Good Afternoon Nicola,
Everything is fantastic with Mark and I, thank you. Married life feels great and we feel so much more in love and filled with more purpose than ever before. What a beautiful thing!
I struggle to find the words to describe our wedding photos that will give them the credit they truly deserve, but a word that comes to mind is … breathtaking! Clare perfectly captured all of our little BIG moments! We were looking for a more natural and impromptu approach to our photos and that is what we received. We are left thinking we should have kept her around in the evening for the dancing and games! I can only imagine how well she would have captured our first dance, father daughter dance and all the other dance moves and fun we had in the evening on the terrace. We simply cannot believe the quality and quantity of photos that she produced. We thought it would feel awkward and perhaps we wouldn’t pose right for the 1:1 photo op in the forest, but we looked forward to it none the less. We found the experience to be the exact opposite; we felt right in our element and had a blast, to Clare’s credit. She was lovely to be around and made the process feel natural and fun.
We found Ever After: A Dartmoor Wedding on good ole Google! We searched elopement packages in the United Kingdom (I believe) and there Ever After popped up. It was the first venue we looked at in our search, but we took a couple more days to look through a few others. Whilst looking at other venues, we found ourselves constantly comparing everything to Ever After. We live in North East England, therefore Lower Grenofen was quite the trek for our wedding – however, we very quickly realized that Ever After was the venue for us despite the distance and we saw that a date became available for April 2019 (Thank god!). We saw the distance as an opportunity to make a trip away with close friends and family in further celebration of our nuptials – which turned out perfect, as did our wedding day. We had quality time with our loved ones and the Devon area is truly gorgeous. We hope to return for our anniversary at some point in years to come.
What initially caught our eye during our search was the ceremony terrace – we wanted an outdoor English countryside feel, whilst still having shelter for all possible weather forecasts. The Terrace is beautifully decorated, and I absolutely loved the glass rooftop and the large wood burning fireplace. We could clearly see on the website that the property was lavishly covered in florals and a green landscape completely surrounding the terrace. We never envisioned having our wedding in a rental tent marque or hall, so Ever After’s elopement package was perfect in this respect.
A few other things that caught our eye was…
– Dogs allowed! We adore our pup, Finn. He is part of our family and we were keen to have him join our joyous festivities.
– The honeymoon cottage. We wanted to have a bit of an oasis to relax in prior to and directly following the wedding. The honeymoon cottage was well received both on the website and in person – especially for its décor, balcony and deep soaker bath tub!
– The elopement package included everything aside from alcohol (which is still available at an extra cost, I believe, from reading the venue blog). Most elopement packages differed in what they offered, many of which required us to still seek out our own separate vendors for certain elements of the day. We loved that with Ever After, all things are well considered and included in the package price. When we looked up the contracted Ever After vendors on Instagram, we were blown away with each and every skillset of the team involved.
– The package was absolute luxury at an affordable price for us. It ticked many important boxes for us that other venue packages simply didn’t for similar cost.
– The real elopement weddings section on the website. This gave us a great idea of what other couples elopements looked like, with honest and detailed reviews of their experience.
After realizing that Ever After was definitely the venue for us, we sent an email over to you (Nicola) to enquire about the date and other questions we had. You replied promptly within 24 hours and offered to speak to me over the phone to answer some of our more in depth questions. This was greatly appreciated! You held the date available by a couple of days for Mark and I to discuss the answers I had received over the phone. This was the first highlight of that no-stress ethos that Ever After promises… and delivered!
We paid our deposit and started planning. Our experience in the months leading up to the big day was easy and fun – I enjoyed planning! I’m a very organized, detail-oriented person, but also a person who greatly enjoys a low stress life. You always hear about how stressful wedding planning can be, but honestly, I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Rosie and all the vendors worked very well with each other and us at prompting thoughts on things we hadn’t considered, answering all of my questions and attentively collecting all of the little elements of our day to create the vision we had in mind.
Each element of our Wedding Day far surpassed what we had envisioned in our mind. The team at Ever After took everything on board and tied it together seamlessly; We were in awe, and so were our guests. The flowers from Amanda were amazing. She made extra bouquets for our daughter and maid of Honour, and another buttonhole for our Best Man for a great price. Lauren from No.5 made me feel gorgeous and helped me decide the look I was going for, asking all the right questions and trying a couple different looks. Harrie helped us come up with custom menus for our family of picky eaters and our vegetarian Maid of Honour. The cake and food were full of flavor and enjoyed by all. She even packed up the extra chicken for our dog! A treat he thoroughly enjoyed.
Our first impression upon arrival the evening before our wedding day was – wow – pure happiness! We had no clue what we would receive other than what the website and Instagram delivered. Due to being from 6 hours away, we hadn’t had the chance to visit prior, though Nicola offered. What is available online accurately depicts what you see upon arrival. Actually, both of us and many of our guests that had researched Ever After prior to the wedding said that the venue was even more gorgeous in person, which says a lot if you’ve looked at all of the pictures online.
We loved the privacy of the terrace location. We loved the proximity to the Riverbank and Dartmoor National Park (big outdoors people, we are). We loved everything.
We found pure bliss on our wedding morning, waking up with breakfast supplies ready for us to cook together. We made breakfast and had coffee on that beautiful balcony and in that moment, everything felt so right. What a great way to spend our morning before we would become Husband and Wife. After breakfast, we went our separate ways to get ready. There was space for Mark separate from me in a different part of the venue property. Rosie checked in on us both throughout the morning, and all of the vendors arrived with big smiles on their faces, eager to share the loving labour of their trades and well wishes for Mark and I. There wasn’t a thing I needed to think about other than how I wanted my makeup, which No.5 MUA Lauren made easy as well.
I think our favourite moment on the day (of which there were many) was directly after the ceremony when we had the opportunity to spend our first moments as husband and wife with a glass of champagne and our loved ones followed by our riverbank/forest photoshoot, just the two of us. It was the best of both worlds and we were feeling so full of love.
The only thing I’d do differently in hindsight is arrive at the venue earlier (we were delayed and didn’t arrive until nearly 8pm the night before our wedding). I would have liked to have more time to relax in the cottage and also have a little rehearsal of the walk into the ceremony with our small wedding party. We were all a little lost at what to do and when prior to the ceremony, which Rosie pretty much saved us on! However, I got so caught up in my excitement and emotions (happy ones – mainly OMG this is the song… I can’t look at anyone or I’ll walk in crying emotions) … that long story short, I completely forgot to link my Father’s arm and walk in with him. Something he has been waiting for all his parental life. I just darted it down the aisle and Dad close behind, bless him! It was still a very special moment and something we all laugh at now but would have been good to have practiced just a couple of times. To each their own though! Spontaneity can be equally refreshing and hey, we have a funny story to boot now.
The advice I’d give other couples looking to book Ever After as their venue, or currently planning your dream wedding with Ever After is…
1. Don’t sweat the small stuff – Not everything goes exactly to plan despite everyone’s best efforts. Expect something to go slightly different than you expected, but also see the beauty in that! Roll with it and try not to sweat it. Ever After will help with anything that may go off plan and they are pretty darn good at ensuring as much goes to plan as possible. Remember what your day is all about – you’ll quickly realize that all that really matters is sharing that intimate moment of saying I do to a lifetime with your best friend and everything else is a big bonus.
2. Trust the venue and vendors – they are fantastic and are all very talented in their own respects. When it comes to planning and how everything came together, we wouldn’t change a thing. Something that helped us, was looking at pictures of other weddings that had occurred at Ever After and pulling pieces that we loved or felt fit our vision well. This, alongside inspo pictures from Pinterest really helped me and the team at Ever After’s understanding of our vision. Share with them your personal vision and trust that they will deliver!
3. Eat the cake – I’m not a huge cake fan. I thought it was going to be more for Mark and our guests apart from a small finger sized piece for me per tradition, but wow, Harrie knows how to make a cake lover out of me. It was so good – thanks Harrie!
4. If you can afford it, book an extra hour or 2 with the Photographer – Clare Kinchan. I promise you; it is money well spent.
5. Lastly, enjoy every single moment – the day goes by so fast. Everyone says that, but truly, “time flies when you’re having fun” will have a whole different meaning on your wedding day. Our daughter said before going to sleep that she wished we had all just woke up so she could experience the whole day again. I couldn’t agree more. It will be one of the best days, if not thee Best Day of your life. It surely was ours. Soak every moment in, every scent, every feeling, everything.
We feel so very thankful to all of you involved in making our Wedding Day so special. It truly was everything we had hoped for, and more Nicola, thank you a million times over.
Kindest Regards,
Mark & Jessi Farrell
