Dodford Manor

Two barns sit side by side at Dodford Manor in Northamptonshire and they do completely different jobs. You marry in the stone one, thick walls and fairy lights up in the beams, a room that’s dim in a good way, so the ceremony pictures come out warm and close. Then you walk next door into the oak-framed barn, which is glass down one side and looks straight out at the fields, and it stays full of daylight right through the wedding breakfast. The prep room is bright and built for the job, proper mirrors and room to move, so your morning isn’t shot in a bedroom corner. Outside, the courtyard is where everyone lands between the two barns and where we line the whole party up with the stone behind them. Hold ten minutes back for the lawn at the end of the day, because the trees are tall enough to filter the low sun and there’s nothing built in any direction behind you. Then the sparkler tunnel, which needs full dark and is worth waiting up for.