We love English countryside weddings. Gorgeous greenery, pretty flowers, and often, a beautiful and picturesque stately home backdrop.
But Vivian and Phil's English country house wedding venue has blown us away.
Sezincote House, where have you been all our lives?
Indian architecture in the Cotswold countryside – this 200-year-old Mogul Indian palace is just heavenly.
And, as you'll see from the wonderful pictures by Ria Mishaal Photography, Vivian and Phil had a wedding that was just as unique, elegant and special as the surroundings.
Inspired by vintage weddings, Phil and Vivian's day was laced with elements from the groom's native Scotland, (think thistles, tartan and fudge!) while stunning English garden blooms and exotic lanterns decorated the beautiful spaces.
Not content with the most gorgeous setting, this bride and groom were just as stylish, Vivian looked beyond-beautiful in her Jenny Packham Daphne gown (which we were only swooning over on Instagram the other day) and Phil, so sharp, in a tweed blazer, tartan kilt and of course, the traditional sporran.
Scroll down to be wowed by this beautiful wedding, but don't forget to read Vivian's notes on the day for more about their romantic readings and raucous dancing…
Our Wedding
The day was inspired by my love of vintage style weddings and the venue provided the perfect backdrop.
The Flowers
I had an assortment of flowers in pale pastels including peonies and roses.
The corsages for the mums were orchids, a favourite flower of theirs and the men’s buttonholes incorporated thistles as the Groom is Scottish.
The Ceremony
Our readings were Robert Fulghum, Extract from True Love: ‘We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love’.
And John Betjeman, Extract from Summoned by Bells. We had asked Phil’s dad to provide a reading for the ceremony. He kept it a secret so it was a surprise on the day.
The reading is actually about a gloriously happy Sunday in May at Sezincote!
Advice for Other Couples
My advice would be to decide what’s really important to you about your wedding and don’t stress about the things that don’t make it onto the list.
The day itself is a crazy whirlwind but just have fun and take a few moments here and there to take it all in.
On top of getting a good photographer, after the wedding organise a ‘dropbox’ for your friends and family to share all the photos they took too.
The Photography
Ria Mishaal was our wedding photographer. Ria has been great and easy to work with both before and after the event as well as during the wedding.
Ria and Jake were brilliant on the day, very discreet and they have taken amazing photos.
She also has some wonderful albums and print options including prints in personalised wooden boxes.
Decor & Details
Sam Copeland, my florist, provided the flowers as well as table decorations and Moroccan lamps.
We went with big blousy flowers, like peonies, in assorted glass vases to give the centrepieces a softer more vintage feel.
I put our favours together filling miniature takeaway boxes with heart-shaped tablet (Scottish fudge) and a fortune cookie.
These were finished with a personalised label. I mainly sourced these from Etsy and Not On The High Street.
The Music
We had a quartet sing all the music for the ceremony, I walked down the aisle to Book of Love originally by Magnetic Fields. We used the arrangement by Dominic Stichbury for Chaps Choir.
We walked out of the ceremony to Elbow, One Day Like This.
We also sang Jerusalem and Stand By Me, Ben E. King, during the ceremony.
Our first dance was Journey, Any Way You Want It because it’s really fun.
Favourite Moments
We’re not very serious people so the whole wedding day from the ceremony through to the last dance was kept light hearted and at times a little silly!
The dancing was one of my favourite moments – we had a full dance floor all night and it was great to see everyone having so much fun.
Such a stunning setting, and such a wonderful couple!
Great wedding planning advice from Vivian too, “Decide what’s really important to you about your wedding and don’t stress about the things that don’t make it onto the list.”
Thanks so much to the fabulous Ria Mishaal Photography, and of course the gorgeous Vivian and Phil for sharing their Sezincote House wedding with us.
