Virtual wedding booking - a real life experience

Over on the blog today we have the lovely Alex and Anna who married at Penton Park last June. They are sharing with us their experiences of booking their wedding venue remotely from their home in South East Asia!
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1. How did you hear about Penton Park
We live overseas, but knew we wanted to get married in England. We did a lot of online searching and asking friends for recommendations. We heard about Penton Park from friends who live in the area.

Just after getting engaged!

2. How did you 'view' Penton Park remotely
Once we looked at the Penton Park website, we put it on our short list, and sent my husband’s parents on an initial “recce”. They had a wonderful visit and reported back that they thought it was a great option for us (and good thing we trust their judgement!). We set up a Skype call with Danielle and she was really accommodating – she walked us all around the house on a “virtual” tour. It was great! Even virtually, we really felt like we got a good sense of the house. We were very impressed by the place, but also so impressed with Danielle and her friendliness and openness to all our ideas. We booked Penton Park after our first video visit and it definitely felt right, even though we hadn’t seen it in person.

3. Please describe the communication process leading up to your wedding day
We had a couple of Skype calls, but mostly communicated with Danielle and Michelle by email. This worked really well for us, and we always had all of our questions answered. The great thing was, we never felt like any question was too silly! The team was really great in communicating back to us. Everything felt very personal and we never felt like a number, or like we were meant to fit in to some kind of package. When we got closer to the day, we got to visit and went over the whole plan for the day in-person which was great.
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4. How did Penton Park help you deliver your vision remotely
Penton Park has a great list of recommended suppliers, and this was a huge help, as we were able to book flowers and a photographer remotely by looking at their websites and communicating on Skype. Penton Park was also wonderful for suggesting anything else we needed such as the pianist. We really trusted all of Danielle & Michelle’s recommendations. Generally, keeping in touch by email and Skype was easy and worked really well for us.

Trekking in Hong Kong

5. What is your favourite memory from your wedding day
Wow, so many wonderful memories from the day. After our ceremony, we had a few moments alone, while all of our guests went out on the lawn – then the glass doors were opened to the beautiful garden and we walked out hand-in-hand with all our guests throwing confetti. We were laughing and so happy! It was so wonderful to have all our friends and family together. My wedding day “vision” of drinks and canapes on the lawn with all our guests in the sunshine came true.

6. What is your favourite space at Penton park and why
Also, so hard to pick! The ballroom is such a lovely space, and when it was all set up with flowers and chairs, it was extra stunning. I love the sitting room because it seems so cosy and homely, which was one of the biggest reasons why we loved Penton Park. Our guests loved the combination of elegance and homeliness

Credit to Mia Hooper for all professional photography

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7. Is there any advice you would share with couples planning their wedding remotely
I would advise couples to trust in the expertise of Danielle, Michelle and the rest of the Penton Park team. They have been doing many weddings and they are the experts! Also, trust in your suppliers – send them inspiration pictures or ideas, and a few Skype calls to sort out the details can be great. Generally, planning everything remotely allowed us to be slightly more hands off and stay away from getting mired in the tiny details, which was actually a great thing in the lead up to the wedding, and much less stressful! Even so, there are so many little details that seem important at the time, and when it really comes down to it, everyone is just so happy to be there and having so much fun that no one really notices!
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8. If you were to do it all again is there anything you would change?
There is not much I would change. Even though we had originally planned for an outside ceremony, and we ended up inside because of the weather, I think it was better and cosier to be inside. We were a bit of a hard group to stick to our “schedule” and a few things took longer than we planned, but in the end it didn’t really matter.

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So for everyone engaged now encountering the virtual world for booking weddings, please rest assured this is something we do on a regular basis and are well practised at virtual tours, remote planning, and supporting you on your journey using any method needed during these rather unusual times!

We’re currently offering virtual viewings so please do call us on 01264 772400 or email Danielle@pentonpark.co.uk if you’d like to have a chat about your wedding and have a virtual look around!

Alternatively for full details of our weddings, including everything you would expect to find in a brochure, then click please do click here!