Kirkstall Abbey Wedding Photos - Leeds

The above photo shows a photographer, bride and groom at Kirkstall Abbey, Kirkstall, Leeds.

Not being a wedding photographer I had never really given much thought to wedding photographs and where they might be taken. On the day I visited Kirkstall Abbey I spotted these 3 people and it took me a few seconds to realise what it was that they had been doing. Just as I turned a corner they were packing up a champagne bottle and glasses I guess perhaps the ceremony was at a registry office and that scene is not really romantic or scenic.

In the 18th century the The ‘picturesque’ movement in landscape painting made popular ruins in landscape paintings. The result of this was that Kirkstall Abbey then set in an almost rural setting with both woodland and a river provided inspiration for many artists including JMW Turner and Thomas Girtin. It would seem this tradition is still current but brought up to date with wedding photographer and digital camera.

One of the best known Yorkshire born novelists Charlotte Bronte the eldest of the three famous Bronte sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature once had ambitions to become an artist and in 1834 exhibited pencil drawings of both Bolton Abbey and Kirkstall Abbey both in Yorkshire.



The photo above shows another view of Kirkstall Abbey in Yorkshire. There are several ruined abbeys in Yorkshire but I cannot think of another quite so close to the heart of a major city like Leeds.