Lucy and Will’s New Year’s Eve Wedding at St Pierre

Lucy and Will celebrated their wedding at St Pierre Country Club in Chepstow on New Year’s Eve 2025. It was a proper winter wedding, with black-tie style, glowing Christmas trees, live strings, beautiful stone backdrops and a dance floor ready to take everyone into the new year.

What I remember most is how much fun everyone had. The day looked elegant, but it never felt overly formal. Lucy and Will wanted to enjoy their wedding with the people they love. That suited my relaxed, natural approach to wedding photography, with short portraits and plenty of attention on the real laughter, reactions and chaos happening around them.

A winter wedding at St Pierre

St Pierre suits a winter wedding brilliantly. The historic stone buildings give you character outside, while the warm lights, decorated trees and bright reception rooms make the venue feel welcoming when the December daylight disappears early.

Lucy and Will chose a clean white and green look for the room, finished with black details that worked perfectly for New Year’s Eve. The white flowers, candlelight and frosted Christmas trees looked smart without losing that relaxed wedding atmosphere.

One photograph with everyone in it

Before the light disappeared, we brought everybody together outside St Pierre for one huge group photograph. It takes a little organising, but it is always worth it. Seeing nearly every guest together in front of the venue gives Lucy and Will a brilliant record of who shared the day with them.

We then moved quickly through the closest family groups and wedding party photographs. I keep this part organised and straightforward so nobody is left standing around for ages.

Relaxed winter portraits around the grounds

Winter weddings give you less daylight, so timing matters. We took a short walk around St Pierre’s grounds while there was still enough soft light to work with. The bare trees, long driveway and stone arches gave the photographs a completely different feel from a summer wedding.

There was no hour-long photoshoot and no complicated posing. I gave Lucy and Will a little direction, let them walk, talk and enjoy a few minutes together, then got them back to their guests. It’s a wedding, not a photoshoot.

Speeches full of reactions

The speeches gave me exactly the sort of photographs I look for: people laughing before the punchline had even finished, guests raising their glasses and Lucy and Will reacting naturally at the top table.

These moments are why I keep watching the room rather than only photographing whoever has the microphone. Often the best photograph is the reaction happening a few feet away.

Night portraits beneath St Pierre’s stone arches

Once it was dark, we stepped outside again for a few quick night portraits. St Pierre’s stonework looks brilliant after dark, especially beneath the blue-lit archway. These photographs only took a few minutes, but they gave Lucy and Will something dramatic to sit alongside the softer portraits from earlier in the day.

Champagne beneath the illuminated archway

We finished the night portraits with one photograph that could only really belong to a New Year’s Eve wedding. Lucy and Will opened bottles of champagne beneath St Pierre’s blue-lit stone archway and let the spray go everywhere.

It was energetic, messy and completely worth it. The champagne caught the light around them and created one of my favourite photographs from the whole wedding.

Cake cutting, first dance and a packed dance floor

Lucy and Will cut their cake in front of glowing white Christmas trees before taking to the dance floor. Their illuminated initials made a brilliant backdrop, and it did not take long for their guests to join them.

From that point, the party properly took off. The dance floor was full, the sunglasses appeared and everyone threw themselves into the evening. New Year’s Eve weddings come with their own energy, and this one had plenty of it.

What happened when I gave a bridesmaid my spare camera

After the speeches, I tried something I had never planned into the timetable. I handed one of my spare cameras to a bridesmaid and told her to photograph the party from her point of view until the end of the night.

The results were hilarious.

Guests leaned straight into the lens, friends grabbed each other for photographs and people who might normally avoid the photographer were suddenly performing for someone they knew. The pictures were not polished in the traditional sense, but that is exactly why they worked. They felt like being right in the middle of the party.

I still photographed the evening properly, but those guest-camera pictures added another side to Lucy and Will’s story. They are funny, slightly chaotic and completely honest, which is a pretty accurate description of a great New Year’s Eve dance floor.

More moments from Lucy and Will’s St Pierre wedding

Planning a winter wedding at St Pierre?

Winter weddings at St Pierre offer plenty of variety, from the historic stone exterior and tree-lined grounds to warm indoor spaces and dramatic portraits after dark. The key is keeping the photography organised around the available daylight without letting it take over the day.

If you want natural photographs without spending hours posing, explore my complete St Pierre wedding photographer guide. You can also view my wedding photography and film collections, browse more South Wales wedding venues or contact me to check your wedding date.