Eynsham Hall

The rooms you get ready in at Eynsham Hall are worth arriving early for. Gilded peacock wallpaper, a marble fireplace and tall windows with the sun coming across the sill, so the dress and the quiet morning frames have something behind them other than a magnolia wall, and we work on daylight the whole time, which stops your morning feeling staged. This couple married at the parish church and drove back, and the Oxfordshire house is set up for exactly that: a tree-lined drive to sweep up and wide stone steps at the front that stack the whole guest list on three levels, so faces at the back still read. The gardens are formal, which suits portraits. Clipped topiary, gravel paths, a balustraded stone staircase and a cedar to duck behind mean you get structure in the frame instead of a lawn. Dinner and dancing sit in oak-panelled rooms with a carved fireplace behind the top table. Then the house floodlights amber, and that’s the ten minutes to hold back - you stand small in front of it and all the light comes off the building.