News

We want to keep you up to date with all our news, happenings and goings on at one of Devon’s most beautiful wedding venues. From usual wedding receptions to our environmental developments, from hints and tips shared by our beautiful brides to quirky wedding stories, you will find all The Great Barn’s latest news here.

 

18TH JANUARY 2012 Everything all strangely quiet here at the moment as we don't have any weddings now until March. Sadly no putting the feet up - not with a place like this! We use this time to get to grips with all the maintenance that has to be done if everything is to continue to look good. Vast tins of floor seal arrived this morning as the unenviable job of stripping down and re-sealing the slate floor in the Barn is about to begin. John has stocked up on paint to make sure all the garden furniture looks immaculate, the wonderful Butlermaids have scrubbed the kitchens to within an inch of their lives, I had a long session with our lovely gardener John the other day to talk about ordering new plants and sprucing up the garden....there's never a dull moment here!

 

9 JANUARY 2012 Huge congratulations to everyone who got engaged over Christmas and New Year. Judging by the number of enquiries there have been many many proposals over the last few weeks. One of my favourite proposal stories was of one of our lovely grooms put the ring inside number 24 on the advent calendar....how gorgeous is that!! Any other great proposal stories - let us know - nothing nicer!! Emma x

 

6th Jan 2012 Happy New Year all our friends!!! Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. A particularly Happy New Year to all our gorgeous couples who married with us in 2011 - hope you all had a great first Christmas and New Year as Mr and Mrs!

 

12th Dec 2011 - Our glorious Christmas concert went fantastically well last week. The Exeter Chamber Choir were as ever in amazing voice and the Barn looked magical. I have some very tall limed white wooden candle sticks which I put in the alcoves at the end, lanterns with candles in all the other window sills and we draped garlands along the walls with red ribbons, plus a huge wreath on the end wall. Together with the mulled wine and minced pies in the interval it couldn't have felt more Christmasey!

 

17th Nov 2011 - South West Bridal Magazine have been in touch and we are thrilled because they want to use the fab image of sassy bride in amazing dress in the Barn on the front cover of their 2012 issue. Andrew Coulter (one of the best wedding photographs in the country I would say) took the picture for a wedding dress shoot. Every now and then all the right ingredients come together to produce a little bit of magic and that shot is one of those moments....love it

 

14/11/2011 - All very exciting as John has finished editing the little films he has made showing the whole process of setting up for a wedding in the Barn right the way through the big day itself. We hope it will help clients visualise their wedding day if they choose to come to the Barn. Luckily with John's background directing commercials they are fab! Next month he will go back up to London to grade them and we can then upload them onto our YouTube Channel - check it out now if you have a minute - already on there is the mini movie of the restoration of the Barn. You can see what the old place looked like before the brilliant building boys got hold of it......not quite the glorious space it is now! See The Great Barn, Wedding Venue Devon on YouTube

 

11/11/2011 - A couple of weeks ago I did an interview for Exeter Living Magazine about top tips for planning your wedding. Last night I went to see a brilliant production of The Wind in the Willows at the Barnfield Theatre (particularly adorable hedgehog being played by my daughter Daisy!) and picked up a copy of the magazine. So exciting to see it all in print. It made me realise that after 5 years of putting together weddings John and I have clocked up some know how!

 

10/11/2011 - Had a fab morning in meetings about a Christmas concert at the Barn on 3rd December. We are incredibly lucky as we have a connection with the Exeter Chamber Choir who are FAN-tastic. They have sung here 3 or 4 times now and they are jaw droppingly good. The choir are going to do a programme of lovely christmas music, we are having readings, some carols the audience can sing with the choir plus mulled wine and mince pies in the interval. The Barn always looks magical around Christmas - we are going to stuff it full of candles, put long garlands of ivy along the walls, John will work his magic with the lighting....it's going to be just lovely. If anyone would like tickets - let me know! PS All the money raised is being split between the Roof Restoration Fund of our amazing little church here in Ashton and a project in Namibia.

 

09/11/2011 - Just getting my head round my daughter Daisy's 11th birthday last night and came across a fabulous girls clothes company - www.ilovegorgeous.co.uk. While looking for her I also saw that they do THE most lovely bridesmaids dresses. Daisy has been lucky enough to be a bridesmaid a couple of times and finding something really special and a little bit different is very hard so if you are on the scout for tiny bridesmaids dresses definitely head to Ilovegoregous - beautiful fabrics, fab colours, some very traditional designs some with a slightly cooler edge - just great. I suspect Daisy's bridesmaids days are over but should she get asked again I know I could definitely persuade her into one of these lovely dresses (so long as she could wear her Converse high tops with it!)

 

07/11/2011 - Mondays is our getting-straight-day. Our fantastic cleaning team - Butlermaids - have worked their magic and the Barn, the cottage the kitchens are all as clean as a new pin. Later this afternoon we showed the Barn to the parent's of a bride-to-be. Their daughter is an architect living in Sydney and her parent's have the huge task of not only finding a building with a "wow factor" but also she won't see the venue until the day before her wedding! What a responsibility!! This has in fact happened here at the Barn before, twice in fact. On both occasions our lovely brides were living in Australia and we organised everything via email. Thankfully when they finally arrived in Ashton they were thrilled with the Barn - I can't tell you how many sighs of relief there were all round....

 

05/11/2011 - I'm just sitting here in the office - there is a huge amount of anticipation outside as we are just waiting for the fireworks to begin. All of Hayley and Tom's guests have gathered on the front steps of the Barn after having had a fantastic feast cooked and served by the wonderful English Table. The day has gone fantastically well. Hayley looked amazing - LOVED the red sequined shoes. A crisp autumn Devon day with fireworks, what more could you want for a November 5th wedding day!

 

04/11/2011 - It is lashing with rain outside, but the Barn is wonderfully cosy for Hayley and Tom who are here with their families setting up for their wedding tomorrow. Hayley is a florist so I have no doubt the flowers are going to be stunning! We had a really lovely email from our gorgeous couple who married here last Saturday. This is a little bit of what they said: "Thank you for such an amazing day - we had unreasonably high expectations based on everything we'd heard about the Great Barn and yet you still surpassed them! Loads of compliments from our guests - beautiful venue, slick organisation, seamless teamwork with Dartmoor Kitchen etc. From our perspective, it felt as though you took everything we had planned and made it happen better than we had planned! " We are so thrilled they had a great day and we send them lots and lots of good wishes for a glorious life together.

 

03/11/2011 As ever it is a hive of activity here at The Great Barn today. In our big move to become more self-sufficient we are putting in a bore hole so we can have all our own lovely spring water. We have a huge digger and a vast drilling rig up at the back of the Barn - the noise is deafening! Yesterday the computer that runs all our amazing lighting rig went down. Luckily we have a genius who looks after all the technical side of things in the Barn. He was up most of the night fixing it and has just popped his head into the office to tell me he has got it up and running again. Phew! A huge relief as we have Hayley and Tom's wedding in 2 days! We are so incredibly lucky to have such a great team of people around us who all understand how important a wedding day is and that it is vital to get everything right for the Big Day. Don't worry Hayley and Tom - the drilling guys won't be here on Saturday!