Patrick & Michael: A June Wedding for Two Grooms at Huntsham Court

From the moment they set foot in the magnificent venue and met Jenny, they knew it was the perfect backdrop for their dream wedding weekend. With carefully curated fashion choices and a stunning blend of green foliage and classic whites, their big day was as stylish as it was memorable, all of which was beautifully captured by Rockrose Photography.

The Venue

We began searching for our perfect wedding venue in June 2022. We had a fairly clear vision for the type of venue we were looking for, a warm, welcoming, charismatic place that could accommodate all of our guests for an entire weekend, many of whom would be travelling from places as far as Newcastle, Ireland, France, and Australia. Being based between Bristol and Bath, we viewed a few venues locally but felt each lacked the character we were looking for or the ability to house all our guests. So, we set our sights a little further afield and spotted Huntsham Court.

Jenny greeted us when we visited and couldn’t have been more friendly and helpful. We explained our vision of a Friday to Sunday wedding weekend and our hope to bring in our chosen suppliers to give the weekend a flair for our style. Jenny gave us a tour of the whole house, including the magnificent Great Hall, the Gothic Library, and the 42 luxurious bedrooms, each beautifully decorated to give it its own individual character. We both knew that this venue was, without a doubt, the one! We didn’t want to risk missing out on our summer wedding, so we booked up for June 2024!

The Fashion

As grooms of a same-sex couple, we discussed ways to stand out from other male guests at our wedding. However, neither of us is the most flamboyant extrovert, so we decided to go down the more traditional route and stick to a timeless look: black (velvet) tuxedos.

We both wanted to wear cufflinks on the big day, so it was important that we had dress shirts. We purchased our pleated double-cuff dress shirts from the M&S Sartorial range. They have a great size selection and were the only place we could find that stocks pleated dress shirts with black studs. We purchased silk self-tie bowties (well worth the stress) and silk cummerbunds from Moss to complete our timeless look. We decided to include olive green in our evening look. We wore olive braces under our jackets and swapped our dress shoes for olive green low-top Vans, which allowed for a more comfortable evening of dancing!

For our Groomsmen, we purchased a Marc Darcy stone three-piece tailored suit from the award-winning independent and incredibly helpful Suave Owl based in Bath. We had a private fitting (beers included), which was a great start to our stag weekend! We matched these suits with an olive-green tie set from Victory & Innsbruck, complete with pocket square, cufflinks, tie clip and socks.

With olive green chosen, this made finding bridesmaids’ dresses a little easier, although this element was the most difficult in the whole wedding planning process! One of our bridesmaids is Irish, and one weekend visiting her we popped into a store in Dublin, Folkster. Folkster is an independently-owned Irish brand that ships worldwide; they have an immense selection of dresses, sizes, and colours! Fortunately, they had an olive green dress that all our bridesmaids loved, and we did, too. We purchased beautiful, beaded ribbon tie belts to complete the dresses. We bought gold and pearl bridal necklaces and earring sets, along with tulippa porcelain gold flower hair pins from Lace & Favour for the girls. Olivia, our bridesmaids’ hair stylist, perfectly styled them into a half-up, half-down do.

The Flowers & Styling

Our attention soon turned towards planning the weekend we envisioned. We had decided early on that we wanted heavy green foliage on the day from our wonderful florist, Sophie at Earth Gallery Flowers, paired with creams and whites; again, we leaned towards a more timeless classic look, which gave us the idea of adding olive green to our white/black theme.

Sophie is an absolute professional; having seen her work on Instagram, I was determined to get her booked for our wedding. From our initial consultation to the weekend, Sophie was in contact with ideas, thoughts, and questions to make our floristry ideas a beautiful reality. Her work blew us away, and we couldn’t have been happier with the result throughout the venue, particularly the Mantlepiece installation, which we took home!

To keep things a little different, we hired a Calleo telephone for guests to record our wedding messages and best wishes. They provide a selection of telephones that are easy to set up and great fun for guests. We chose a rainbow-coloured telephone to set up in the Library with a custom-made neon sign to draw the guests’ attention. These made for a great listen and laugh once the weekend’s excitement had come and gone.

The Photographer

After choosing our venue, the next most significant decision was choosing our photographer. Huntsham Court recommended Rockrose Photography, and we couldn’t have found a better photographer to capture our incredible day.

Jules of Rockrose was an absolute joy to have with us on our wedding day, from helping me through the stress of tying my bow tie to capturing the most magical moments of the day. Her photography is natural and creative, precisely what we had asked for. Jules has a talent for blending into the wedding with no intrusion, and the results are a joyous surprise when the wedding is all over. Huntsham Court is a glorious estate, but Jules manages to capture the beauty in ways we couldn’t have imagined, and she became a friend we couldn’t/wouldn’t have done without through our big day.

Best Part of the Day

One of our favourite memories from the day was something we discussed with Jules. We wanted to get some photos with our bridesmaids and groomsmen in the twin bathtubs in the Douglas suite. By this point, a few drinks had been put away, and our wedding ‘party’ was most definitely in the party spirit! This made for some hilariously candid photos and highlighted the incredible characters we had at our wedding. Jules had her work cut out during this scene, and we love the resultant shots!

Our wedding at Huntsham Court was truly the most incredible, emotive, and magical weekend of our lives. From Jenny’s idea of an intimate first look before the ceremony to walking down the aisle hand in hand, it was everything and more that we had hoped for. We are so grateful to the staff at Huntsham Court, Jules, Jenny, and all our suppliers for making our weekend so incredibly special.