Osian & Jenny: A Garden Wedding at Eastington Park, Gloucestershire

Osian and Jenny got married at Eastington Park, a Georgian house in eight acres of gardens just outside Stonehouse, where the Cotswold edge drops down towards the Severn. It’s a house that looks like it belongs in a costume drama and behaves, on the day, like somewhere people actually live.

The house

Eastington Park is an eighteenth-century mansion, pale stone with tall sash windows, and the inside is all high ceilings, cornicing and a staircase that spirals up through the middle of the building like the inside of a shell. It rewards standing at the bottom and looking straight up.

Getting ready

Osian got ready in a dinner suit and a bow tie. There was the usual business with cufflinks and a best man close at hand.

Upstairs, the dress hung by the window until the last possible moment. Then the long, careful job of getting Jenny into it, one button at a time.

The ceremony in the garden

The ceremony was outside, in a white garden pavilion with the chairs set out on the lawn in front of it. Osian and his best man came out of the house together and stood by the door for a minute in the quiet before the guests arrived, which is one of my favourite photographs of the day.

Osian waited at the front. I watched him rather than the path, as I always do.

Jenny came down through the garden with the house behind her, which is about as good a setting for a walk down the aisle as you’ll find anywhere.

Outdoor civil ceremonies have a pleasing looseness about them. Birds, the odd breeze, guests squinting into the sun. Nobody minds, and it all ends up in the photographs.

Married

They came back up the aisle hand in hand between rows of guests, and then sat down to sign the register under the pavilion with the garden behind them.

If you’re getting married at Eastington Park

Use the house: The staircase, the hallway and the big sash windows are all worth time. Getting ready in the house gives you natural light and a lot of good backgrounds without leaving the building.

Think about the sun: Outdoor ceremonies in summer can mean bright overhead light. A ceremony time in the late afternoon gives softer light and fewer squinting guests.

Have a wet weather plan: The venue offers indoor and outdoor civil ceremonies, so ask early about the indoor option, just in case.

Leave time for the gardens: Eight acres is a lot of ground. Twenty minutes after the ceremony is enough for a few unhurried portraits away from everyone.

There’s more about my work around here on my Cotswolds wedding photographer page, and the Lookbook has what I charge and what’s included.

A spiral staircase, a garden pavilion, and two people who looked very at home in both.