Outdoors · seats 150
The Lake Temple
Stone columns, open sides, water on three of them. The aisle is mown grass and the acoustics are better than they have any right to be.
Weddings
A weekend, not an eight-hour slot.
You arrive on the Friday for the rehearsal and dinner. You marry on the Saturday. You have breakfast together on the Sunday and leave when you are ready. One wedding at a time, always.
Where you marry
Three licensed spaces. Decide on the morning.
Outdoors · seats 120
The Walled Garden
Sheltered on all four sides, so nothing blows about and nobody's hat leaves. Roses from June, and warm brick until well after dark.
Indoors · seats 150
The Orangery
Dressed and ready every wedding day at no extra cost, whether you use it or not. Glass roof, candles, and rain that suddenly looks intentional.
The Long Room
Six lit stations, two basins, and a door that locks.
Most houses hand you a large bedroom and call it a bridal suite. The Long Room is a working salon: proper chairs, backwash basins, ring lights that match daylight, steamers, an ironing board that is not the one from the linen cupboard, and space for eight people without anybody sitting on a bed.
Our hair and make-up team can take the whole party from breakfast onwards, or your own team can move straight in — the plugs, the mirrors and the light are already right.
The Gun Room
The other half of the morning, taken just as seriously.
Oak panelling, a barber's chair and a mirror lit for shaving rather than for atmosphere. Shirts pressed and hung, buttonholes laid out in order, boots cleaned, and a bacon sandwich at whatever hour is required.
A barber can be booked for the party. The decanter is filled the night before and stays untouched until the photographer says so.
The running order
How the Saturday unfolds
Morning
Getting ready
Breakfast in the Green Drawing Room, then the Long Room and the Gun Room in parallel. The house team dress the ceremony spaces around you.
Vows
The ceremony
Guests walk down from the terrace. Fifteen minutes at the temple, the garden or the orangery, and confetti on the way back up.
After
Drinks on the terrace
Two hundred and fifty on the south front, facing west. Lawn games, a quartet, and photographs taken while nobody is being marched anywhere.
Dinner
The Saloon
A hundred and fifty seated under the painted ceiling. Speeches before pudding, so the speakers get to eat it.
Evening
The first dance
Tables cleared, doors thrown open, band in. Late licence to two, and a bar in the library for the people who prefer talking.
Late
The send-off
Sparklers on the steps, bacon rolls at midnight, and a walk to the lake for anybody still standing.
Sunday
Breakfast, unhurried
Everybody is already in the house. Breakfast runs long, presents get opened, and nobody is checking out at ten.
Departure
Off the lawn
Cars, or the helicopter to Manchester or Birmingham for the honeymoon flight. Guests wave from the steps either way.
The evening
Two hundred and fifty people, and no last orders at eleven.
There is nobody within a mile to disturb, so the licence runs to two. Sound limiters are not fitted, because they have never been needed. The bar in the library stays open for the talkers while the band plays for everyone else.
- Late licence to 02:00, live music permitted throughout
- Fireworks and cold sparklers, subject to the wildlife calendar
- Midnight food from our own kitchen, not a van in the drive
Honeymoon transfer
Twenty-two minutes to Manchester.
The south lawn is a licensed landing site, so the aircraft comes to you. Bags are loaded during the goodbyes, the pilot lifts, and you get one low turn over the lake before the estate disappears behind you.
Manchester, Birmingham and East Midlands are all inside half an hour. It replaces a two-hour taxi on the Sunday of your own wedding, which is the part couples actually thank us for.
Asked often
The practical questions
The house kitchen cooks for every wedding, and the kitchen garden is the reason. If you want a particular cuisine we will bring in a specialist team and cook alongside them, but the kitchens are not hired out.
Yes. Bring your own wine and fizz at a flat corkage per bottle, or drink from the cellar. Spirits and the bar stay with us for licensing reasons.
Nothing dramatic. The orangery is dressed for your ceremony every wedding day regardless, so the decision is made on the morning by you, and the terrace drinks simply move into the hall and the saloon.
Both. There is a nursery off the Long Room with a nanny available for the evening, and well-behaved dogs are welcome in the ceremony and on the lawns — several have carried the rings.
Thirty bedrooms, sleeping up to sixty-four. Everything is included in the hire fee, so you decide who stays rather than us. There are two further inns in Ashbourne, six minutes away, for the overflow.
Next
What a weekend costs
Published, in full, before you ask. That is the part most venues will not do.