Grittleton House

Two staircases at Grittleton House in Wiltshire, and we’d use both. One is red-carpeted and grand enough that the walk down is a picture on its own. The other curves round in a double sweep and frames the two of you from the floor below. In between there’s a galleried hall with statues in arched niches and a chandelier hanging through the middle, and that’s where you go if the weather makes the decision for you. You marry in a damask-walled room with tall windows, so daylight carries the ceremony and we never lift a flash. There’s a red dining room hung with portraits for dinner, glazed orangery windows along the garden side, and a lawn opposite the Gothic front that takes every guest with the whole building behind them. Stone urns and terraces give the couple portraits some structure. Then it floodlights: the orangery glass turns amber at blue hour and there’s a lit stone archway to stand in, which is where most nights here finish.