Exclusive Dartmoor Weddings & Seasonal Events - Coombe Trenchard

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The Thinking Behind 'Boutique & Beautiful' Weddings

WeddingsSarah MarshComment

Becoming personally invested in every bridal couple that chooses to hold their special day at Coombe Trenchard means that we learn from each unique wedding journey. We take notes, we excitedly converse over tea and biscuits and we feel the ups and downs as they do. Sometimes, we hear that the logistical elements are stressful, sometimes it’s hard to ensure all preferred suppliers are available on the same day, and sometimes it’s simply finding enough hours in the day to organise the myriad of detail that goes into a wedding. So many of our bridal couples are taking advantage of our glorious part of the world, yet do not currently reside nearby and therefore find it difficult to attend trials, tastings and meetings or be on hand to meet with those all-important suppliers. 

Of course, we help as much as possible and offer a level of service that has surprised and delighted many a bride (and industry professionals!); carefully compiling our recommend suppliers list and discussing which would be a best fit for each unique couple, offering limitless visits, emails, chats on the phone and ensuring the biggest day of your life runs like clockwork. Seeing such a growing trend for mid-week celebrations and wanting to utilise our wealth of contacts, knowledge and penchant for organisation, we set about designing a day that was spectacularly stress-free.

With great enthusiasm, we discussed our projects with our favoured suppliers, knowing how much they enjoy working at Coombe Trenchard and happy to be offering a solution to time-scarce bridal couples. This seed of an idea was met with much excitement, and so, ‘Boutique & Beautiful’ was born. 

 

Here at Coombe Trenchard, we are unable to do things without a luxurious undertone (we blame our opulent yet charming Edwardian surroundings) and so the ideas for what constitutes ‘mind-blowingly special’ came thick and fast.

Possibly our favourite aspect of ‘Boutique & Beautiful’ is the pre-wedding overnight stay at Coombe Trenchard, giving couples the chance to meet with suppliers, decide on one of our 12 licenced locations in which to say ‘I do’ and indulge in some quality time together whilst nestled on the edge of Dartmoor. We can’t think of anything more romantic than wedding planning whilst exploring the gardens, woodland and sumptuous interiors of the charming country home in which you will soon be wed.

Of course, the deluxe treatment continues through to the big day itself, with vintage champagne saucers to sip from on the south facing Italian terrace, mouthwatering delights from exquisite caterers and hand-designed stationery to delight your guests. We’ve even thought of marshmallows for toasting over the fire pits adjacent to our restored Coach House, overlooking Brentor.

 

It’s been a joy to compile aspects and contributors that we know make a wedding one to remember and we are hugely proud of ‘Boutique & Beautiful’ and the luxuriously laid back new choice it presents to our bridal couples, whose happiness and wedding satisfaction mean so much to us. 

You can download our stunning new 'Boutique & Beautiful' brochure here.

January blog from Nikki our 'Real Bride Blogger'

WeddingsSarah Marsh1 Comment

Oh my goodness its 2017! I can now officially say we get married this year! To be honest this fills me with a lot of mixed feelings. I’m obviously massively excited … I can’t wait to get married and also get together with all our family and friends and have bloody good knees up! I’m also incredibly nervous though … I’m an over-planner and over-thinker at the best of times so I’m trying very hard to not let the nerves get the better of me but also make sure everything is as planned as possible so on the day I can just hand everything over to Sarah and Emily and relax.

Since my last post we have sent our invitations out. Designing my own invitations, as a wedding stationer, was daunting but also incredibly exciting and I think we managed to strike the right balance between them being pretty but also fun and a little bit geeky. Elements of the invitations were inspired by Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Star Wars … but hopefully in a really subtle way! Our colour scheme is Navy, blush, dark pink, ivory and lots of green ferns and foliage and a bit of brown tweed. I love layering colours when I create colour schemes for stationery so this is definitely what I’ve done for our wedding. I think many people make the mistake of picking just one or two colours for their wedding and it ends up looking a little bit ‘flat’ as there is no layering or substance. My advice for any other couples who are getting married would be always to pick some neutrals as a base and then 2 or 3 ‘accent colours’ on top of that. It looks a lot more natural.

Our rsvp date is looming and we’ve had most of our guests reply but there is always an inevitable bit of chasing up. I’m looking forward to having final numbers though as then we can get all the last few bits finalised and start paying off all those deposits we put down last year!

We had a lovely visit with Sarah & Emily in November which included a very exciting discussion about food and what sandwiches and cakes we were going to have for our afternoon tea.

We also had a lovely visit to see Jennifer at Edible Essence for a taster for our wedding cake. Honestly possibly the best experience so far … me and Ant love our cake so meeting up with Jen was just heaven and we picked 3 flavours for our naked cake, plus a fourth flavour that Ant just couldn’t resist.. so we’ve ended up having a bit of a ‘groom’s cake’ on the side!

I’m beginning to get a little bit worried that with all the food we have planned our guests are going to be on a serious sugar rush for the entire day!

We have another visit to Coombe Trenchard planned for the end of January and I’ll be showing my family round for the first time which will be super exciting. It’s actually quite a bit of a wedding weekend as I’m also having my hair and make-up trial with the lovely Giselle from the Event Studios team which I’m really looking forward to!

Nikki x

www.knotsandkisses.co.uk

The Home & Garden Show 2016

Events Coombe TrenchardSarah Marsh1 Comment

In early June, our normally quiet and serene gardens became a hive of activity. Delightful assortments of plants and flowers were unloaded and carried down to their stalls, stretching out like delicate little rainbows across the lawns. Kettles were boiled, cakes baked and Big Pan Parties delicious creations filled the air with appetite inducing deliciousness. Highly talented local artists, food producers and green fingered folk unpacked their wares and the gates were opened: Coombe Trenchard’s Home & Garden Show 2016 was in full swing.  

Thankfully the weather was humid but dry, warranting one (or two!) trips to the Icicle Ice Cream Tricycle to cool down. Picnic blankets were unrolled and wallets unfurled as the visitors kept on coming. We welcomed over 2,000 people during the whole weekend; an amazing amount of friendly faces, happy smiles and wagging tails keen to discover new additions to their home and gardens.

Coombe Trenchard itself came to life, revelling in so many welcome guests and showcasing just how much our beautiful home has to offer. We overheard innumerable snippets of conversation enthralled with picturing wedding celebrations on the terrace and bridal gowns in the woodland. The atmosphere was happy and content; no doubt in part owing to such a delicious array of treats to savour (we had the best brownie of our lives from Column Bakehouse). Children swooned over The Ark Man’s divine hand carved animals while their mothers sampled The Lavender Lady’s natural treats. Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Visit Dartmoor educated lovely visitors on our precious part of Devon. After picking up advice from our friendly plant suppliers, legs were rested and much needed cups of tea enjoyed. 

Children’s Hospice Southwest were delighted with the funds raised from their tent on the croquet lawn, and received many pledges of support for their Silver Anniversary Tea Party Celebrations. You can find out more and get involved by following this link

As 5pm approached, visitors followed the woodland path back to their cars, laden with armfuls of new favourite things. Exhibitors dispersed (with much lighter loads than when they arrived) and we cracked open a well-earned bottle of wine.  

You can watch a slideshow of some images of our wonderful weekend below. 

 

A huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone that came together to put on such a glorious weekend; exhibitors, staff, guests and their canine companions! There are too many exhibitors to name, but you were all fabulous; your hard work and huge effort is much appreciated.  We’re already looking forward to our next Home & Garden Show, and hope that you can all join us once more.

If you would like to be kept in touch with details of events at Coombe Trenchard please do join our mailing list here

Sarah xx