Testing Testing Wedding in Sight

Maytrees min is due to be married in June this year so she, her fiancé, prospective mother-in-law (whose wonderful husband sadly died a year or so ago) mrs maytrees and myself, spent most of yesterday at  the wedding venue, Bignor Park West Sussex, enabling their wedding preparations to be taken further. 

Mrs maytrees and I first went to the estate with younger brother and his wife last August for a farmer's market type event. I gather that the market is put on bi-annually at Bignor Park and it was that occasion which led to our suggesting the venue to maytrees min  for her wedding.

Bignor Park looks a wonderful place for a wedding venue. The privately owned house there is owned by a viscount who is a classical musician so lets out the site a few times a year for weddings to assist his family and himself in making their financial ends meet. Previously, some 700 years or so ago,  the site had been a holiday home for the then Duke of Norfolk.

Those attending weddings at Bignor Park have freedom to roam over the 1,100  acre site and even camp there overnight if local hostelries are full.

The wedding hostess was brilliant and took the couple/parents through the likely events of the day over tea and biscuits in front of a fire which slightly offset yesterday's cold weather.

Afterwards she took us around some of the atmospheric estate grounds, emphasising that wedding guests could roam at will on the day so that for example, those who arrive early,  would be able to ramble around the estate before the ceremony.

We then drove on to the nearby White Horse pub for a great supper together for which maytrees min and fiancé paid the bill. Upon leaving the pub, the stars in the sky were clear to see and enjoy, which one cannot usually do in cities.

Driving home in the pitch black was for us unusual as street lights usually abound in and around Greater London.