Secret Garden Kent Wedding Photographer: a planning guide

The Secret Garden sits in the old walled kitchen garden of the Mersham le Hatch estate, just off the M20 at Ashford and about half an hour from Canterbury. It started twenty years ago as a farm shop and café, became a restaurant that hosted the occasional wedding, and in 2022 gave up the restaurant to do weddings only. That history is the whole character of the place. The kitchen garden still grows for the kitchen. The food is still cooked by their own chefs. You’re marrying in a garden that was already a garden.

This is a planning guide, written from the venue’s own information and from photographers who’ve worked there, not from a wedding I’ve shot. I’d rather say so.

The ceremony

There are four licensed spaces, two outside and two in.

The gazebo in the walled garden is where most couples say their vows. Around a hundred guests, gravel paths, fruit trees behind you. It’s open on all sides, so I can work from the edges without standing in anyone’s eyeline.

The chapel is the indoor room and the rain plan: chandelier, high ceiling, seating for about ninety. It’s a proper room rather than a function space with the tables cleared.

The Victorian glasshouse is the small one, vine-draped, somewhere between twenty-five and fifty guests depending on who you ask. If you’re marrying with a few people, this is the room I’d push for. Greenhouse light is soft, green-tinged and the same from every direction.

The light

The gardens wrap the buildings on every side, which matters more than it sounds: your portraits happen thirty seconds from the drinks, not a ten-minute walk away, so you don’t vanish from your own party.

The terrace is south-facing and under cover, which means the drinks reception has bright, even light and shade at the same time. Early evening on the lawns and in the walled garden is the time photographers who work here keep mentioning, and the wildflower meadow is the spot the venue itself names.

One warning from the people who’ve shot there: the main dining room has a lot of mirrors. Good light for the family photographs, but I’ll be watching the reflections.

Timings

The venue doesn’t publish ceremony windows or a music cut-off, so ask when you visit. The only hard fact I could find is that the car park locks between midnight and seven. Between October and March there’s a twilight package built around a late-afternoon ceremony, which in winter means marrying in the last of the daylight and going straight into candlelight. For a documentary photographer that’s a gift, not a compromise.

Practical notes for couples

• Rain. Ceremony moves to the chapel, family photographs to the dining room, first dance into the ceremony room. The venue has made that call on the morning before and it works.
• Confetti is allowed, and the venue supplies it from flowers pressed and dried on their own farm. Bring nothing.
• Getting ready. There’s a parlour on site, and photographers mention a wisteria-filled suite in the orangery. If you’d rather get ready at the venue than at a hotel, you can.
• Food. In-house, seasonal, from their own garden. You can bring outside caterers, but it would be an odd reason to choose this venue.
• Accommodation. None on site. Ashford has the hotels and the station is about fifteen minutes away.
• Dogs are welcome. Sparklers have been used. Ask about both.
• Address. The Court Yard, Mersham-le-Hatch, Hythe Road, Ashford TN25 6NH.

From here

The Secret Garden suits couples who care more about the food and the garden than the grand entrance, which tends to mean they care about the day itself rather than the performance of it. That’s who I work best with. Pricing is public, and you can get in touch any time.