Living in the next village, it seemed like fate that Chilston Park Hotel was so close and had everything that Ian and James wanted for their Kent wedding, including the option for exclusive use, and a choice menu.

"The opportunity to play ‘Lords of the Manor’ and hosting all of our family and friends at the Manor House at Chilston Park Hotel for the weekend suited us perfectly as our family is very important to us and we wanted everyone to join us in celebrating the start of our married lives together.

Due to us having exclusive use of our wedding venue, this meant that we had multiple options for where to host various parts of our day; meaning that we could create exactly the celebration that we had both hoped for. We decided to host our ceremony in the Orangery which offers panoramic views of the hotels’ grounds and our wedding breakfast was held in the beautiful Culpeper’s restaurant which features wonderful open fireplaces.

We both preferred a simple, yet elegant feel to all aspects of our wedding day. Once we had chosen our theme colour of Cadbury purple, everything else fell in to place – the flowers, the decorations, the stationary, our cravats, even our socks! We gave Alzheimer’s Society pin badges as wedding favours, ensuring those who could not join us on our wedding day were remembered.

With the help of some fantastic suppliers, our day really came together perfectly. Our wedding cake was made by Kate at Sophisticakes. We opted for a square 3-tier cake with fruit on the bottom, followed by lemon and topped off with chocolate! We chose Maciej from MJ Photography as our photographer, who was recommended to us by a friend. It was important to us that there was a full record of the day – both formal and informal – and Maciej captured this perfectly. Our floral arrangements were created by Sue of Sue Davies Flowers & Gardens and our band for the evening reception was Bittersweet. We gave the band free reign to play whatever felt right at the time and they executed this fantastically!

We cannot recommend Chilston Park Hotel as a wedding venue highly enough. The Manor House, surrounding grounds and exemplary service provided, right from our initial contact with the event coordinator through to departing the following day, has left us with wonderful memories. We now feel a special affinity to Chilston Park Hotel and have returned on several occasions since our wedding. It was lovely to be recognised by the hotel team and it really showed us that they care about their guests."