When to book for wedding season

Most of the year's weddings sit in a narrow window, and everyone is working from the same calendar. That compresses demand into a few months and means the good dates are spoken for well before families start looking.

Availability depends on the date you have in mind. Contact the venue team with your preferred dates to find out what is open.

What to have ready before you call

You do not need a finished plan. You need three things:

• A date, or a short list of dates you could live with
• A rough guest count — within fifty is close enough
• Which lawn you are leaning towards, if you have a view

That is enough to tell you whether the date is free and what it would cost. Everything else can follow.

One event a day

Worth knowing before you compare venues: only one lawn is let per date here. That means the grounds are not shared, but it also means a date taken on the smaller lawn is a date taken outright.

If your date matters more than the choice of lawn, call earlier rather than later.