Freya & Kwame
A September wedding at Elmhurst, planned in eleven months
Both of them were working six days a week. We had one free Saturday a month between February and July, and we used every one of them.
7 min read
- Where
- Elmhurst House, Suffolk
- Venue
- Elmhurst House
- When
- 13 September 2025
- Guests
- 140
- Style
- Classic, Garden
Freya rang on a Tuesday in October and said they’d like to get married the following September, that there would be about a hundred and forty people, and that neither of them had a single free evening until Christmas.
That is not an unusual call. What made it workable was that they knew exactly two things — it had to be within an hour of her parents' house, and it had to be outdoors if the weather allowed. Everything else was open.
Finding the house
Elmhurst was the fourth of five we saw and the only one where the walk from the ceremony lawn to the dining room took under ninety seconds. That sounds like a small thing. It is the difference between a drinks reception that flows and one where a hundred and forty people stand in a corridor.
The house itself is early Georgian, and for about eleven minutes in mid-September the stone turns a colour you cannot photograph any other time of year. We booked the fifth weekend after we saw it.
The one long table
They wanted everyone in one room and they did not want a top table. With a hundred and forty that usually means eight rounds and a lot of shouting.
We measured the orangery and worked out that three long runs would seat a hundred and forty-four, with the couple in the middle of the centre run rather than at the head of anything. Nobody was more than eleven seats from them.
Nobody was more than eleven seats from them. That was the whole design brief, and everything else followed from it.
Flowers, eventually
The original scheme was white and green. In June the grower called to say the dahlias were three weeks ahead and there would be a great deal of deep russet and burnt orange available in the second week of September, or nothing much at all.
We changed the scheme. Freya took about four minutes to decide, which is the fastest anyone has ever made that call.
The day
It was twenty-one degrees and still. The ceremony ran four minutes late because the registrar’s car got stuck behind a combine harvester, which is the most Suffolk thing that has ever happened to one of our weddings.
Speeches went before dinner, which we push for at every wedding and win about half the time. Three speeches, four minutes each, and then everyone ate a hot main course while relaxed.
The hard part
Eleven months, and one Saturday a month
Everything had to be decided in person, in daylight, on a Saturday, because that was the only time both of them were free at once. So we front-loaded: venue, date, caterer and photographer were all locked by the end of February, which are the four bookings that actually run out. Everything after that could be settled by email at eleven at night, which is when Kwame answered emails.
Design decisions
- Three long runs of table rather than rounds, no top table
- Deep russet and burnt orange after the dahlias came early
- Candles only after seven — the orangery has no good overhead light
- Speeches before dinner so the main course is eaten hot
- Linen in unbleached natural, hired; house glassware, free
The running order
- Suppliers on site, flowers into the orangery
- Guests arrive, drinks on the south lawn
- Ceremony, ceremony lawn
- Confetti, then drinks and canapés
- Called through to dinner
- Speeches — three, four minutes each
- Dinner served
- Tables cleared, band set up
- First dance
- Cheese and the last round
- Carriages
The day
Credits
- Planning and design
- Marram
- Venue
- Elmhurst House
- Photography
- Wren & Fold
- Flowers
- Sedge Field Flowers
- Catering
- Bowline Kitchen
- Band
- The Fen Six
- Stationery
- Cold Press Studio
Sample content. Supplier names are invented for demonstration.
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