Millie & Wynn: A Summer Wedding at Rousham House, Oxfordshire

Millie and Wynn got married on a summer’s day at a small village church, then went on to Rousham House for the rest of the day: drinks in the garden, dinner and speeches in a marquee on the lawn, and dancing until the light had gone completely.

The morning

Millie got ready in a house with a library, which is the right sort of place to get ready. At some point someone handed her a bottle of champagne next to the snooker table, and that set the tone for the day.

The rest of the morning was the usual business: hair, earrings, the veil, and the buttons down the back of the dress, which always take longer than anyone expects.

Wynn, meanwhile, was in a grey waistcoat and a dark green tie, and looked a lot calmer than most grooms do at that point in the day.

The church

Millie arrived in a white vintage Rolls-Royce. The church was small and stone, with a low arched porch, and it was full well before she got there.

Inside, it was the kind of old village church where everyone can hear everything, which is exactly what you want for the vows. I stay at the back and the sides for this part, without flash, and let the room do the work.

Afterwards everyone spilled out onto the lane, hats and all, while the car was brought round.

Rousham

Rousham is a Jacobean house above the River Cherwell, about twelve miles north of Oxford. It’s still the Cottrell-Dormer family’s home and takes only a few weddings a year, and it feels like it: the car pulls up on the gravel in front of the house, and there’s no sign telling you where the wedding is.

The garden is William Kent’s, laid out in the 1730s, and it’s the reason most people come. We went off through the walled garden first, which was full of summer planting, with Wynn in charge of the train so it didn’t drag through the borders.

Then out along the long walks to Praeneste, Kent’s stone arcade, and back past the water. I don’t move couples around much in a garden like this. There’s no need: walk them through it, and the views turn up behind them.

Back on the lawn, the bridesmaids got a few minutes of their own, which mostly involved spinning.

The marquee

Dinner was in a marquee on the lawn, with the tables named rather than numbered. One of them was Llyn y Fan Fach, a lake in the Brecon Beacons, which is the kind of detail I like finding.

The speeches were good, Wynn’s included. Then a man in a cowboy hat stood up with a guitar and sang, which is not something that happens at every wedding, and the marquee loved it.

The evening

As the light dropped, Millie and Wynn went back out to the front of the house for a few more photographs. Rousham’s stone goes warm in the evening, and from the middle of the lawn the house looks enormous. One of Millie’s friends got a minute with her beside Scheemakers’ lion, which has been attacking that horse since the 1740s.

Then the cake, the band and the dance floor, which filled up quickly and stayed full.

By the end, the marquee was the only lit thing on the lawn.

If you’re getting married at Rousham

It’s a family home first: Rousham takes only a few weddings a year, usually with a marquee on the lawn. There’s little accommodation on site, so plan early where guests will stay.

Leave time for the garden: Kent’s garden is the point of Rousham. Give yourselves at least half an hour for portraits, and ask the family which parts you can use on the day.

Check the garden rules: on ordinary visiting days the garden doesn’t admit children under 15 or dogs. Ask how that applies to your wedding before the invitations go out.

Light the marquee warmly: festoons, candles and lamps photograph far better than a tent lit from the ceiling, and they look better to everyone in it too.

There’s more about the house on my Rousham House wedding photographer page, more about the area on the Oxfordshire page, and the Lookbook has what I charge and what’s included.

A small church, a big garden, and a man in a cowboy hat.