A December wedding at the barn

Our winter weekend hire is £7,900 against £11,800 in summer. That is the headline. The reason to take a December date is not the money.

1. The room is better in the dark

The Long Barn has a glazed end wall, forty feet of oak roof and stone walls that take candlelight the way a summer marquee never will. In June you are competing with daylight until half nine. In December the room looks its best from two in the afternoon.

2. The timeline moves forward, and that is all

Ceremony at one or two rather than four. Photographs between the ceremony and drinks, while there is still light. Dinner at five. Dancing by half eight. The day is the same length; it simply starts earlier, and guests eat when they are hungry rather than at seven-thirty after four hours of canapés.

3. Heat

Underfloor heating through the Long Barn, three industrial heaters in the Granary bar, and the doors stay shut. We turn it on the night before. Nobody has ever sat through a ceremony here in a coat.

4. What genuinely is harder

Ground conditions for anything on the meadow, and guests driving home on dark country lanes. We fix the second one by keeping a local taxi firm on a standing arrangement for winter dates, booked by us, confirmed the week before.