Wedding Photographer in Hampshire

Lakeside International Hotel, Wedding Venue Review

Lakeside International Hotel

Wharf Road

Frimley Green

Camberley

Surrey

GU16 6JR

All wedding venue reviews are completely independent by Brian Parkes LSWPP, a specialist wedding photographer covering Surrey, Berkshire and Surrey.

Lakeside International Hotel is one of those venues with 'X' factor. It's a very large venue with areas to photograph both outside in it's own private grounds and indoors should weather be poor.

The grounds at Lakeside are well maintained and quite intensively landscaped, a nice feature of the grounds is that they are right on the edge of the lake, which makes for a very pleasant place for you and your guests to mingle and relax with a glass of Pimms between the service and wedding breakfast.

The grounds have great photographic potential, there are even hard paths with decent backgrounds that can be used to keep your feet dry and clean if we need to nip out between showers.

Indoors the venue is very large, while there definitely is space inside for your photographs should you have wet weather, you should consult with the venue to make sure a separate room can be made available for you should you need it for your group photographs.

For couple portraits indoors the stair case has a lot of photographic potential, both on the stairs themselves,  on top of the suspended walkway underneath the large dome, from the walkway looking down into reception and from the lobby looking up into the 'V' in the walkway with the dome above and behind the couple.

Lighting is a little tricky in parts of Lakeside International Hotel however, the hotel have opted for strong downlighter type Halogen spots rather than a softer ambient lights which if not managed carefully can create uneven pools of light and patchy colour casts. This can easily be overcome using powerful portable studio flash to overpower the  ambient light creating a more a more evenly spread light of consistent colour.

There are a number of rooms that can be used for your wedding breakfast, so far I have only photographed inside the Peninsula suite, which is lovely and light thanks to a bank of large windows overlooking the lake. The ceiling height and decor also make this a room very suitable for informal reportage photography, as a small hotshoe mounted flash bounced off the ceiling easily provides enough power to light an individual, small group or the speeches.

If you intend to use the Peninsula suite and have a receiving line outside, please be aware that there is a large display cabinet across one wall of the corridor leading in full of china dolls. This isn't the most attractive background as the display cabinets are lit, the dolls all very bright and of different colour, thus they really do tend to stand out! If you do not want this to show in your photographs than if possible I would suggest lining up with your backs against the opposite wall.

Downlights and dolls aside, Lakeside International Hotel is a great wedding venue suitable for both good and bad weather. There are a few technical photographic issues which can easily be overcome if expected and planned for and the huge size of this venue gives your wedding room to breath. Recommended.