Employing a marksman to shoot pigeons inside our wedding barn on the morning of a ceremony was not something included in the venue-owner’s manual. For the animal-loving bride, blood-splattered dead birds were preferable to her guests being splattered later that day – an understandable moral sacrifice on her behalf. The birds had sneaked in via an open owl hole window in the roof, something we hadn’t spotted until the unwelcome visitors caused a flap.
It was one of the many challenges we faced owning and running a rural wedding venue, a high-pressure business where expectations are enormous and responsibilities seemingly endless. It’s 16 months since we sold up but the memories came flooding back when I read King Charles was reportedly Nimbying about a planned wedding venue near his Wiltshire home. His second wife is said to have been suffering ‘great anxiety’ about proposals to turn a nearby four-bedroomed old mill into a venue and all the supposed disruption that might cause – so he bought the property instead.
Rural wedding venues seem to be the new target of middle England. With increasing regularity I read of Nimbys whingeing about raucous and fun behaviour at old country houses-turned-wedding venues… except, presumably, when they attend them. If you’ve turned down an invitation on that ethical basis – well done you.
We bought and renovated our Suffolk barn in 2012 and planted a vineyard after seeing countless weddings at wineries when we lived in Cape Town. We held our first wedding in 2015 and the business grew to the point where we were hosting nearly 60 weddings a year and around 25 corporate events, until Covid hit and the wedding car wheels fell off – but that’s another story.
It was successful but stressful. We were hosts, bar staff, groundsmen, marketeers, agony aunts, vintners, painters and decorators, heating engineers, plumbers, accountants, employers, sound engineers… the list seemed endless. Behind the scenes, the smiles, toasts, often drab speeches, family feuds, tipsy aunties, misbehaving children, dad-dancing, predictable food, rudeness at the bar, misplaced credit cards/cameras/buggies (all stolen, of course) and general bonhomie, there’s a different tale.
First of all, the vast majority of weddings went off without a hitch, a bitch or serious trouble. Yes, too much drink was probably taken during most, but the atmosphere was generally happy and convivial. When we had to turn the music off at the end of the evening – as per our planning regulations – there was general disappointment but acceptance.
Visitors leaving the venue was a definite pinch point: we wanted them to leave ASAP but drunk guests waiting for taxis or minibuses was challenging as they screamed and shouted outside. Polite requests were usually ignored and some even tried to walk home along our unlit country lane past neighbours’ houses.
There was one groom whose divorce hadn’t come through in time so the registrars didn’t reference ‘marriage’, making the ceremony null and void, but no one noticed
We experienced a bouquet of different challenges. There was one groom whose divorce hadn’t come through in time so the registrars went ahead anyway but didn’t reference ‘marriage’, making the ceremony null and void, but no one noticed. We were told the couple did it again later in the register office – this time officially.
Another ceremony cock-up was my fault. We staged our first celebrant wedding and I announced it on social media only for the groom to later demand it was taken down – he hadn’t told guests and they all thought it was a ‘proper’ civil service. Oops.
There was the time a couple had fallen out with some of the guests, but they came anyway. I’d spotted one of them pre-ceremony, wide-eyed and seemingly pumped up, which later turned into a mass fight on the dancefloor. Some of the entourage were ushered off the premises after which they drove repeatedly past the venue shouting obscenities. It was the only time I called the police.
I was called the c-word all evening by one member of a bridal party after telling her she could not access her booze supply after food was finished – one of our rules which everyone signed up to. At the end of the night I found one of their guests slumped in the toilet, clutching the bowl with his vomit accompanying him. Everyone had gone so I drove him home after teasing his address out of him.
We hosted dogs, donkeys, alpacas and, bizarrely, tractors acting as the wedding car – it was Suffolk after all. We had to say no to one lady wanting her horse inside the barn to witness her nuptials.
Guests bringing in their own alcohol was the biggest scourge. They’d usually hide it in pockets, bags or disguised in water bottles – I recall challenging one tweed-clad guest’s ruse as especially satisfying.
Despite the high-pressure environment – it’s often the biggest day of a couple’s lives – it was rewarding both existentially and financially. We were a small business which employed countless people both directly and indirectly. As a society we might question the institution of marriage, but a wedding does offer a rare excuse to get friends and family together and to drink and be merry. Even if Charles, Camilla and other Nimbys don’t approve.
Comments