The wedding wars tearing apart the British countryside

A few years ago, a good friend and I were togged up in fluffy white dressing gowns in the grounds of a spa hotel in Northamptonshire, happily sipping bellinis after a dip in the indoor pool. We were there for a low-key girls’ getaway, which was – abruptly – not at all low-key or girlie.

The doors of a nearby function room opened, disgorging raucous wedding guests onto the lawns around us. Suddenly we were sitting in our damp bikinis and towelling amid a forest of beer-drinking men in shiny suits and tipsy women in spanx and heels. It was, frankly, a tourism culture clash.

“Sor-ry,” the manager mouthed, apologetically, “it is wedding season here, you see.”

Once imbued with notions of flowers and smiles, romantic love and happy families, these days weddings – or precisely the wedding reception trade – is drawing short shrift from locals in bucolic country spots across the UK. Councils are seeing rising levels of complaints about the noise, traffic, parking and pollution issues that accompany rural wedding bashes, at the same time as the wedding trade represents an ever-bigger slice of revenue for hotels and stately homes. The returns are big, with UK couples laying down on average £23,250 for weddings in 2024.

On March 9, King Charles joined the chorus of nuptial Nimbys when it was reported that he bought a four-bedroom, £3 million home in Wiltshire with his own funds to prevent it from being turned into a wedding venue. The Old Mill is located on the river Avon with gardens abutting Ray Mill, the 17-acre property the Queen bought after her 1994 divorce from Andrew Parker-Bowles and which she still uses as a countryside retreat.

It was reported that Camilla was suffering “great anxiety” about one potential buyer’s plans to turn the Old Mill into a wedding venue with on-site holiday lets. And she is far from alone in baulking at the noise and disruption that comes with wedding receptions.

In 2022, locals in Oxnead in Norfolk erected signs that read “Brides and grooms not welcome in Oxnead” and “No more weddings we’ve had enough” outside Oxnead Hall after rowdy wedding guests allegedly used villagers’ gardens as a toilet. The venue, owned by former Fortnum and Mason director Beverley Aspinall and her husband David, advertises itself as a “terrestrial paradise set in 15 acres of exquisite gardens” with wedding packages costing between £9,000 and £16,000.

In February, meanwhile, Cumberland Council told the owners of popular wedding venue Dalston Hall that parties would have to move indoors for the spring and summer season after complaints about noise from the marquee. Jade Keiling, 30, and Nathaniel Lee, 29, who are due to get married at Dalston Hall this month, only found out after their wedding DJ posted on social media. “I wasn’t too happy as it’s too late to change our plans,” Keiling said in response to the decision.

Local David Faulder told Telegraph Travel that late-night music and the fireworks at the hall have become an issue. “Sounds travel quite far on clear nights around here,” he said. However, fellow local Stuart Bennett accused complainants of Nimbyism. “In Dalston, if someone farts loudly they will complain,” he laughed.

In 2024, residents of Kilminorth Woods in Looe alleged that their peaceful Cornish village was being “ruined” by noisy bashes at wedding venue Kilminorth. The 32-acre estate, comprising an orchard, meadows, woods and 14 “quaint Cornish cottages”, advertises “three-day wedding extravaganzas”.

Locals snapped after Cornwall Council granted a licence extension to play music until midnight and a permit for a pop-up cinema to screen films. Andrew French, who lives in the valley above Kilminorth, told the June 2024 planning committee: “Imagine going home and it’s a nice hot day [so] you sit in the garden with a cup of tea but all you can hear are the speeches from a wedding, so loud and clear that every word of all the anecdotes are heard and understood.”

Next week, Wiltshire Council Planning Department will decide the fate of another contentious wedding venue: Euridge Manor Farm in the Cotswolds, which is owned by Jigsaw fashion tycoon John Robinson. The 450-acre estate has hosted weddings since 2015, including that of Poldark star Eleanor Tomlinson, with accommodation in camping pods and a treehouse. It retrospectively applied for planning permission to hold events in 2021, which was refused. The current application is Euridge Manor Farm’s second attempt, and it has continued to trade as a wedding venue pending a decision.

A neighbour, who asked not to be named, told Telegraph Travel that the experience was like “having a Disney theme park on our doorstep”. They added that wedding guests regularly “swear” at locals in traffic jams on country lanes and that noise levels emanating from the venue, including fireworks and loud music are “a nightmare”.

“If you buy a property and cannot afford to live in that property without turning it into a commercial venue that is hell for your neighbours, you should not buy that property,” the local said.

In objections to the Euridge Manor Farm events planning application, Sarah Toogood, of neighbouring Lower Eastrip Farm, said: “This year we suffered noise pollution from a large wedding when thumping music could be heard at our property and in Colerne village until 2am. We have livestock in our fields adjacent to Euridge Manor Farm who are very sensitive to fireworks. We have pleaded time and time again for there not to be any fireworks as this can lead to serious issues with animals grazing at night.”

Complaints about weddings also come from fellow tourism businesses. Residents at caravan site Dalston Hall Holiday Park, which advertises pitches in “secluded and peaceful Cumbrian countryside” put in initial objections to Dalston Hall’s marquee, and Rachel Nation, who manages a 160-home holiday park in Kilminorth, objected to the local planning extension to Kilminorth on similar grounds.

For a best-practice example of how venues can navigate the demands of guests in the lucrative wedding market while maintaining good neighbour relations, look to Sir Anselm Mark Guise, 9th Baronet. Once dubbed the “hedonistic heir” after becoming a psychedelic-trance DJ in his 20s, he took up the reins of his family’s 750-year-old seat, Elmore Court in Gloucestershire, in 2007. He now runs the 13th-century stately home and 1,000-acre estate as a sustainable wedding venue with a rewilded forest and a spring-fed lake for wild swimming.

“I knew with my reputation for running festivals I would have to put effort and funds into serious soundproofing,” Guise told Telegraph Travel. In 2013, Guise built a £1m “future-rustic” dinner and dancing venue, the Gillyflower, which features earthen walls and state-of-the-art soundproofing.

Guise also “keeps tight control” of car parking and refuses requests for wedding guests to stage themed events that might be disruptive, including “wedding raves”. In the past decade the venue, which has an 18-month waiting list, has staged over 600 weddings “with not one noise complaint” from residents at nearby Elmore village.

What does Guise think King Charles should do with newly acquired property The Old Mill? “How about a Charles-themed wedding venue?” Guise jests. “Imagine: field-to-fork from the Duchy estate; footmen (and women); Georgian interiors like Poundbury? Wouldn’t it be fabulous?”