A guide to Christmas weddings
Unsurprisingly the months of December, January and February are a little down the pecking order when it comes to popular wedding months, however, if you are a Christmas enthusiast and love all things Winter – a Christmas wedding really can be the most wonderful time of the year. Our guide is packed full of Christmas wedding ideas to help you plan the most festive of Christmas time weddings.
What is a Christmas wedding like?
There are many great reasons to think about holding your nuptials over the Christmas period, including:
- There is generally much better availability over the quieter Winter months, meaning you can avoid the stress of competing with other couples for more popular months of the year
- It can be a highlight of many of your guest’s diaries, particularly if there has been nothing in the diary to celebrate for a while. The Christmas period is also a time when work starts to settle down for many people and fewer people are away on holiday – meaning much better availability for your winter nuptials
- The theming of a Christmas wedding is pretty much in the bag and you can even take advantage of your venue’s decorations, potentially saving you money
- Don’t sweat the weather, having a Christmas wedding takes a lot of pressure off worrying about what the weather is going to do on your big day – it’s going to be cold and potentially rainy which leaves you one less thing to obsess about. Christmas weddings are for cosy indoor settings away from the cold
How can I make my Christmas wedding special?
Without a doubt, having a venue with those extra special winter feels will make a Christmas wedding all the more special. Think roaring fires, twinkling fairy lights and gorgeous wintery landscape views. Luckily for you, all of the wedding venues in the Devonshire Group offer just that, we have four venues across the group to choose from.
Devonshire Arms Hotel & Spa – if you are looking for the perfect country house set within the Bolton Abbey Estate to host your Christmas wedding, then look no further. The hotel sits within 30,000 acres of breath-taking natural beauty, courtesy of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. With its quintessential country house character, open fires and beautifully appointed function rooms, Christmas wedding venues don’t get much better. We host intimate weddings for 6 to 24 guests.
The Devonshire Fell is the epitome of a romantic Yorkshire wedding venue. Enjoy spectacular and untamed winter views and have the most wonderful backdrop for your wedding photos down by Burnsall Bridge on the River Wye. The Fell is offered on a fully exclusive basis, so the hotel and all 16 bedrooms will be all yours for the duration.
The Cavendish Pavilion, set amongst the rolling hills and overlooking the River Wharfe in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, makes for a wonderfully intimate and secluded Christmas wedding venue. The Pavilion is flooded with light and has a beautiful setting with views out across the river. It’s offered to couples on a fully inclusive basis giving you and your guests time and space to fully enjoy.
The Cavendish Hotel at Baslow set on the Duke of Devonshire’s Chatsworth Estate, in the beautiful and unspoilt Peak District National Park, The Cavendish makes an elegant setting for your special day. The hotel and all of its 28 bedrooms are offered on an exclusive basis for weddings and at Christmas time it is wonderfully decorated with feature trees, fireplace garlands and Christmas inspired flower arrangements – the perfect complements to a Christmas time wedding celebration.
All of our venues come with dedicated support from our events team. They will make the planning process stress free and even help with theming and decoration ideas for your Christmas wedding if you find yourself in need of some inspiration. Meet Hannah, our Events Manager.
Popular Christmas wedding themes
Festive décor and little Christmassy details can take a Christmas wedding to the next level. From wintery backdrops to lush green and red foliage, there are so many themes that can make festive weddings extra special. Make use of romantic lighting wherever you can, a decorated archway with twinkling fairy lights and flowers can create a beautifully atmospheric backdrop to your photographs.
Mistletoe, pine and berries also make beautiful decorative pieces for your aisle, fireplaces and centrepieces and the theme is easy to follow through to your wedding invitations and cake. Rich navy’s, greens and reds are gorgeous colours for a Christmas wedding and set the tone of opulence and luxury.
Your wedding invitations will be the first introduction to your theme that your guests see, hitched.co.uk have put together 27 Christmas and winter inspired invitations
Winter flower varieties are also surprisingly plentiful, particularly across red and white varieties. Amaryllis, Gardenia and Star of Bethlehem are especially beautiful and look stunning in arrangements.
Christmas theming can of course also extend to your wedding favours, some of our favourites include:
Baubles – have your guests remember your special day year on year as they decorate their tree.
Personalised candles – candles are a lovely gift for guests to take away after the wedding and enjoy at home.
Smores – small smore packs make a lovely favour, especially if you have fire-pits planned for your evening festivities. Smores are mini digestive style biscuits and marshmallows that guests skewer onto a wooden stick and roast until deliciously gooey.
A miniature of a good Christmas tipple, such as Baileys or Brandy is a lovely small treat for guests to enjoy as an after-dinner aperitif.
And, finally the wedding cake…Christmas wedding cakes can be so much fun to create. Fluffy frosting, glitter and snowflake icing are all reminiscent of winter and Christmas time. Alternatively, you can keep it stylish and simple with decorative acorns, berries and green foliage. Weddingomania have a fantastic wedding cake decoration feature for inspiration if you need some further ideas.
If you want to keep it super traditional in regards to filling, then a rich fruit cake would fit the bill. Feel like baking your own? Then check out this three tier fruitcake recipe from Baking Mad. If you’re not Britain’s next top baker, but still on a budget then fear not as December is the perfect time of year to pick up reasonably priced plainly iced fruitcakes that are perfect for you to decorate yourself and will have a wonderfully authentic and personal feel.
What do I need to consider when planning a Christmas wedding?
Planning a wedding around Christmas time is no different from planning a wedding at any other time of the year. It’s important to plan ahead, there’s lots going on around Christmas time so make sure you book the important aspects of your day such as your registrar, venue and entertainment early. Also, make sure to give your guests as much forward notice as possible so that they may book places to stay, arrange transport, etc.
Some of the less exciting tasks to think about include:
Setting a budget – costs for big celebrations such as weddings can easily spiral out of control if you don’t keep track of spending, so set up a dedicated spreadsheet and log down every penny that’s spent. This will allow you to not only keep track of your deposits, what’s been paid for already and what’s due to be paid for etc, but it will remind you of your overall spend against your budget and enable you to pull back if that spend is getting too high.
Purchasing wedding insurance – your wedding will most likely be one of the most expensive events you will ever throw, so make sure that you have good quality insurance in place should the worst happen. It will cover you against things such as suppliers going out of business, lost or stolen items and illness.
Construct a list of wedding day priorities – sit down with your partner and agree on what the priorities for your day need to be. Is it all about great food, do you want your entertainment to be the most memorable part of your day or are you all about impressing with your theming and décor? Being on the same page from the get-go will ensure that the planning process is less stressful and ensure that you both get what you want out of the day.
We hope you’ve found our Christmas wedding ideas guide useful and are now full of ideas and inspiration for your special day. Visit our weddings page to find out more about the venues in the group or find more wedding planning info on our Journals page.
