Windmill Village Hotel

The stone bridge over the lake is where we’d spend a proper ten minutes of your day at Windmill Village in the West Midlands. It’s arched, so it frames the two of you cleanly from the bank with water either side, and it sits far enough from the building that nothing in the shot says hotel. Around it there’s a stone-walled path, lakeside reeds, a dry-stone wall and enough parkland to line every one of your guests up in a single row. Autumn is the season to want here. We had a crisp bright one, trees rust and gold, and throwing armfuls of leaves about only works when the ground is properly covered. You marry in the Chapel Suite, a restored barn with the original beams still in it, warm and close and the opposite of the big function rooms next door. Confetti happens outside the red-brick front. The evening is a hog roast, a light-up floor and a sparkler send-off in the dark, with a fireside to retreat to when people need a sit down.