Dorothy & Harry’s Spring Wedding at Millbridge Court

A modern meets classic venue, combining traditional architecture with contemporary interior design and set in idyllic countryside on the Surrey/Hampshire border, Millbridge Court caught their eye from the off. The couple fell instantly in love with the relaxed family feel, the romantic arbour and the breathtaking reception space and secured 29th April 2023 as their dream date.

Dip in for ‘sparkling mermaid’ bridal style (yes, really. Dorothy is a vision in bespoke Halfpenny London), excellent pre-loved purchases, delish food courtesy of Supplier We Love Kalm Kitchen, and some gorgeous portrait shots thanks to Photos from Sophie…

Dorothy says…

We chose Millbridge Court because it was PERFECT for everything we were looking for! There wasn’t a box it didn’t tick on our virtual criteria list. We were sold on it immediately because it was the only venue we wanted to see in person. We had been sent video tours of many other venues, which I think was a relatively new post-Covid thing, but it made the venue hunt more accessible and ensured we could narrow the search.

Millbridge Court has such a lovely feel; it feels like an incredible family home you take over for the day, which we loved! Everything is well thought out, making the day run smoothly. The arbour and gardens are beautiful, essential to us as we were having a spring wedding and wanted an outdoor ceremony. The huge windows in the dining and ceremony/dance halls also swept us away! We love this type of architecture; so stunning. It was also great that there were two main spaces with a courtyard and communal area in between because it meant the team weren’t frantically trying to turn a dining hall into a dance floor whilst trying to coordinate 100+ guests. The space has been designed thoughtfully; even in the evening, guests who wanted to chat and chill a bit more could do so in a comfortable area that still felt close to the action. We also loved the getting-ready rooms; having these on-site made things much more manageable.

Ah, the dress, or a corset and two skirts! I always knew I wanted something with a lot of texture and something that would catch the light; I’m obsessed with sequins/beads/glitter (we even had a face paint/glitter artist in the evening)! The brief I gave to Halfpenny London (where I got my ‘dress’) was ‘I want to look like a sparkling mermaid’, which would sound ridiculous to some, but I knew I wanted my dress to be fun. Halfpenny was amazing because the textures and shapes were bold and varied; I was like a kid in a candy shop! I was drawn to one specific corset adorned with giant sequins, and I also really loved a sheer overskirt scattered with almost an ombre of (it turns out) the same sequins. I layered this on top of a simple satin skirt, and the job was done! The lovely girls in the shop said they had never seen this pairing of separates, which I loved; I felt like I had a unique outfit.

The flower girls’ dresses were re-used and reloved! I’m pretty big on this. The Rewritten jumpsuit was purchased off a resale site. The two medium flower girls were also for my cousin’s wedding a couple of months before, and as luck would have it, the colours couldn’t have matched more perfectly, so they wore them again for our wedding! How amazing. I got the baby flower girls the same dresses in tiny sizes, again preloved, so I felt pretty accomplished with that.

Accessories were simple; I didn’t make a song and dance about my shoes (mostly hidden anyway), and my earrings were simple pearl drops, the ones I wore for our legal wedding ceremony a few weeks prior. I also bought a few pearl detail hair pins from Etsy, which I really liked and complemented the outfit nicely.

My husband was torn between a navy suit and a black tux but had decided that a tux wouldn’t suit the style of our day so well, as we wanted it to be a relaxed affair, so he wore a suit which he had made by McCann Bespoke, a tailor in London. The groomsmen each wore their own navy-ish suits. Conveniently they almost all looked pretty uniform anyway, only one looked a little bluer than the others, but we felt pretty chilled about it.

Linz from The White Horse Flower Co. did our flowers. Lovely Linz! The friendliest wackiest woman ever, we loved her. We wanted fresh spring-looking flowers with pinks and blues, greenery, and pops of true white. We wanted them to look quite meadowy and gathered, soft-looking displays and nothing too intrusive. She completely understood our vision. She embellished what was already there beautifully, styled to perfection without looking overdressed. She was also great at repurposing displays. We had a lovely half-arch display around the Arbour for the ceremony, which was then moved inside and framed the table plan; it looked like it was made for both! She got us a mix of pink and blue candles for the dinner to match the flowers and the stationery, and we had little jars of small, simple gathered displays on the tables, so importantly- lots of room for the food! She also did these gorgeous flower crowns and some little flower wands for the babies.

We chose Photos from Sophie for our photographer, and what a perfect choice! We flicked through the websites of all the photographers on the recommended supplier list from Millbridge Court and enquired with a handful of them, and we just loved her style of photos. We also liked that she knew the venue so well, that was reassuring, and we could just let her do her thing. All our guests loved her, she was perfect at getting EVERY shot but not feeling in the way at all; she’s also such a great person, enjoyable and chatty and completely put us at ease.

Best part of the day

Tricky question, but probably the speeches. They were so amazing, all three of them! We also LOVED our pre-dinner face paddle game, it was so funny, and some questions were in there that threw people. Our MC opened with “Who’s punching above their weight?” which, as you can imagine, really got everyone going! Honestly, there were so many unique parts to the day; we were so lucky with how everything went. We also had a ridiculously sunny day in the middle of a cloudy and drizzly period, which we were so grateful for; the day was exactly as we pictured.

From one couple to another…

One pattern we followed when choosing suppliers was going with the first of each we liked. You can spend so much time trying to find something/someone that may not even exist, so if you want something/someone, book it/them! You can save yourself the emotional turmoil.

We also didn’t keep any traditions we didn’t want, it’s your day, and the best weddings are the ones where you can tell it’s so authentic to the couple’s personalities and tastes. So we didn’t do wedding favours, we didn’t do a cake cutting, we didn’t have a makeup artist or a videographer, and none of it mattered! There was so much detail in our day which felt personal to us and all our family and friends.

One thing I would say is to try not to get uptight about tiny specifics, there may be things that don’t go 100% to plan, but there will always be a solution, and most of the time, your guests won’t notice anyway!