Rookery Hall was the first venue we looked at after becoming engaged. Trying to be a bit grown up and sensible for a change, my now-husband then-fiancé, Joe and I visited numerous other venues to make sure we really knew what we wanted. After all, like a house, it’s not always the best practice to buy the first house you see!

But, 2 weeks and 5 potential venues later, we knew we were onto a winner from the beginning. We had our venue – Rookery Hall. And a 9 month deadline. The other venues were truly beautiful but for us, there were a few things we really had our heart set on.

1. Accommodation. Coming from Manchester, we wanted to make sure there were rooms should our guests want to make a weekend out of the occasion. Luckily, because of Rookery’s discount for wedding guests, we filled the rooms and got to extend our celebrations with family.

2. Land. Living close to Manchester city centre, we found lots of venues that we adored, but lacked garden surroundings. We made this is a priority. Although April showers were inevitable, we wanted the options of stunning photographs, both inside and out.

3. Light. Deciding early on that we wanted a civil ceremony, we quickly found that many venues offer dark and quite unwelcoming rooms for such a service. In many cases, these felt more suitable for a conference than a family celebration. This couldn’t be further from the case at Rookery.

Rookery ticked all of our boxes. There are beautiful rooms, enough for all of our guests, as well as the January suite whose bay window sold it for me for our bridal room and photography. The grounds are stunning and provided plenty of options (even in the rain thanks to the Gazebo and archways) and the Worleston suite with its floor-to ceiling glass provided so much light for our ceremony.

I love that there are both old and new bits to the building. Although we’re not the most traditional of couples - opting for a dinosaur-themed wedding! – we loved the fact that we could still get the more traditional wedding photography, with the gorgeous wooden staircase and marble archways outside. Yet at the same time we could capture the quirkiness of our dino-decorations thanks to the bright celebration room.

We had so many wonderful comments from family and friends alike regarding our wedding, and so very many about the venue. I’d love to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the staff at Rookery Hall for paying such wonderful attention to absolutely everything. We’ll absolutely be back, perhaps for our wedding anniversary!

You can read more about my wedding on my blog at welliguessthisisgrowingup.co.uk or see more work from our photographer www.rosynesbitt.co.uk 

To find out more about Rookery Hall please contact us on 01270 610 016