Image credit: Natalie Stevenson Photography
Any wedding venue can ramp up the romance. Ravishing looks à la Downton Abbey always help, as do pictures of newlyweds gazing into each other’s eyes, against a backdrop of flower-filled meadows. Gushing descriptions on the website lure you in. Few, though, have such a palpable sense of romance – such a stirring back-story – as Notley Abbey, a honey-coloured retreat on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border: Notley Abbey does romance without even trying.
“Oh, the hundreds of times my beloved Larry and I have wandered here in wonder and grateful amazement at the beauty all around us—the feeling that we were a little responsible for creating it too made it all so doubly dear”.
So said Vivien in a letter to Olivier’s son, Tarquin, in 1960, referring to the grounds they had spent endless happy hours planting and tending. This was their sanctuary – the place they could be themselves, away from the glare of the spotlight. Fellow Hollywood stars came here to be themselves, too, at the couple’s legendary parties (indeed, there’s a striking portrait of Marilyn Monroe in one of the bedrooms she stayed in). This year, eighty years after Larry and Viv moved in, Notley Abbey feels every bit as special; a magical otherworld tucked away at the end of a long, tree-lined driveway, waiting to play its part in today’s great love stories.
With exclusive use comes the reassuring expertise of Harper’s twenty-five years in the business (that’s a lot of happy couples). Whether you’re picturing an A-list arrival by helicopter, landing on the riverside lawn to the applause of your assembled guests, or cavorting to big band swing beneath the chandeliers of the showpiece Monks’ Refectory, it’ll be meticulously planned and executed with aplomb. Who said wedding planning had to be stressful?
And so to the numbers. The Monks’ Refectory, where the abbey’s Augustine monks ate their meals and drank home brew (who knew?) easily hosts up to 164 guests for a ceremony or 250 for an evening reception, with huge doors opening onto a courtyard festooned with fairy lights. For more intimate ceremonies, the oak-beamed Abbot’s Hall hosts up to 100. Outside, on summer afternoons, the walled garden hosts up to 164. And where helicopters descend, fireworks shoot into the night sky should your heart desire – a fitting finale to your celebration (before stealing away to the Notley Suite). Larry and Viv, we think, would approve.