A Greenhouse & Covid wedding planning
As we enter what is usually the busiest period of wedding season, we can’t quite believe that we’ve now been closed for over 3 months… The past couple of weeks has seen an easing of lockdown rules, and whilst the updated guidance on Covid weddings were disappointing, we hope that this has given some of you the chance to see loved ones and enjoy precious time together again.
We know that many of you planning your wedding will be thinking through these new government guidelines and so we wanted to let you know where we’re at with the impact of Covid-19 on weddings and events at Elmore…
Anselm wrote to all of our wonderful couples earlier this week explaining how these guidelines impact our ability to hold weddings, as well as giving some insight to what exciting improvements we’ve been busy with readying for when we re-open. So, over to Ans to hear what’s what.
Greenhouse & outdoor wedding plans
Firstly I wanted to shout about the hard work we’ve put into improving the gardens, with most of that energy going into the walled garden (which we blogged about recently here) now the next phase is complete, and a new greenhouse has just been installed.
The greenhouse will be used to harvest our own organic Elmore produce.
It gives us the ability to grow a variety of vegetables, flowers, bulb plants, house plants and all kinds of seedlings that will either be transferred to our larger growing patches, or taken straight into the house and tasting kitchens.
(This takes me back to the scolding I received from Ruth in Country House Rescue for growing tomatoes in the Hall’s windowsill where the piano now resides…
Do you think she’d be pleased to see this proper housing of plants?)
Not only does it allow us to grow onsite all year round, it also provides an additional attractive area which guests are welcome to walk around with drink in hand and see what’s growing, whilst enjoying an outdoor wedding, alfresco dinner or drinks reception in the walled garden.
Re-wilding the estate
There’s excitement for the longer-term future as well with things moving ahead with our plan to start ‘rewilding’ some of the estate, and with a little luck build some epic treehouses overlooking all of that too.
It’s immensely important to me that Elmore Court has as little impact on our planet as possible whilst at the same time being an awesome place for fun, music, food and good times. We want to produce as much sustainable food as we can on the estate you see… And can’t help but feel that we all need to change our relationship with nature.
Perhaps if we were to then a pesky virus is less likely leap amongst us and cause such havoc.
Covid weddings
Which bring me back to what we’re doing about that…
We felt the most recent government guidelines regarding weddings were unhelpful in that it allowed no real room for any celebration or sense of occasion… What we do at Elmore is celebrate celebration, and we recognise this is a massive reason people choose us for their big occasion, so we all felt very disappointed.
However, having looked at things and the general advice across the entire hospitality sector, we are broadly optimistic. I have been vicariously involved with others in the industry who have been actively lobbying government and organisations such as Public Health England and the sounds coming back from them is that we’re being heard, and there will soon be loosening of the guidelines and improvement in what we can and can’t do…
It is my hope that it will be possible to provide a fabulous safe event within guidelines fairly soon. Of course, I can’t guarantee it, but having taken some really great advice and looked at the way we run things we believe this might be something we can do.
Having said that, we are going to continue offering postponements (without any fee) for events that are 2 months ahead… And will do so for as long as we can.
There is a frequently updated Corona virus FAQs section about all this here which is well worth a read.
My main intention with all this is that you will get from us something that is brilliant and exceeds your expectations whilst keeping the whole business intact. Which is the same as always.
The team and I are here for any of your questions or concerns and will endeavour to be as quick as possible at communicating our response to any new government guidelines, and particularly to those booking in the near future.
We have started tastings again so we will be in touch when and if you are due to have one.
I also wanted to mention that with staff on furlough, dates moving around and the current uncertainty we are not yet able to confidently allocate event managers for all (we normally like to do a year or so in advance) but will be in touch as soon as that changes.
The team who aren’t furloughed are brilliant, and for now can look after everyone very professionally.
As soon as we have a green light to get back to things then I will be able to action all of this.
Do let myself or, probably even better, the team know if you’d like any further clarity on this. They can be contacted at the office on 01452 720293 or on email at life@elmorecourt.com at any time.
And lastly, I just wanted to thank you all for being so amazing and understanding through all of this.
I am very grateful indeed.
Big Love
Anselm & Team E
xx
