The Pear Tree Wedding Photographer & Videographer

A former vicarage with a private vineyard

The Pear Tree is at Church End, Purton, Wiltshire (SN5 4ED). The venue's home page describes a 400 year old former vicarage in the heart of Wiltshire, surrounded by seven acres of English countryside and with a private vineyard, and calls itself an exclusive-use wedding and events venue.

Its About page says the house ran as a hotel from 1987 until 2019, when new owners added a Cotswold stone Orangery and made it an exclusive-use wedding and events venue. It also says Purton takes its name from the Old English words for pear and enclosure.

We photographed and filmed Jen and Mike's wedding here on 6 August 2022. This page follows it in photographs. Our Wiltshire guide and Swindon guide show the venue beside others nearby, and here we stay with the venue itself. What we say about the venue comes from its own website, and what we say about the photographs comes from looking at them.

For current venue details, explore The Pear Tree. Its FAQs page sets out capacities, finish times and parking.

01 / The spaces / From the venue's own description

The Orangery, the Bartlett Bar and the vineyard

The venue lists several spaces: the Orangery, a glazed room with skylights and gardens on three sides that it uses for the formal wedding breakfast; the Bartlett Bar and Lounge, a separate evening space with a large dance floor, a spot for a DJ or band and two cocktail bars; the Garden and Grounds, the Library, the Vineyard, a Garden Pavilion, an outdoor terrace and kitchen under cover, and rooms it calls Blossom and Moonglow. The reception page describes the Library as a quieter room with a fire and books lining the walls.

The venue's FAQs give a ceremony capacity of 150, a seated dining capacity of 150 and an evening capacity of 200, which is also the maximum for private events. It has 18 bedrooms set across the historic buildings, including the Moonglow suite, sleeping up to 36. Once your date is booked, the venue sends a link and a code to book the rooms, and breakfast is included in the room rate. Cars can stay overnight but must be collected by 10 am, and the FAQs say there is ample parking.

02 / The day here / From the venue's own pages

Ceremony spaces, getting ready and the venue's own timeline

The ceremonies page gives two settings: Blossom, a bright, airy, neutral room indoors, and the Garden Pavilion outdoors, with the couple's entrance down the garden walk. Both take up to 150 guests. The FAQs say ceremonies are booked through the Wiltshire registry office, or you can use a church nearby, and name four churches within two miles, including St Mary's next door. Guests can arrive up to 90 minutes before the ceremony and wait in the bar for welcome drinks.

For getting ready, Cascade is a top-floor dressing room overlooking the gardens and vineyard, with floor-length mirrors, illuminated dressing tables and hair and make-up stations, available from 9 am. The Library, with leather sofas and a fireplace dating to 1430, is available for 1.5 hours before the ceremony as a second space. Well-behaved dogs are welcome at the ceremony and for photographs.

The venue's own wedding timeline has exclusive hire starting at 12 noon, the ceremony at 1 pm, a drinks reception in the gardens at 1.30 pm and photographs from 2 pm on the lawns, in the vineyards and by the pear tree at the entrance. The wedding breakfast is at 3 pm in the Orangery, evening guests arrive at 7 pm, and last orders are at 11.15 pm. The bar and music finish at 11.30 pm and the venue closes at midnight, with the gardens closing at 10 pm. Music rules are in a separate policy document, so ask for it.

03 / August 2022 / Jen and Mike

Jen and Mike: a quiet portrait, a bright dining room and a tearful speech

Jen and Mike married at The Pear Tree on 6 August 2022. The photograph at the top of this page is a black and white portrait: Jen, in an off-the-shoulder gown with a bouquet of roses, and Mike, in a dark suit, touching foreheads on a paved terrace with the stone house behind them.

Inside, the dining room is set with long tables and tall chairs beneath a bright ceiling with a glass lantern, tall black-framed windows opening onto the gardens.

During the speeches a man in a dark suit reads from a sheet of paper beside a wall of greenery with a neon sign, while Jen, seated beside Mike, dabs her eyes and a woman in a pale blue dress and a hat looks on.

Their highlight film is on this page as well.

Three more photographs follow the day. In the ceremony room, under a crystal chandelier and white drapes, Jen and Mike hold hands and look at each other over a bouquet of pink and cream roses, guests seated behind. They walk hand in hand through a dark blue room with a round mirror, Jen laughing in her fitted gown. And outside, they walk along a stone path between lavender borders, the stone building and a stretch tent behind them.

Planning your photographs at The Pear Tree

A few things worth asking the venue, and how we would plan around the answers:

1. Where the ceremony happens: the venue offers Blossom indoors or the Garden Pavilion outdoors, both for up to 150. Tell us which you choose and the registrar's time, so we can arrange the morning around it.
2. Rain: the venue's pages do not set out a wet-weather plan, so ask for one when you confirm the order of the day. Blossom is the indoor ceremony room, and the Orangery, the Library and the Bartlett Bar and Lounge are the indoor spaces beside the gardens. The venue's timeline puts the drinks reception in the gardens, so ask where it would move.
3. Group photographs: we do as many as you like and typically recommend around 15, which usually take about 20 minutes. The gardens give you space, and the venue's timeline puts photographs straight after the drinks reception. Ask a groomsman or bridesmaid who knows everyone to round people up.
4. Portraits: we usually take a portrait walk of about 15 minutes, with photo and video together. The terrace, the gardens, the vineyard and the pear tree at the entrance give very different backdrops. The venue closes its gardens at 10 pm, so plan any portraits in the last light before then.
5. Getting ready: Cascade is available from 9 am and the Library for 1.5 hours before the ceremony. If you and your partner are in different places, we move between you together, splitting our time as a team. Groom preparation typically takes about 15 minutes.

One team for the photographs and the film

Cam and Beth have photographed and filmed over 400 weddings together, so a historic house with gardens, a terrace and a vineyard is familiar territory. You get one conversation about the timetable, one set of questions for the venue and one plan for the portrait walk.

The photo and video team package carries a £120 deposit and a £400 saving over booking photography and videography separately. We are based near Cardiff, and travel across England and Wales is included in standard full-day packages. When the drive is over two hours we always stay in a hotel the night before and cover it.

Questions about a The Pear Tree wedding