Winter weddings might just be better than their summer counterparts

Woman and man embracing and wearing furs (hers white, his black). Still from Dr Zhivago.

Julie Christie and Omar Sharif embrace in the deep midwinter in a scene from 'Dr Zhivago' (1965)

(Image credit: Alamy)

Name one person whose summer wardrobe is better than their winter one. Go on, it’ll be fun. Harder than it sounds, isn’t it? Now, try the same exercise with something else. Food: better in winter. Fireplaces: better in winter. Sex: better in winter. (Warmth has to come from somewhere, and bonus: it's cheaper than central heating.)

Let us consider, then, the virtues of the winter wedding, with its faint promise of snow and the gumption required to swan through it in heels. I’m far from the only person with a soft spot for the genre: 20% of British weddings now take place in winter, and that figure is growing. ‘We’ve seen a notable spike in the number of winter weddings this past year,’ says Pink Squire, a publicist and co-founder of a wedding-planning firm with gallerist Edie Jones. ‘There’s a lot to be said for elegant dresses draped in furs and for turning a bleak January into a beautiful honeymoon period.’

A man and woman wearing cool goggles being married on a ski slope — A ceremony on a ski slope may be slightly *off-piste*, but as winter weddings signal a shift to snowier preferences, could it become the hot new way to get hitched?

When it comes to wintry weddings, the country is the clear winner, with farmsteads and country houses a popular choice for those who want a roaring fire inside and a mist to envelop outdoor proceedings. It’s also economical, akin to travelling off-peak or going skiing in May — an increasingly tough call for the same reason that winter weddings are growing in demand. As James Carville nearly said: it’s the climate, stupid. Besides the occasional cold snap, winter in Britain has become more palatable; mild enough that you won’t freeze during the ceremony yet cool enough that you needn’t worry about mopping your forehead on the dance floor.

Those tying the knot in December can also bank on their entire family being present, as they would have gathered for Christmas around that time anyway. The upside, for those whose families are ‘a lot’, is that their annual family meet is kept to only one. Hannah Gräfin von Waldersee, a wedding planner in New York, US, says a winter wedding stands out for all the right reasons. ‘Because it gets darker earlier, you have more options to play with fireworks, lights and projections,’ she notes. For those planning at short notice, ‘a winter date has the best chance of getting a high response rate’—a reward for those who’ve chosen their friends wisely over the years. Rejoice for winter nuptials, then: keep the fireplace well stocked and the good times flowing.

Will Hosie is Country Life's Lifestyle Editor and a contributor to A Rabbit's Foot and Semaine. He also edits the Substack @gauchemagazine. He not so secretly thinks Stanely Tucci should've won an Oscar for his role in The Devil Wears Prada.