With you looking to have your wedding celebrations in the UK, what made Seckford Hall Hotel and Spa, stand out for you?
The venue itself was visually stunning and suited what we were looking for in every way. Location wise it also worked for us for where the vast majority of friends and family were located, making it ideal for our guests and easy for them to attend.
How easy was it to do your initial tour and plan your wedding with you living overseas and not in the UK?
Not living overseas but being 4 hours away it felt like it at times, especially when trying to plan everything from a distance! Our wedding planner Grace was incredibly accommodating and flexible in terms of dates and times for us to visit that worked to our schedules, which made the whole process so much easier for us.
Tell us about your wedding journey in the lead up to your wedding and how did you feel?
We both felt the absence of the stress that everyone told us to expect! I think this was due to a combination of us being quite organised as well as easy going, which really helped keep things calm and manageable throughout the planning process. Combined with really good communication and support from the Seckford team, it meant everything felt under control and well looked after, so we were able to just feel excited for the day rather than overwhelmed.
With amazing ceremony spaces available, where did you choose and why?
We picked the Great Hall as this was most suitable for us as we had a relatively small wedding of only 40 guests, so it felt like the perfect size and setting for our day. Due to the time of year (October), outside just wouldn’t have been a wise choice, so having such a beautiful indoor space that still felt special and atmospheric worked perfectly for us.
What was your favourite moment of the day?
Impossible to pick! Even 6 months on we are still talking about so many different moments from the day, and it’s so hard to choose just one favourite. Starting with breakfast in bed, to cocktails served to us at specific moments throughout the day, to some amazing food and to midnight bacon rolls at the end of it all, every moment throughout the day had us smiling and really made the whole experience feel so special from start to finish. Oh yeah, and of course getting to say I do! 😋
Tell us all about your food! What did you choose and why?
We picked:
Starters – Soup & Prawn cocktail
Mains – Pork Belly & Coq au Vin
Desserts – Creme Brulé & Crumble
We picked these entirely to be selfish – it’s what we both wanted! And we were gracious enough to allow our guests to pick between the options!
With unlimited photo opportunities, where was your favourite spot?
Another impossible question to give just one answer to! There were so many picture perfect spots. That being said some of our favourite photos have come from being in the grounds as due to the time of year there were a lot of autumn colours around which worked perfectly with our theme and was the reason for our choice of the time of year for the wedding. There were so many amazing photo spots inside the venue too though, we were totally spoiled for choice!
What was your favourite space/area at Seckford Hall Hotel and Spa? Why was this your favourite space and how did you use it?
The Great Hall was really the main area that was used for us as it worked for everything throughout the day. We had the ceremony here, it’s where we had reception drinks and canapes served, and it was also the area we used for our DJ in the evening, so it was a perfect all rounder area that suited every part of our wedding.
Did either of you stay the night before at Seckford Hall Hotel and Spa? Did you enjoy being onsite the night before?
We did stay the night before. We were having a very nontraditional wedding so we carried on with breaking the traditions by spending the night before the wedding together too. We actually booked the honeymoon suite out for 3 nights so we could fully enjoy it as we knew on the day itself, we wouldn’t get to appreciate it fully. So the night before we made use of the gorgeous bath in the room, we had a lovely meal just the two of us before the big day and we also had some friends from further away stay the night too so we met up with them later in the evening and had one or two or three drinks which also helped us crash out the night before instead of staying up all excited!
Did you enjoy Seckford Hall Hotel and Spa, the day following your wedding? What did you do?
We did and we booked the wedding couple Spa treatment, so after having a lovely breakfast with all our overnight guests we sent them on their way and then had a lovely afternoon of pampering together, which was the perfect way to relax and unwind after such a special and busy day.
Any suppliers that you would recommend to others?
Our photographer A Star was absolutely incredible. She got some stunning shots for us, was so much fun to talk to on the day and was super organised which really helped us. She was really good at being able to give us the time we needed to get the couple photos without it feeling like we were missing out on the day from being away from everyone. I’d recommend her to anyone! We also really liked our cake supplier – Outrageous Cakes – a local independent in Suffolk. We had a really fun cake tasting experience with them, before giving them our very brief cake idea/design and we then left it in their expert hands to create something from it and we were so happy with the result
