Nazlee & Ossian’s Modern Countryside Summer Wedding at Offley Place

In the Summer of 2024, we hosted our Director Nazlee’s Summer wedding. We asked Nazlee to share some more from her Offley Place wedding day. Below she breaks down her special day in detail.

Our Summer wedding at Offley Place was always going to be special.

I’ve more or less grown up there and worked there across various positions most of my life. Having worked with so many couples over the years to host their weddings it was so special to have ours here too.

We finished our Hester Ballroom in 2018, working closely with my father. I designed the interiors of the Ballroom space. Whilst I was designing the space I kept thinking of what I would love for my dream wedding venue and it means so much every time our couples choose it as their dream venue! I never thought of the day that I would be having my own wedding in the Hester Ballroom!

Our team onsite had worked very hard in the lead-up to the day and we were so pleased to welcome our friends and family to Offley Place.

In the morning we woke up bright and early.

Our guests had breakfast in the Conservatory before some of them left to have a leisurely family golf game in the morning. The ladies went over to the Roseview Dressing Room where we had teas, coffees and champagne. Each bridesmaid had an embroidered dressing gown. Along with a cosmetics bag which I’d filled with essentials and gifts for them. We all had our hair and make-up done along with both mothers and my grandmother (who also had embroidered dressing gowns!). Michelle from Make Up Artistry London along with her team organised everything for us and all the ladies were so impressed with how they looked.

We had organised a grazing table with fresh fruits, pastries, charcuterie and cakes displayed for us by Lauren and Toby from Bite Around the World. It was such a lovely start to the day sitting on the Roseview Dressing Room patio, looking into the Rose Garden whilst enjoying the grazing board with a glass of Champagne.

Our wedding planner Katy Cresner organised all the set-up and our team of suppliers. Katy is at Offley Place often so she is not only an incredible planner but also a friend and it was so lovely having her with us on the day.

My mother helped me into my wedding dress before I had a reveal with my bridesmaids, it was such a heartwarming moment. I then had another reveal with my father and my brother which was really special.

Our first look and vow reading

I was then ushered to the front of the Manor House by our amazing team ready for our first look and vow reading. Jack Henry our incredible photographer was so patient and had such an artistic eye, he would always make sure my dress looked perfect no matter how much the wind was getting in the way! Michael Pearl, our videographer is at Offley Place quite often so we knew him well. He is such a lovely person and amazing at making you feel comfortable in front of the camera. We had also booked the amazing Mel from Mrs Bunn Events who was our content creator. Mel is so warm and captures such special candid moments throughout the day.

Ossian was standing in front of the Manor House with his back turned waiting for me and I gave him a tap on the shoulder. It was an amazing moment when he turned around, a really special feeling. We were then handed our vow booklets to read out our vows. We had always known that we wanted to write our vows but we wanted them to be in private, just for us. Ossian read his vows out first, then I read mine. It felt like we were the only people in the world.

I then had to be moved upstairs to our Honeymoon Suite to hide away as guests were arriving. The incredible Mia Sylvia had designed gorgeous fabric draping that hung down from our grand staircase at the entrance of the Manor House alongside a draped fabric welcome sign designed by Ellie from ERA Calligraphy .

Upstairs we had some more family photos together before getting ready for the ceremony. We were handed our bouquets, my bridesmaids each had a bouquet of white roses tied together with a silk black ribbon, it looked striking against their high-neck mocha dresses. My bouquet was made up of cascading miniature orchids, Liz had created this for me to echo my mother’s wedding bouquet which had also been cascading orchids, this was my ‘something borrowed’.

My best friend then put in my veil, a gorgeous warm ivory veil with a thin satin trim from Mirror Mirror. The veil had been embroidered with the words ‘always and forever’ taken from the card that Ossian had written to me when he proposed.

Our Summer ceremony at Offley Place

Our ceremony was taking place in the grounds at Offley Place under a broken floral arch with a rambling white meadow aisle created by the talented Liz at Blue Sky Flowers who curated all the wonderful flowers on the day. We had chosen black bentwood chairs for our guests which tied in with the black exposed arch structure and gave the ceremony a more modern look. As it was such a beautiful sunny day we had personalised white fans along with white parasols ready for our guests to take.

A violinist and pianist played as Ossian’s adorable nieces and nephew started the procession throwing fresh flowers from their flower girl baskets. My bridesmaids each followed one by one before I came down the aisle with both my mother and my father.

The ceremony was conducted by my cousin who had written a beautiful and personal piece which was just perfect for the day, she made everyone laugh and cry in the best way. We also had two readings from Ossian’s sister as well as my uncle that brought the ceremony to life.

My younger cousins were our ushers and they took their jobs very seriously. Two of them were in charge of looking after our rings, whilst the other three made sure that no one was using their phones during the ceremony. They also handed out our confetti ready for the end of our ceremony.

We had chosen a black and white confetti made up of white jasmine and black cornflower which were held in confetti cones made up of book pages. Ossian loves reading especially books so this marked a little of his personality on the wedding day.

The ceremony was captured by a live artist, Emily who was set up alongside us to capture the setup of the day. As we both love art this was such a special touch for us. Emily’s painting blew us away, she has such an eye for detail and incredible talent.

The drinks reception and onwards.

After the ceremony, we had our drinks reception on the grounds where we had mini golf, the Swedish game Kubb as well as a personalised Four in a Row game which we had made to spell our names. Our amazing caterers Goose and Berry served a selection of our chosen canapés with Champagne. We had all our family photos and even had time to mingle with our guests and enjoy the canapés.

I had designed our seating chart myself where we had a large pane of acrylic with the guests’ names listed in alphabetical order in the same white clean typeface matching the rest of the stationery. The acrylic pane was hanging from a large black metal frame adorned with green foliage behind. I loved the final look!

I had my veil taken out and changed for an ornate gold hair vine that was pinned around the side of my hair. This added the little more ‘glam’ that I wanted for my ‘day to night’ look.

A champagne tower was set up for our guests to each take a glass before they made their way into the Hester Ballroom where the incredible music of Creation Band had everyone up and dancing ready for us to enter. Mia Sylvia had also worked her magic here hanging beautifully draped fabrics across the Ballroom to complement the grand chandeliers and gorgeous skylight. Our planner Katy led us in and what a welcome, we were blown away!

The tables were adorned with beautiful organic, abstract floral displays across a selection of bowls and vessels. We loved that each table was different. The table numbers were on large, broken slabs of marble with each number in Ellie’s calligraphy.

The tablescape was one of my favourite parts of the day. Mia Sylvia’s gorgeous draped fabrics adorned the tables with an ornate glass charger plate which had a black menu placed on top. Our napkins were draped off the table alongside black cutlery. For our glassware, we had chosen tall fluted wine and champagne glasses with a contrasting black tumbler. I loved how the black accents on the tablescape contrasted with the light, flowing elements and seeing this echoed on a different scale throughout the Ballroom.

Katy had helped us expertly intertwine our meal courses alongside our speeches and dancing so our guests had a fabulous time all the way through. We had fantastic speeches from both our fathers, my brother, Ossian and I said a few words at the end as well! The food was amazing and our guests danced the night away to the incredible band and our Iranian DJ who added a fun burst of Iranian music to the evening for us as well.

We had chosen a selection of our favourite cocktails and our cocktail menu was a big slab of white marble displayed at the bar in the Ballroom. The drinks were beautifully presented by Syrup Bar with personalised stirrers and cocktail toppers. We even had a selection of ‘fun fact’ napkins in black and white sharing a few fun secrets with our guests!

One of my absolute favourite moments was our father-daughter dance. It was such a special moment with my father as we danced in the Ballroom that we had created together. It led beautifully into our first dance as a couple, our first dance song was Bruno Major ‘Old Fashioned’ which is such a special song to us.

In the Gabriel Bar, we displayed another gorgeous fabric installation by Mia Sylvia which displayed our bespoke neon sign reading the words of our first dance song ‘I’ll be old fashioned for you’, this was the perfect backdrop for our photo booth.

We had also positioned the most beautiful lace tipi filled with cushions, throws and of course games where our flower girls and page boy spent the evening cosying away (when they weren’t stealing the show on the dancefloor that is!)

With this being an Iranian wedding, the cake was a key part of the evening as we had our traditional ‘knife dance’. I had worked closely with Nina from Erzulie Cakes to design the most beautiful, elegant flowing cake made up of the lightest flutters in shades of white and nude contrasted against a white clean top half. Nina’s work truly was a piece of art and the perfect piece for our knife dance. My cousins and close friends took part in the knife dance where they would individually dance with the knife on the dancefloor before offering it to the groom, he would try to bribe them with money but the ladies would always manage to take the money without handing over the knife. They were all such wonderful dancers but of course, finally, he managed to get the knife for us to cut the wedding cake! The cake tasted amazing and despite what I had anticipated we hardly had any left at the end of the night.

Ossian spent some time studying in Korea and loves all things Korean so we had to end the night with Korean fried chicken and courgette which was circulated throughout our guests as an evening snack – this went down so well! In line with our Iranian custom, we also had a lavish fruit platter with fresh fruits including pomegranates, figs, honeycomb & pistachios.

We ended the night with sparklers in the grounds which made it all so special and brought everyone together to see the night off!

All our guests were handed their wedding favour before they left, long dinner candlesticks with ‘lots of love N & O x’ calligraphed along the wax. We had attached a tag with a black ribbon to each one with a thank you note for our guests.

The Day After My Wedding

The next day we had all our family at my parent’s house for a big Iranian feast. The weather was stunning and we still had all the fans and parasols from the wedding day. We had a family game of football before lunch and for dessert, we had a selection of mini Princess cakes, a popular Swedish cake with our wedding logo on along with some Iranian tea. The perfect way to round off the perfect week.

My Wedding Day Outfit Break Down

I wore a gorgeous silk Danielle Frankel dress from Browns Bride which had an asymmetrical draped neckline and a low back with a beautiful grecian train, paired with Rene Caovilla Margot crystal champagne sandals. My earrings were freshwater pearl earrings from Completed works and I had a simple Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet, a gift from my best friend. The concept for this outfit was organic, pearlescent and flowing, to complement the look I chose the Cult Gaia Eos clutch with beautiful pearls all around.

Both my hair vine and my veil were from Mirror Mirror Bridal but I’d had the veil embroidered independently.

My lipstick was La Bouche Rouge, I had a custom blue leather case with our initials engraved onto it, especially for the day, my ‘something blue’.

My perfume was Gucci – The Alchemist’s Garden ‘Tears from the Moon’. I had had the date calligraphed in gold onto the bottle, something I’ll keep forever.

Ossian wore a custom 3-piece suit from Cad & The Dandy at Savile Row, who also supplied the shirt. With that he wore oxford shoes from Loake and a gold pocket watch that he received from his grandfather.