Wedding Venues

I have been leafing through the current Brides magazine with special interest in the ‘Top 100 Venues’ feature.

There are some exquisite looking houses and hotels up and down the country, as well as castles, gardens, barns and restaurants as possible places to tie the knot.
Many of the venues mentioned are familiar from visits as a member of English Heritage and the National Trust, many others remain on the list of places-I’ll-visit-when-I’m-next-in-that-neck-of-the-woods. Some are virtually on my doorstep but I haven’t quite made it there yet.

And then there are the ones that bring back many memories of beautiful weddings.

Mention of Amberley Castle transports me to a summer’s day almost ten years ago; a very romantic setting for a wedding.

Amberley Castle, West Sussex

On that occasion I drew the Bride getting ready with her best friends, and still recall what a delightful, astonishingly relaxed atmosphere surrounded us in the cosy room, complete with solid four-poster and a sense of the 900 year history of the castle with its drawbridge and portcullis.

Last year I had the great pleasure of drawing at a civil partnership at The Walled Garden at Cowdray, West Sussex.

The Walled Garden at Cowdray

If I were given to labelling weddings, this one would possibly have two tags: Cutest Couple and Fastest First Dance, a speedy charleston to ‘King of the Swingers’.

There was a good opportunity on that spring day to admire the Tudor walled garden which has been carefully restored in recent years in keeping with its history, and is next to the ruins of Cowdray House with its tale of a sixteenth century curse on the family ‘by fire and water’ the stuff of historical novels.

Finally in the list of ‘the top 100’ is a venue that will stay with me not just for its wonderful setting but because of the people involved.

South Farm, Cambridgeshire

South Farm is in the Cambridgeshire countryside and as well as its beautiful gardens it has a summer house and romany caravans where some of the guests were staying.

My favourite weddings are the ones where the couple, their friends and family add personal touches and really put themselves into the events of the day, and this wedding was pure joy, from a choir full of friends at the ceremony to the best first dance ever (the Bride singing ‘I am what I am’ then segueing into a nifty tap dance with her Groom).

Three very different venues and delightfully contrasting weddings.
Flicking through the pages of Brides top 100, some near, some far, classical, modern, grand, intimate, rural, chic, quirky, boutique, I find myself wondering – where next?!

sgodsill