Natalie and Harry

We had the same mutual friends, then met in person at a festival 10 years ago.

8 and a half years later the proposal happened in Abu Dhabi, on the beach, February 2024.

We honestly loved it all, it's so hard to pick a certain thing. During wedding planning, we visited quite a few different venues and none of them felt as special or as unique as Lainston House. As soon as we saw the venue we just knew it was the one.

The atmosphere, the grounds, the character, the staff, we loved it all.

The outside entrance when you walk in the gates still takes my breath away, it's so stunning and was defiantly the first selling point.

Although we didn't have exclusive use, the whole wedding felt so private, we barely saw any other guests, it was like we had the place to ourselves, we really felt like VIPs our whole stay. 

Every single guest commented on how amazing the venue and staff were, and nothing like they have been to or visited before. We are so glad we chose Lainston House; we really couldn't find a single fault through the time we were there.

It wasn’t just the wedding day; the whole build up to the wedding we were made to feel so special. We visited a couple of times for meetings, afternoon tea’s and just to take family to look around, nothing was ever to much of an ask. The whole process we felt so included, even the day after the wedding, having breakfast with everyone to prolong the celebrations was amazing.

The only set theme we had was baby blue. After searching Pinterest for months & then meeting with Luminique, we fell in love with the white floral arch way and tall floral centre pieces, which tied in so nicely with the baby blue theme. We wanted the decor to be noticeable but not in your face, light and summery and something that would reflect our personalities. We loved adding small details through the day which really made it personal and fun – such as the personalised sunglasses, scratch cards as favours, the walkway full of all different pictures of the 10 years we have been together. The whole venue just looked stunning, we couldn't’ have asked for more.

The dress was from Ava Louise Bridal; it was the first shop I visited and probably the 8^th dress I tried on. I had no idea what sort of dress I wanted and just couldn’t picture myself in a wedding dress at all. I tried on every style and just knew as soon as I put the one, I picked on, it was the one. The dress was by Enzoani called Pia. It was a corset top half, embellished with a floral pattern, then puffed out for the waist and went into the most amazing long train, with a slit up the leg. The underskirt was straight and sparkly with a A-line tulle skirt layering over the top, paired with a plain long veil. I customised this dress by adding my own straps. All my guests were so shocked, they all thought I would have a fitted dress, it was so fun seeing all their reactions. They all loved the dress and said how perfect it was for me.

Harry's suit was a cream/white tuxedo with black trouser, brought from Aristocracy in Kensington. We visited about 10 different shops to find him a suit, before he found the one, it was a lot more stressful than trying to find me a dress!

 The bridesmaids wore A-line, halter neck, floor length dress in baby blue from Jarlo.

The groomsmen wore black tuxedos from Moss Bros.

Most of all how happy and relaxed we both felt. We honestly had the best day of our lives and would do it all again 100 times over.  Seeing how happy our guests were as well; we felt so loved by everyone. Watching everyone smiling, dancing and enjoying themselves all day was the best feeling.

Enjoy it all, take it all in and completely milk every celebration/situation you can, because you only get to do it once.

Wedding budgets don’t exist, you try so hard to stick to a figure and towards the end you don't ever care what you spent. All we have kept on saying since the wedding is how perfect the day was and how very single penny we spend was worth it. So just do what you want and don't stress because you won't regret it.

Have the wedding you both want and not what everyone else thinks you should have. We didn’t tell any of our family/friends/guests anything we had planned, because we didn’t want people's opinions changing our mind. This was the best thing we did – the whole day was what we wanted, and our guest loved it and seeing their faces at all the thing we had done was priceless.