Married at Millbridge – A&A
01 / 12 / 23
The warm, sunny days seem like a distant memory after the frosts and teeniest sprinkling of snow we had yesterday! But as we cosy up by the log burner with a cup of hot chocolate for the next few months, we just had to share details of Alex and Alex’s August celebrations to take us back to those summer evenings.
Tell us a bit about yourselves – how did you meet and what’s the proposal story?
We met at New Year’s Eve party 12 years ago when we were both at school – for the proposal, we went on a long weekend for Lex’s birthday back in March last year to Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds. The proposal wasn’t without a few attempts – the initial plan was to propose to her whilst on an early Sunday morning walk but the opportunity didn’t arise, and after an activity packed day, I eventually popped out the ring and the question whilst we were enjoying a bottle of champagne on the terrace of our Airbnb before dinner!
Why did you choose Millbridge Court?
Millbridge Court was the first venue we looked at in person and we fell in love with it straight away. We weren’t really interested in a traditional wedding in a Church and whilst we both loved the barn style, we also wanted something with a modern touch.
From the outside, Millbridge is quite understated – it looks like an extremely well presented house from the road. However, once you walk down the steps into the main area, you’re struck by the most amazing layout – two wings with extremely high ceilings and enormous glass windows that really fill the venue with light. The flow of the wedding venue also works incredible well and with a summer wedding in mind, we absolutely fell in love with the outside courtyard, garden and ceremony area!
We did see a number of other venues (predominantly in the Cotswolds following our engagement) but none of them could match the wow factor that we experienced when first visiting Millbridge
What did you love about having a summer wedding?
We loved the idea of having a summer wedding as we felt we could really utilise all the amazing space that Millbridge has to offer – the main building and the outdoors areas allowed the wedding day to flow so naturally. The ceremony area in garden was also a special place to get to say our vows, and we received so many compliments about how stunning the ceremony was.
Aside from the venue, it goes without saying that we both love summer and so having the opportunity to celebrate our day with family and close friends in the sun outside with some Aperol Spritz seemed like the perfect situation!
Tell us more about your suppliers and why you chose them.
As soon as we came across Eloise & Mitch’s Instagram and website (including their portfolios) with their natural and candid style, we immediately knew that we wanted to have them photograph our wedding and we feel incredibly lucky that they were available! The way Eloise captures photos is so special – she is so incredibly talented and made us feel so comfortable. We absolutely cherish the memories that she has been able to capture for us and will continue to do so – we’ve received so many comments on our photos and how she interacted with our guests, and we will definitely be using her again when an opportunity arises!
We chose Adam Sayer (London Piano Man) as our musician after being invited to a close friend’s wedding the previous year and watching him perform his sets there. He just knew how to read the room and what to play to get the guests up on the dance floor, which is exactly what we wanted for our wedding! During his sets, he also welcomes loads of song requests from guests and is able to play them flawlessly!
For our wedding flowers, we wanted quite a simple theme. We went with Holly and the Dragonfly (Holly and Laura) as our florist as throughout the whole planning process, they made everything so incredibly easy. When we talked about our ideas, they always considered our budget and made sure we kept within it, especially with ideas about how we could reuse arrangements throughout the day. When we finally saw them come to life in the day, the arrangements completely wowed us, especially the set up in the outside ceremony area and the bridal bouquet!
Did your vision for the wedding change over the planning process?
Not really, we always chose Millbridge Court with the intention of a summer outdoor wedding and we were lucky enough with the weather to be able to capitalise on this! The one thing that we did change was our view of the late night food during the planning process. In-between us choosing the venue and our wedding day, Millbridge decided to install an outdoor pizza oven. As self-confessed pizza lovers, once we saw this, we immediately knew that we had to have pizza as our food option in the evening and it’s safe to say it did not disappoint!
Are there any memorable anecdotes from the day you could share?
Seeing Lex for the first time before she made her way down the aisle was both an emotional but incredibly happy experience and one that I will never forget for the rest of my life. I remember us both being quite nervous throughout the ceremony as we both don’t massively tend to enjoy being the centre of attention, however once we were pronounced husband and wife, it felt like we were suddenly able to relax. Walking back past all our close friends and family with confetti was such a special occasion.
On a funnier note, we had some welcome drinks in Farnham the day before the wedding with close friends and family. Lex, as the bride, was naturally allowed to escape relatively early on to ‘rest’ before her big day but I was unfortunately cornered and stopped from leaving by some of her family and friends. I woke up feeling absolutely terrible but miraculously recovered well before the ceremony. Somehow, rumours had gotten back to Lex, who quizzed me when signing the marriage certificate!
Tell us something that we wouldn’t know about your day from the pictures.
Being England and peak summer, it is obviously natural for the weather to not be straightforward and for it to be the biggest unknown factor. Despite the glorious sunshine displayed in our photos, there were some incredibly nervous moments throughout the week building up to the big day as it was pretty much torrential rain until Saturday evening. We therefore thought our dreams would be scuppered for the Sunday but fortunately, we got so incredibly lucky with the sun.
Favourite part of your wedding journey?
For us, it was amazing to see how everything that we had been planned over the previous 12 months culminated into a truly magical set up on the day – from the floral arrangements, to the food and from the outdoor ceremony to the evening dancing. It was especially memorable to see the venue we fell in love with filled with all our closest friends and family enjoying themselves.
Any words of wisdom for future couples?
The day itself is such an unbelievable day and will forever be one of the best days of our lives, but in contrast to the year of planning, it does go by so quickly! In the lead up to ours, people had given us advice to make sure that, at some point during the day, we took some time to ourselves to just absorb everything and spend some together away from socialising with all your family and guests. It was such great advice that I would wholeheartedly recommend every couple do the same!
