With a thatched roof that feigns to keep a lid on the joy within, wise ivory chimneys that preside over garden love scenes, and casement windows that look out to the sea at Perranporth, Gwendolyn is perhaps the most charming of wedding venues for a poetic elopement.
Let them have their grandiose weddings. Lovers with their hearts set on a humbler affair will be smitten with Gwendolyn, a caricatured Cornish cottage made for “Shakespeare meets Sarah Jessica Parker” micro-weddings. Think luxury coastal elopement, where the guest list is capped at twenty, hounds in bow ties gallivant around the garden, and the wedding portraits are drenched in golden hour light on Perranporth Beach.
Couples can have a chic humanist ceremony in the cottage garden or opt for a religious ceremony at a nearby local church before an evening of custom celebrations; from a bohemian disco beneath the pergola’s string lights to a glamorous candlelit banquet by the pond.
Forever promise bookings at Gwendolyn provide couples with the fairy-tale cottage all to themselves for a minimum of three nights. Bursting with soft elegance it offers an artistic take on the intimate behind the dragonfly doorknocker and the blushed hydrangea guard posts. Look for marshmallow sofas, beaded chandeliers, pointed arch doors, and split brick terracotta floors that beckon barefooted gatherers around the farmhouse table.
After the rice has been thrown, the wedding party can assemble on the lawn to sip Apple-y Ever After Martinis and feast on a privately-catered wedding breakfast of truffle risotto and Sicilian ricotta cake.
With timber-framing slaked in sage grey Farrow & Ball, string bulbs that throw dappled light upon the dancers, and timber beams bringing warmth in bushels, there’s joy to be had outside. Wrapped in the merry din of a string quartet or the soft flutter of an acoustic guitar, moonstruck newlyweds can have their first dance as the sky turns from apricot to indigo and sparklers bounce off the glass-like pond.
On the wedding evening, after feasting on Cornish gouda and local wildflower honey, the bride and groom can retreat to the snug to wax nostalgic, pouring from a carafe of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and filling the clawfoot with bubbles.
