A Chinese Tea Ceremony Wedding at Halton Grove in Northumberland

Viv and Ed married in May with a ceremony at St Mary’s Church in Staindrop, County Durham, followed by a reception at Halton Grove in Northumberland.

Their wedding brought together British and Chinese traditions across an entire weekend of celebrations, including a traditional tea ceremony held between the church service and reception.

The couple booked Halton Grove before the venue had officially opened for weddings, taking a chance on the newly built Northumberland venue because of its countryside setting, exposed timber beams and floor to ceiling windows. Inspired by spring meadows and the timing of their May Day wedding, they chose a palette of blush pink, lilac and yellow ochre and filled the reception with handmade details created alongside family and friends.

The ttalented bride designed all of the stationery herself, from the invitations and order of service through to illustrated menus, signage and bookmarks that doubled as place settings. Family history ran throughout the day too, from pearl earrings borrowed from her mother to Edward’s cufflinks, created from coins minted in the year of his late father’s birth.

Beautifully photographed by Helen Russell, this lovely wedding moved from a traditional church ceremony in Durham to a Chinese tea ceremony at Halton Grove, where tea was served to elders to symbolise the joining of two families. The celebrations also included a traditional hair brushing ceremony on the eve of the wedding, during which auspicious blessings are spoken with each stroke of the comb.

Originally we were looking for a venue within 30 minutes drive of the church but nothing we saw quite met what we envisioned for our special day. We came across Halton Grove and at the time, the venue hadn’t finished being built and not opened as a wedding venue yet – so it was a big gamble!

But we fell in love with Halton Grove on our first visit a few weeks before their first ever wedding in May 2023. It was exactly what we were looking for – from the size of the venue to the variety of spaces and the top quality food offering which was super important to us! It was a no brainer except for the fact that it was an hour’s drive from church!

The night before the wedding, friends and family attended to watch the brushing of the bride’s hair. This ceremony involves the bride dressed in new red pyjamas and the groom is not allowed to be present. Each stroke of the comb is paired with an auspicious well wish.

Ten strokes in total, whilst the red candles burn. Following the ceremony, friends and family share a pot of tangyuan – a traditional Chinese dessert, which represents success and togetherness. Tangyuan balls are red and white in colour and legend has it that the more the groom’s father eats, the more children the couple will bear.

St Mary’s Church is in Edward’s home parish and where he lived for over twenty years before he moved to London.

He’d always dreamed of getting married here since he was a young with his grandparents also having wed here and his grandad having been an organist there. He was also christened there.

The Vicar, Reverend Canon Eileen Harrop, lead our ceremony, during which, we had two readings. The first reading was The Song of Songs (2:10-13), read and chosen by one of my bridesmaids, as one of the lesser known books of the Bible. It describes the shift of season’s from winter to Spring and was apt given our wedding was at the beginning of Spring.

The second reading was Colossians (3:12-17), read in Chinese by my aunt. This reading has an emphasis on love and thankfulness.

Our wedding rings were from Webley London. Platinum band to match Vivian’s engagement ring and gold for Edward to match his signet ring.

The ceremony was my favourite part fo the day, it was intimate and although closest friends and family were present, the moment was special and felt like it was just the two of us.

I discovered our photographer, Helen Russell, through a school friend’s wedding photographs and just fell in love with her photography style.

From the soft lighting to the natural candid style, Helen’s vibe was exactly what we were looking for.

We met in the summer of 2016, online! All due to my frugality to driving all the way to Bishop Auckland to deliver a toaster I had sold on Facebook Marketplace and entered his radius!) and we finally went on our first date after 3 months of daily messaging.

Surprise engagement on our short trip to Toulouse in January 2023. A logistically disasterous holiday after our flights were cancelled and we didn’t land in France until 24 hours later.

The reception space as decorated by the bridal party and family and included handmade pompoms, flowers repurposed from the ceremony space, polaroid photos of the bride and groom with friends and family, brass candlesticks, gold photo frames and small bud vases.

Floral styling was by Periwinkle Barn – we found Deborah through Flowers from the Farm, having been recommended it by our friend who is a florist in London – and knew Deborah was the one. She supplied and styled locals flowers grown in her own garden mixed with some flowers from further afield – sustainable. She was also local to our wedding venue.

Our wedding invitations, order of service and menus were designed by me and printed and letterpressed with Blush Publishing. On the day stationery was drawn by me and this included the seating chart, table numbers and welcome signage.

Our tables were named after our favourite places and our wedding menus doubled up as bookmarks which were had guest names in calligraphy on them – I also designed these myself.

Our catering was in-house and lead by Emily Owen from Halton Grove. It was amazing food! Good food was really important to us and an important part of the venue choice – we received so many compliments from friends and family about how good the food was. Wine selection was also amazing and we were able to try wine pairings with our food tasting. The food for the night before and breakfast the next day was also amazing!

Our cake was by Rachel at Frances and Rae Cake Design – it was a simple but elegant design embellished with real flowers. There was a raw edge effect and a touch of edible gold leaf to match our wedding invitations and table numbers.

Your budget will go out the window if you don’t have a clear vision of what you want. But at the end of the day, there were so many parts of the wedding we stressed about that you forget about on the day – don’t stress about the small details!

Add in contingency time for your timeline on the day – you don’t want to be rushing around and getting flustered!

Plan in time alone. E.g. we drove from the church to our wedding venue alone which gave us time to chat and have some slower time to ourselves amongst the craziness of the day.

Register here, it will only take a few moments – you’ll then be able to save all your favourite Love My Dress content, including real weddings, shop items, ceremony readings, inspirational editorials and recommended supplier / vendor and venue listings. Enjoy!