Real Weddings: Vy and Matthew

May 25, 2026 | Real Weddings

Welcome to our Real Wedding Blog!

We’ve spoken to our couples to find out their top tips, advice and favourite moments of their wedding at Cockliffe Country House in Nottingham. If you’re getting married with us, or simply looking for some wedding day inspiration for your own wedding plans, read on to find out more.

Vy & Matthew

Wedding Date – 17th October 2025

‘A heartfelt multicultural wedding with 2 wedding dresses & an unforgettable karaoke party!’

Matt and Vy’s beautiful real wedding at Cockliffe Country House blended British and Vietnamese-Cantonese traditions, including a meaningful tea ceremony. After a small legal ceremony in 2021, they celebrated in style with loved ones, incredible food, and a joyful day full of emotion, laughter, and even karaoke. Read all about their day here…

Describe your wedding day in 3 words…

Emotional, joyous, karaoke.

What was your inspiration for your special day?

We got legally married in 2021 whilst the COVID restrictions were still in place, so that meant it was just us and three friends and a very toned down ceremony without our families. It was really important to us to have a proper wedding celebration with all our family and friends and with all the bits that were missing from 2021, like the vows, exchange of rings, and the partying afterwards.

Also, we wanted a ceremony and celebration that reflected our different cultural backgrounds, British for Matt and Vietnamese-Cantonese for Vy. So, we incorporated a traditional Asian tea ceremony into our wedding which symbolised the formal blessing of our marriage and meant a lot to us and to our families.

What was the best part of your day?

As cliched as it sounds, the entire day was perfect and everything we hoped and dreamed it would be, but a highlight was having all our friends and families from both of our worlds all in one place together to celebrate with us, especially as that was one of the main things we missed out on with our ceremony in 2021.

Also the karaoke and dancing at the end of the night was class.

Why did you choose Cockliffe Country House?

Within 5 minutes of visiting Cockliffe Country House for the first time to view it, we both immediately felt like it was the one for us. We absolutely loved the countryside setting and the very English feel of the place, but the clinchers were the friendliness of the staff, and the exclusivity of the venue so we could selfishly have the whole place just for us!

How did you decide which menu was right for your day?

We went for a menu that we knew both our friends and families, and the two of us as well, would really enjoy. And we got our choices spot on based on the wonderful feedback everyone gave us about the food throughout the entire day! We picked the crispy prawns to start, followed by the blade of beef as our main, finished off with the apple and blackberry crumble for dessert. All of the food was phenomenal, especially the beef for our main, but the pizza in the evening was also a massive hit!

What was the hardest part of your wedding planning?

We decided to do the bulk of the styling and room dressing ourselves which was very stressful as it meant even more decisions on top of all the others. However, we had fantastic help from family on the days running up to the wedding, and from Andrea and the staff at Cockliffe. So come our wedding day, the room looked amazing and we were really happy with how all of the decorations came together.

What were your favourite parts of the venue?

The ceremony room was perfect throughout the day, both in terms of how it looked and in terms of the size for all our guests and families. But, having the gardens outside to be able to use for mingling and for photographs was brilliant, and the kids loved having somewhere to run around and play. We did get very lucky with the weather though, for which we’re very grateful!

If you have any advice for new marrying couples, what would it be?

We’d say be very clear with yourselves as to why you’re having a wedding ceremony and what you want to get out of the day. For us it was about bringing together our friends and families to celebrate with us, especially with Vy and her family being from the US.

Other than that, on the day we’d say just enjoy yourselves, take time to experience everything. Also, trust that everyone is there for you, so if stuff needs doing, let others take the reins!