Winter Weddings At Iscoyd Park
Summer wedding dates will always be highly coveted. The plethora of available blooms in season, the (hopefully) balmy temperatures and the probability of being able to spend the majority of the wedding outdoors in the sunshine all hold obvious appeal. But this appetite for summer wedding dates brings with it the inevitable issues of supply and demand. Demand is high and wedding costs naturally follow suit.
We count ourselves (and our couples) incredibly lucky that we are able to host weddings in all seasons and that each of our civil ceremony spaces are beautiful yet distinct and fit for multi purposes. If you’re not familiar with our four ceremony spaces: The Coach House, The Pigeon House, The Garden Room and The Drawing Room then we’ve written a post about them which you can read here.
Whilst we don’t need to extol the virtues of Summer here, we find that couples need a little bit of convincing about hosting a wedding in the colder months. And it is such a shame because winter weddings are incredibly beautiful and intimate. We find that guests at winter weddings are truly invested in the event taking place. This is a time of feasting with little distractions and so winter held nuptials seem to have that extra dose of something special.
We’ve featured several couples here on the blog who have celebrated their wedding day between the months of November through to February. Every one of those events is filled with truly exquisite details which we thought we would bring together in this post to give you some inspiration on how to style, plan and celebrate your winter wedding here at Iscoyd.
Setting The Scene
Light levels are low at this time of year so rather than trying to resist the short hours of daylight, we encourage couples to embrace the dark and use it to their advantage. Candles are your friend here and create the most romantic atmosphere especially when grouped in large numbers. A particular favourite is when wedding breakfast tables are styled using multiple groups of tapered candles along their lengths that really throw off the most magical light when they are lit en masse.
The staircase in the entrance hall really comes into its own in winter too. We adore the stairs at Iscoyd in winter when they’re dressed with masses of evergreen foliage and collections of hurricane lamps are clustered at the foot. We encourage all couples to have candlelight on our mantelpieces and even on the front portico and steps of Iscoyd’s main entrance. All of these styling ideas really help to create an intimate and evocative atmosphere for guests especially when they first arrive.
Florals And Foliage
On the subject of evergreen foliage, there is a tendency for couples to feel restricted by the so called lack of flowers at this time of year. Importing out of season florals can be cost prohibitive and unsustainable from an ecological perspective. Rather than seeing this as a negative, we implore couples to look to what is seasonally available for inspiration. The grounds of Iscoyd are actually replete with so much goodness rather than being barren. Boughs of evergreen, roseships and branches laden with berries and lichen can all be included within the floral schemes. We also love the use of dried flowers and foliage too which can be so evocative of wintry landscapes in their muted tones.
Thoughout this post you’ll see previous couples who have employed the use of dried flowers to create the most magical installations; from flower clouds in the marquee, striking aisle centrepieces in the Garden Room and even garlands adorning the stairs of Iscoyd. You can guarantee that Iscoyd will have a Christmas tree or two installed from the end of November which always brings a smile to little and big kids too.
Reinventing Cocktail Hour
Now this is where winter really comes into its own. Here at Iscoyd we feel that cocktails were designed for these cooler months.
Traditionally held after the ceremony as a way of greeting guests as a brand new couple, this component of the wedding day is open to serious doses of creativity. We love setting up carefully styled ‘help yourself’ drink stations which can be reinvented to include hot beverages such as bespoke hot chocolates and whisky toddies now to warm guests up as they sip by the lit fires. Custom signage injects a dose of fun as well; we adore seeing couples reinterpret the traditional champagne and canapés format.
Magical Photo Opportunities
With the winter darkness comes the light – the fairy lights that is.
We take great pleasure in adorning the grounds of Iscoyd in the most beautiful, sparkling, twinkling lights which we have festooning the trees and shrubbery in the gardens. And it looks magical if we don’t say so ourselves. The beauty of the shorter days in Winter at Iscoud means that couples can avail themselves of the most wonderful photo opportunities outside the house early on in the festivities. In the summer, when it can be as late as 10pm before it becomes dark enough for the external lighting to come into its own, we find that the photographers have left for the day which means couples can miss out on these photo opportunities.
Much is true of sparkler exits too. We don’t think we’ve ever met somebody who doesn’t love waving a sparkler about especially when it is a cause for celebration. We have witnessed a fair few sparkler tunnels in our time and we never ever tire of seeing the joy on guests’ faces and the happy laughter as couples make their way through the sparkling dancing lights.
We hope this has inspired you to consider a winter wedding here at Iscoyd. If you’re keen to see more of some of the weddings we’ve featured in this post then we recommend scrolling back through our real wedding archives and selecting the Winter Weddings real weddings category.
Both Zoe and James who were snapped by Barbara Markiewicz and Stuart and James captured by Fear Photography married in November. Our December wedding inspiration comes courtesy of Rebecca and Josh who were photographed by Courtney Marie Photography and from Jennifer and Joel by Alex Boswell Photography. Fear Photography also shot Rebecca and Samuel at their January nuptials and you may have seen Verity and Niall’s incredibly stylish and snowy January big day which was photographed by Emmy Lou Kelly.
All of these weddings can be found by clicking the links above or by heading to the blog archives.
Our thanks go to the following photographers for allowing us to use their images in this post.