AdRIAN ANd PAUL
‘ We knew we wanted our day to be unique and special to us , with everything that represented us as a couple .’
I took on the majority of wedding planning , as it ’ s not really Paul ’ s thing , but luckily we were both very much in agreement on the type of wedding we wanted . It wouldn ’ t be in a church for a start , as neither of us are particularly religious – and we knew we it was going to be a considerable size as we have large circles of friends and family . We decided we wanted to only invite those that we see often and socialise with on a regular basis – family included – rather than those whom we only see once in ten years .
We also wanted the whole wedding – ceremony , wedding breakfast , evening reception and accommodation – all in one venue , so a hotel was the obvious choice . It was tricky finding a venue locally , as the majority of our friends had got married in the last few years and we didn ’ t want to choose the same place . We also knew we wanted to keep it fairly traditional , with just a few little twists to make it different .
We started looking at venues online that met the criteria we wanted – big enough to accommodate all our guests , not too far away from Leamington Spa ( preferably within an hour ’ s drive ) with accommodation available .
There was an image in our heads of the style of hotel – somewhere with nice large gardens for pictures , somewhere with character but not too old , and with modern furnishings .
We looked at about six places and finally fell in love with Cotswold House Hotel and Spa – a luxury grade-two listed townhouse in the heart of Chipping Campden in the beautiful Cotswolds . It ticked so many boxes for us ; we loved the quintessential English style of the market town with its gorgeous Cotswold stone buildings and the venue had large gardens at the rear of the hotel , a stunning variety of rooms and suites with steam showers and private hot tubs , and courtyards and gardens . We could also have different parts of the day taking place in different rooms , as we wanted .
We are both partial to a drink of two , so I came up with the idea of naming our wedding breakfast tables after our favourite drinks . We took it a step further by giving everyone a glass of the drink for the table they were sat on – Cosmopolitans , Malagousia white wine imported from Greece , Independent Warwickshire craft beers and more .
We also had our very own ale , Lloyd-Brown Wedding Brew , made especially for the day by our good friends at Church Farm Brewery , along with badges for the pumps . The guests loved it , as did we , and we even jumped behind the bar to pull a few pints of our own wedding ale .
We chose to have an autumn wedding in October , as the leaves changing colour look beautiful for photos . We were incredibly lucky to have sunshine and blue skies all day long ; it was actually just as warm as a summer ’ s day and guests were having to remove coats and jackets in the gardens and pull out their sunglasses .
We wanted the style of our ceremony to remain classic , yet modern , to fit with the venue . Flowers were tricky as neither of us is particularly green fingered and we didn ’ t want it to be to feminine . Luckily there was a florist just a few doors
34 » pink weddings magazine