Bourton Hall

You marry in a panelled chapel at Bourton Hall, and it’s the one room here we wouldn’t change a thing about: dark carved wood, a gilded ceiling, and enough warmth in it that the ceremony frames come out rich rather than flat. The Warwickshire house gives you a bridal suite worth starting early in, a four-poster under a chandelier with tall windows down one side, so the morning shots are lit by the window and nothing else. In between there’s the grand staircase. The bridesmaids come down it, and it’s where we put you for portraits if the weather turns. Outside, the honey-stone front takes the whole guest list without anyone vanishing round a corner. Then the gardens keep going: a fountain with steps down to it, deep flower borders, a redwood big enough to make you both small in the frame. After dinner the entrance is lit from inside, and standing in that arch gives you a portrait the building lights on its own, with no flash from us.