
With my own professional lighting, brought and set up for the space. The Gatsby Ballroom in particular needs it. Available light alone gives you orange faces and grain.
How far in advance should we book?
Saturdays in summer go twelve to eighteen months ahead. If you’ve set a date at Old Thorns, get in touch early.
Book an Old Thorns wedding photographer
I’m a wedding photographer based in Chichester, covering West Sussex and Hampshire, photographing weddings since 2006 with 78 five-star Google reviews.
If you’re getting married at Old Thorns, send me your date and I’ll tell you straight away whether I’m free.
