We had our wedding at Elmhay Park on the Orchardleigh Estate on 21st June 2024. From the time of our very first speculative visit, to nearly forgetting our cake the day after and one of the staff coming to find us - the venue could not have done more for us.
Firstly to a few staff. Heather, our incredible coordinator, made our day so stress-free and smooth that we could just enjoy ourselves. She also kept on top of our planning in the run up (prompting us when we needed it!). Karl, who did our menu tasting and food, was incredibly supportive and flexible. We had a number of tricky dietary requirements and nothing was too much trouble. Finally, to Abigail and the rest of the lovely waiting and bar staff - who (despite a very late night!) were so incredibly friendly and lovely to all our friends and family, it really made the day.
What a lot of wedding reviews won't tell you is all the tiny touches that really make you feel special - from the R & R in chocolate on our puddings, the 5 minute break after the ceremony we got to spend together with some champagne (and eating personal canapes!), the hamper for our lodge the next morning, to being followed round with a personal prosecco pourer (thank you!), Elmhay really go out of their way to make sure that the couple have EVERYTHING they could need.
Massive thanks from us - it was perfect.
Robyn and Robin

Our wedding day was better than I could've imagined. Our guests were happy, everything ran to time, the sun shone despite every single day around our wedding being torrential rain!!! The hospitality staff on the day were brilliant - attentive and polite. I wouldn't change a thing, as it really was the best day of my life.

However, I do want to share some of my less positive experiences so other couples are fully aware. Communication from the office team wasn't great, both in terms of speediness as well as attitude. I often felt as though I was making their job difficult (even when asking simple questions) with the tone I got on the other end of the phone. The lady who ran the cottage accommodation booking, I believe her name was Sarah, was great. I mostly communicated with her via email, and she was always quite quick at replying and very polite.

Our assigned wedding coordinator, AnnaMarie, did not impress me. On our first planning meeting, she was late. No forewarning, we had to ring the office to be told (quite bluntly) "She's on her way". When she did arrive, it was all taken as a bit of a joke and no apology was given. However, the meeting went well otherwise and she seemed on it which eased my initial concerns. She told us multiple times during the meeting we would receive our typed up itinerary that evening - two weeks later we still hadn't received it. Our wedding was still a couple of months away, so I avoided chasing but after two weeks I felt it was appropriate to check-in, to which I was told I'd receive it the next day. Two days later, I still didn't have it.

When we finally did get the document, there was no apology for the delay. At this point, I'm starting to stress about how she would be on our wedding day, but lots of other reviews priased her highly so I used that to ease my worries. We were told by AnnaMarie that she would come and see my first thing on the wedding day, and then be around for whatever we needed throughout the morning prep, and of course during the wedding itself. I, the bride, did not see her until 1pm (an hour before the ceremony). My now husband went to the reception room in the morning with his best man, as they wanted to check some things out ahead of the speeches. AnnaMarie was nowhere to be seen, and even when they rang the office and were told she would be there soon, she did not appear.

During the wedding reception, our MC tried to find her multiple times for various things, including to ask the canapes to speed up (only negative on the hospitality, the canapes came out on one tray every 15 minutes - not quick enough to feed 90 hungry guests!! We asked the kitchen to speed this up and were told "this is how we do weddings, don't worry"). She was rarely anywhere to be seen during this time, and then at around 8.30pm she came to me and said she was leaving and the bar staff would look after us for the rest of the evening.

Long story short, I was not very impressed with her throughout our planning or on the day itself. I am borderline OCD when it comes to planning, and so had thought of EVERYTHING when it came to how I wanted our day to go. Our day was perfect, no thanks to AnnaMarie. If you are a big planner, and are confident you could "run" your wedding without a coordinator, go with Elmhay. The venue is stunning, the food is to die for and you will look back at memories fondly.

If you want to rely on a wedding coordinator, that you have paid for might I add... don't book here. Your wedding day should be stress free and someone else should be responsible for running around making sure everything is perfect - other venues will ensure you get just that!!

Attended my cousins wedding at Elmhay Park just fabulous the setting is out of this world. We had the ceremony in the Italian Garden so intimate and romantic. The reception was in the Orangery with fabulous food it was outstanding as was the service, nothing too much trouble. We stayed the night in one of the beautiful cottages only a stones throw from the reception. Well done Elmhay and staff just brilliant.

My daughter was married at Elmhay Park it was fantastic the setting is wonderful and easily accommodated our 250 guests the food was superb and quick, the service and great nothing too much trouble and the accommodation was a few steps away and very comfortable. A big thank you to Heather and her team.

Overall it is stunning venue, it poured with rain at our wedding but the Italian Garden is a great bad weather option and the gardens still look stunning in the pictures. The bar staff were great in the evening and our guests had a lot of fun talking to them. Elmhay were very flexible and our wedding coordinator was great on the day.
Elmhay offers the 3 day package which for us wasn’t practical. It adds stress to the day as we were trying to get ready for the wedding/in your gown while moving location. We were lucky that we didn't have a wedding the day before so were able to get into the Castle and Lewis Lodge from 12 on the day before which was a huge help but I still believe my personal preference would be to have not moved as much. I would recommend finding out when Elmhay would stop taking bookings for the day before/after. We also had a 3 day wedding, drinks night before at the Flying Flome, wedding day and drinks at a local pub day after (The Royal Oak Corsley) therefore our guests did not want to stay on the village due to the one day accommodation rule. It is also a 10am check out the day after the wedding, which is early when it’s been a late one!
Other practicalities of the accommodation is Castle West only has one shower, it also doesn't have a large bedroom which can be used for bride dressing shots. There is very little phone signal at both Lewis Lodge and Castle West and Castle West has Wi-Fi but it is not great - this makes bride and groom conversations very hard on the day/day before. We had an issue in that Castle West didn't have heating and when I text the emergency contact we did not get a response, the Garden House also didn't have working heating and the Church Lodge didn't have a working hot tub. I would recommend asking for instructions to these and an emergency contact.
Our main feedback is regarding communication as it was not as you would like in the lead up to a wedding. We got our wedding coordinator 3 months before our date but due to annual leave didn't get to speak to her and spoke to the wedding coordinator of Orchardleigh House only 2 months before the wedding - this added to the stress of a wedding as we then had to update all suppliers. In the end we ended up having the Orchardleigh wedding coordinator and she was great but again this was not confirmed to us by Elmhay and we had to ask for confirmation ourselves. Overall they know how to run weddings which probably results in the relaxed timings/organisation/communication but as the bride and groom it can be stressful, e.g. we were sorting out dietary requirements the week of the wedding which I believe should have been sorted long before then. We also had an issue following the wedding in which we had to send a large number of email/ phone call to get any form of response from Elmhay, which was frustrating and poor service.
On a separate note, it is very hard to get taxi's in Frome which we were unaware of. They need to be prebooked before 9pm which defeats the perk of being able to carry on as long as you would like if guests are not staying on site. We ordered a return coach as most of our guest stayed at the Premier Inn which was great but was an added expense and guest could not leave as they wish.

Our day was just perfect, everyone complimented the venue, food and service Elmhay provided on the day. They came to us as soon as we went into the garden after the ceremony ensuring we had drinks and canapes before the guests had entered the gardens which was great, asked us throughout the wedding breakfast if we needed more drinks, if the food was ok and were generally just lovely. I couldn't thank Clare and Lena enough.
Unfortunately though, the lead up to the day was made extremely stressful with no thanks to the managers at Elmhay, communication was poor and there was details about our day that we didn't actually find out until the morning when Clare told us (even though I had called Orchardleigh and emailed our original coordinator multiple times asking the same questions). The coordinator made me cry from being so unhelpful at our itinerary meeting 6 weeks before with a lot of comments like "don't worry we have done this before"... Yeah well guess what, I haven't so tell us what's going on!
They also straight up lied to us in the itinerary meeting, saying we were unable to have banquet tables and that we had to redo all our table plans unless we were hiring the tables and then the week before our wedding, posted on Facebook "look at our beautiful banquet tables for the wedding yesterday". I left a comment asking if the tables were hired or supplied by them and my comment was deleted! Contacted the venue stylist who confirmed these were Elmhay's tables!
On the day, during our ceremony, the couple in the House hired a helicopter, which is fine but the communication between the house and Elmhay Park are obviously lacking as the helicopter took off next to our ceremony DURING our ceremony so now our video is spoilt by the sound of a helicopter and our guests shouldn't hear what the registrar was saying! They literally just needed to wait 5-10 minutes and we would have been fine 🤦🏼‍♀️
Overall, the venue is beautiful but points to take into consideration, if you are getting a venue stylist you are probably fine but if you are doing the coordinating of suppliers etc yourself, Elmhay are not easy to get answers out of, you won't hear from them regularly enough in my opinion and little things like the Facebook comment deletion, helicopter take off next to the ceremony, wasps EVERYWHERE, really did stop our day being as perfect as hoped, especially for the huge amount of money this venue cost.

We held our wedding reception at Elmhay Park in March 2022 and were able to spend a lovely weekend with our nearest and dearest.

We were initially drawn to Elmhay due to the whole 3 day package that was on offer. This fitted perfectly with our plans to have a wedding where we could make the most of every moment with our friends and family, whilst minimising the stress and travel for them as much as possible. The idea of having accommodation onsite for all 3 nights of the package was extremely appealing, and the thought of the bride staying in a castle the night before probably helped us to visualise the start of our fairytale wedding. It meant that for the Bridal Party, the occasion could be an entire weekend rather than just a single day.

Due to booking the wedding through lockdown, we initially viewed the venue via a virtual tour with Heather. This was helpful enough for us to view the key parts of the venue in challenging times and gave us enough of a flavour to make our decision. Once the lockdown had lifted, we were then able to view the venue in all of it’s glory and we couldn’t have been happier with our decision.

A couple of months before our day, we were able to visit Elmhay again to try the different options for our wedding breakfast meal. This was a fantastic opportunity to see the venue with tables set up, and also sample all of the possible menu options. Finding options that will be great for all guests is never easy, but the tasting experience allowed us to be confident in our choices as well as have many of our questions answered.

The tasting day also gave us the opportunity to meet Karl, the fantastic General Manager. Karl is extremely knowledgeable of the venue and eventually ended up being our Master of Ceremony. And what a fantastic job he did over our wedding weekend. Nothing was too much trouble and he was always contactable to help us with anything we required (even helping with turning on the heating in the castle in the middle of the night).

The decoration of the venue on the day was fantastic, meaning that all we had to do was deal with arranging our own table centres. This was supported by delicious food and fantastic service throughout the day.

The opportunity for the 3 day package made the occasion even more special. After a wonderful day with all of our guests, it was amazing to be able to stay on site and spend some time together, relaxing and reminiscing about the day. I think that this addition is a really wonderful idea and helps you to get everything out of the occasion that you can.

We were very struck by the flexibility showed by Heather and the team at Elmhay. They really are able to adapt to however you want your day to run, giving you access and freedom across the locations to arrange them and utilise them as you wish. This is really helpful as so often we had a vision for the day and their flexibility allowed us to bring that to life.

The only negative that we could point to is that it was sometimes difficult to contact the team. We put this down to being busy with all of the rearranged weddings after COVID, however, when it came to the main event, we cannot fault the team at all. They were constantly accessible and charming throughout.

Without a shadow of a doubt, our special day was made more special by the experience put on at Elmhay. Our guests have commented on how fantastic the venue and food was and that is also the lasting impression that we will take from it.

What an amazing venue! Our magical adventure began the night before the wedding at Orchardleigh Castle. Relaxing in the hot tub and enjoying the beautiful views prepared us all for the big day. On the day of the wedding our fabulous co-ordinator Karl ensured that everything ran smoothly and helped calm any nerves. All the staff were amazing and every-one commented on how good the food was. As a mother of the bride I could not have asked for a more perfect day for my daughter and her new husband. A special thank you to Nic for all her help organising the wedding, Jacqui for being so amazing with the accommodation and Karl and Lena for all their help on the day. A huge thank you also goes to Chris the owner for making their dreams come true.