We plan garden, orchard and glasshouse weddings around Bath. Not a package and not a mood board: a day built from the season you marry in, the people you love and a proper plan for the rain.
Within ninety minutes of Bath, from walled kitchen gardens to old Victorian glass.
Nell or Theo, start to finish. Nobody hands you over to a coordinator.
Flowers in, chairs out and coffee on before you have woken up.
Every wedding gets one planner, a written run sheet and a rain plan. What changes is how early we start and how much you would rather not carry.
from £7,400
From the first venue visit to the last carriage. For couples with demanding jobs, families abroad, or no wish to learn what a marquee weight is.
Usually twelve to eighteen months before the date.
Ask about full planningfrom £4,200
You have found the garden and booked the photographer. We take it from there: the suppliers you still need, the design, the timings, the people.
Usually six to nine months before the date.
Ask about partial planningfrom £1,900
You planned it all. Eight weeks out we take your notes, walk the venue, call every supplier and write the run sheet, then run the day so you can be a guest at it.
From eight weeks before the date.
Ask about the dayWe build each day from what our growers are cutting that month, then let the flower choose the linen, the light and the hour of the ceremony.
March to May
Narcissus, fritillary, apple blossom, early ranunculus.
Pale linen, bare tables and a ceremony at noon, when the light is kind and the orchard is still cold in the shade.
June to August
Garden roses, sweet peas, cornflowers, scabious.
Long tables outside, dinner at eight, and the first dance timed to the last of the light at half past nine.
September to November
Dahlias, rose hips, amaranth, the last of the sweet peas.
Orchards heavy with fruit, a ceremony at two, candles lit by five and a fire pit for the speeches.
December to February
Amaryllis, hellebores, forced narcissus, evergreens.
Glasshouses warmed for the day, dark red on white cloth, and everyone inside by four with something hot.
Planning a wedding is a second job with a deadline. Give us the second job, keep the parts that are yours, and watch the heap become a list.
An aubade is a song for lovers at dawn. Our wedding days start there: we are on site before sunrise, leave after the last guest, and in between the day is written down to the minute.
05:40
We arrive with the growers' buckets and the coffee. The garden is still grey and nobody is awake but the birds.
08:00
Arches, tables and the bouquet are built on site from what was cut yesterday evening.
11:30
Hair, make-up and a quiet hour. One of us is with you, the other is with everyone else.
14:00
Chairs dried of dew, the order of service on every seat, the rain plan folded in a pocket.
15:00
Drinks under the trees, the photographer's list ticked off, grandparents in the shade.
18:30
Candles lit before anyone sits down, speeches between courses, timed with the kitchen.
20:40
Ten minutes in the field for the photographs that end up on the wall.
22:30
Sparklers, taxis at the gate, and the two of us packing the candles away after midnight.
A few of last year's eighteen. Every one had a different garden, a different flower and, twice, a different plan for the rain.
Walled garden, Frome · June
Sweet peas grown for them since March, and dinner on the lawn under the old pear tree.
Woodland lawn, Bruton · September
A ceremony between the beeches, dahlias in every colour of the month and a fire pit for the speeches.
Meadow, Wiltshire · August
Forty guests, one long table in the hay meadow, and everyone barefoot by nine.
Kitchen garden, Bath · April
Rain all morning. At 13:20 we moved the ceremony under the arch, and nobody noticed it had ever been elsewhere.
Aubade is Nell Ashby and Theo Marsh. We take eighteen weddings a year so that both of us can be at every one of them: one with you, the other with everyone else.
Founder. Ten years running weddings at a Somerset garden estate before Aubade. Answers email at six in the morning and knows every grower by first name.
Planner. A former stage manager who writes run sheets your aunt can read, and carries the spare umbrellas.
We gave Nell a spreadsheet with forty tabs. She gave us back one page and a time to decide about the rain. It rained, and we never got wet.
By the afternoon Theo knew the name of every aunt, and which two of them should not sit together.
The flowers were cut the evening before and still had the cold of the field in them.
We were guests at our own wedding. That was the whole brief, and they did it.
If yours is not here, ask it on the first call. It is free, it takes half an hour, and nobody will try to sell you a package.
For full planning, twelve to eighteen months. For the day itself, eight weeks is enough, though summer Saturdays are usually taken a year ahead.
Mostly gardens, orchards and glasshouses within ninety minutes of Bath. We have also planned barns, a boathouse and one library. Ask us.
Every wedding has a written rain plan by the third month: a covered place for the ceremony, umbrellas in the right colour, and a time on the day at which we decide.
Of course. We meet them, share the run sheet and make sure they know where to park the van and when the speeches start.
Eighteen a year and never two on one weekend, so both of us can be at yours from first light.
Full planning starts at £7,400, partial planning at £4,200 and the day itself at £1,900. After the first call you get a written quote with nothing left out.
Notes from the studio on flowers, weather and running a day.
Our growers sow a late row in June. Here is what that gives an autumn wedding, and what it cannot.
Read the note
Three ways we keep a garden ceremony dry without hiding it under canvas.
Read the note
One page, large type, times down the left. Our template, and why it beats an app on the day.
Read the noteA few lines about the two of you, the season and the place are enough. We reply within two working days, and the first call is always free.
