Callum & Jess’ Beautiful Summer Wedding at

Deer Park Country House

Callum & Jess’ wedding at Deer Park Country House landed on one of the hottest summer days of 2025… and honestly, it couldn’t have suited their plans more. They built the whole day around being outside, cocktails in the sunshine, dinner under the trees in the cocktail garden, and that proper relaxed feeling of everyone just being present and enjoying it. The styling was unreal, the set-up looked incredible, and the vibe was exactly what you want from a summer wedding: everyone outside, music playing, drinks flowing & everyone being in the moment.

When did you guys start planning your wedding?

We got engaged at the end of July 2024, we knew we wanted to get married the next summer so started planning pretty quickly! I felt like I was in a race with other brides to secure suppliers (bit like the film Bride Wars!), so it was go go go!

How long did it take you to find your perfect wedding venue?

As we met at Exeter Uni and both have family connections in the South West, we knew we wanted to get married in Devon. We booked in at least 7 venues to view across a weekend in September 2024. We didn’t know what type of venue we wanted so went to see everything from barns, country houses, estates, tipis. As soon as we saw Deer Park Country House we knew there was something magical about the place, and no where else seemed to match up. We loved there was beautiful inside and outdoor spaces so whatever the weather, the day would be perfect.

How would you describe your wedding theme? What was the inspiration?

I found the beginning of wedding planning a bit overwhelming with the variety of themes, décor and inspo shared on social media and wanted everything to flow together from the start with the invites, bridesmaids dress, all the way through to the on the day décor. I work in marketing an made a brand vision for the day which was ‘rustic elegance with a hint of whimsical’ – definitely over the top (!) but it really helped, and I had fun quizzing Callum on whether he remembered our wedding brand during the months of planning!

Tell us about your ceremony & your wedding reception

In the lead up to the wedding, we were manifesting a sunny day so we could use the outdoor space for our ceremony, drinks reception and wedding breakfast. We might have manifested too hard! It was 28’c and our whole day felt like a destination wedding in Italy – we were very, very lucky.

We had a beautiful ceremony which felt like pure magic in Deer Park’s summer house area. I remember walking down the aisle and seeing little butterflies in the tall wild flowers the venue has – it was beautiful.

For our drinks reception everyone relaxed in the sunshine at Deer Park. We also had a ‘wedding pong’ drinking game setup which guests were able to enjoy, which was much more us than lawn garden games!

We all sat down to eat our wedding breakfast in Deer Park's Italian Gardens which we were over the moon we had the weather to use! We were sat under the apple trees so everyone was in shade with little twinkly fairy lights in the trees. We had sharing ‘family’ style dining making it a lovely relaxed meal and not too formal.

We had Tru Groove play during the evening which, as the name suggests, is a funk, soul, disco band that played all the old school hits and we danced the night away. The last song of Proud Mary was definitely a highlight!

What was your favourite part of planning your wedding?

Anything that was in real life! There is a lot of wed-admin with spreadsheets and emails so anything that was in person, off the laptop was the best!

Our visits to Deer Park for planning meetings made it all feel so real! We were so excited driving up to the venue and imagining what our day would be like.

The wedding dress hunt was so special too – after each session my mum and I would have a prosecco (or two!) to debrief.

We were also given a gift of Liberty London Wedding Scent experience so we could find an aftershave & perfume that was different for us for the day and tied to our memories. Even after the wedding now the perfume and aftershave takes us right back to the day and all the emotions!

Do you have any regrets or things you wish you knew before planning a wedding?

TikTok was SO helpful for tips but it became overwhelming with so much content of ‘tips from a bride’, ‘things that went wrong on my wedding day’ etc that it almost became impossible to feel fully prepared! My advice would be to use social media for inspo but be careful not to let it overwhelm you. We had a huge emergency box and were basically prepared for every mishap, but we didn’t need even open it! Things might go wrong but you won’t even notice or care 😊.

bridesmaids and groomsman at deer park country house

Looking back on your wedding now, what was the most memorable moments?

I was so nervous for the ceremony, particularly to be stood up in front of everyone and reading our personal vows (which were quite emotional) but it was my favourite part of the day and I was holding Callum’s hand SO tight. It felt like a movie and it was so lovely to have everyone we cared about us with us.

The speeches were just beautiful, emotional and hilarious! Our best man, Callum and the mother of the bride gave speeches. As the father of the bride had passed away, it was so emotional and raw. That’s why we would also recommend any future brides and grooms to make sure that your guest list is full of people that love and understand you – weddings are a very personal, emotional day!

What were some of the best decisions you made when planning your wedding day?

Having a double sided top table! It worked perfectly for us for family dynamics and it was great to have our closest friends with us during a main part of our wedding day.

Having 2 spare shirts for Callum! It was a HOT day and he was able to change and feel fresh post ceremony and after the wedding breakfast.

In terms of planning, we’d really recommend setting up a wedding email address as you send out so many emails and responses would get lost in your personal account! As soon as you get your venue and date, start booking key suppliers as everyone gets booked up so quickly. Simon and Kiana gave us such good advice to make sure we felt like we ‘clicked’ with our photographers (which we hadn’t thought of before!) because you spend SO much time with them on the day. Simon and Kiana were perfect for us and brought such a chilled out vibe to the day which was just what we needed.

If you had any advice for future bride & grooms, what would that be?

Guest list – if you wouldn’t take them out for dinner, don’t invite them! It's an emotional day and you want to look out at the ceremony and recognise everyone’s faces and for them to really know you and be cheering you on.

The bride and groom are the VIPs not the hosts! Don’t pressurise yourself to make sure you speak to everyone, guests should come to you!

It's so easy to get pulled in different directions on the day, we’d really recommend chatting about this beforehand and agreeing to stay by each other side as much as possible so your memories of the day shared between you!

Your guests won’t always notice the little details or remember whether the day was on time but they’ll remember how you made them feel (and how well you fed them!).

Use Canva! You can save so much money by designing things yourself. We used this for all our wedding stationary from invites, order of service, saved seats signs, name place settings etc.

Decide where you want to invest and where you want to save! We knew the band was really important for us but also knew we could save on the cake, so we used a local baker in Exeter rather than a wedding cake supplier. Speaking of cake (!) ask someone to pop 2 slices of cake in your room as you might not get a chance to try it – We had our chocolate cake for breakfast the next morning!

“Simon and Kiana are an absolute dream team of photographers and we would recommend them to anyone! They photographed our wedding in August 2025 and really captured the essence of the day and so many of our happiest moments just beautifully! They really spotted the intimate moments between people across the course of the day and it was a JOY to get all our content back. It was such a bonus to have two photographers to capture so many more perspectives of the day. AND they were able to add on content creation too!

They captured an array of beautiful natural pictures (none of the yellow filter so many wedding photographers have!). We had a couple of calls with them beforehand and they really encouraged us to make sure they felt like the perfect fit chemistry wise for the day which was so thoughtful (no big pushy sales tactics!). They were SO great to have with us on our special day and brought such a perfect, chilled out vibe

They remembered certain inspo pics we shared and reminded us to get them (would have totally forgot otherwise!). They also worked really well with our videographer too which is super important.

They did so much more than just be our photographers on the day, having never got married before (!) they also guided us through the day and made it so seamless. Thank you!! Xx”

Callum & Jess, what a day. Sun, good people, proper atmosphere, and a venue that felt unreal from start to finish. We loved being there with you both and we’re so glad we got to capture it all. Thank you both so much!