Andrea & Lee’s winter wedding at Wotton House
Andrea and Lee got married at Wotton House in Surrey in the winter, and got snow for it. You can’t book that.
Snow
Snow is the one thing every couple asks for in winter and almost nobody gets. When it does turn up you drop whatever you had planned and go outside straight away, because it won’t last the afternoon.
It’s also easy to get wrong. Cameras read snow as grey and underexpose everything, so you overexpose on purpose and the whites come back white. Get it right and you’ve got a background nobody else at that venue has.
The ceremony
The house has period rooms with big windows, which is what you want in winter when the light goes early. I don’t add flash during a ceremony — I’d rather have the room as it looked.
The gardens
Wotton has Italian gardens, ornamental ponds and a couple of Roman temples in the grounds — unusual for Surrey, and useful when you want a portrait that doesn’t look like every other country house.
In winter the planting is stripped back, so what you’re left with is structure: hedges, stone, water, and whatever the sky is doing. That suits some couples better than a summer garden does.
The evening
Fires lit, curtains drawn, and a full dance floor. Winter weddings get warmer as they go on, which is the opposite of summer ones.
Congratulations to Andrea and Lee.
Getting married at Wotton House
Wotton House is on Guildford Road in Dorking, about forty minutes from south London. A few things worth knowing:
- The Old Library is a good ceremony room if you want something with a bit of character rather than a plain hall.
- The gardens are the differentiator. The Italian terraces and the temples give you portraits that don’t look like anywhere else nearby.
- Winter is worth considering here. The interiors are warm, the fires are lit, and the grounds hold up without leaves on the trees. Dates are easier to get too.
- Build in ten spare minutes. If the weather does something interesting, you want to be able to go outside without wrecking the timings.
Venue details are on the Wotton House wedding page. Guildford Road, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6HS.
If you’re getting married there, have a look at my wedding photography prices and packages and send me your date.
