Beautiful Venue visually, however poor management, who will lie to you.
If you book your day with the Ashes and your day goes ahead as planned, I’m sure it’ll be perfect, however If there is something you need help that’s when the nightmares can begin.
My partner has received wonderful news of pregnancy some time before our wedding date (February) 2023 and our wedding was meant to be in (June) 2023
The due date, and the complication with last pregnancy meant that the date was put at jeopardy, after calling the Ashes the lady whom I spoken with congratulated me and said sadly there’s not much we can do apart from cancelling and losing our 20% payment. Which was fair enough to us, though after then telling the woman we had paid in full (yes the full balance the day we booked the venue) she then said “oh in that case you will lose the entire amount..
This is 4 months until the wedding, and the ashes received over £4500 the very day we booked with them. NEVER PAY THIS VENUE IN FULL, As it may come back to haunt you later.
So after explaining that wasn’t really fair and asking is there’s nothing that can be done, the woman was adamant that we either cancel and lose our money or stick with it.
After getting nowhere I decided to find the email address of the main Group (the Ashes is part of a venues group) sending an email including a few different email addresses I could find, a complaint was sent.
So after writing a complaint we have managed to get 8% of our money back, which is shocking, considering if we had not paid in full we would only lose 20% and we would have had 80% OF OUR MONEY STILL.
Again to repeat the big lesson here is to never pay in full to this Venue/s
In my complaint I suggested moving the wedding until 2024 stating this would be a good option and we could pay the extra, but no the ashes did not want to move the date whatsoever, they only stated they could move the date earlier in 2023! Doesn’t make sense since we even had offered to pay additional for moving the wedding to 2024.
We were then told that if they managed to resell / move a wedding onto our date of June 21 then we would receive more of our money back.
Now, knowing how rude the original lady I spoken to over the phone whom told me that we would not be getting a penny back 🙂 and was not helpful with even discussing possibilities / dates etc .
I didn’t have much trust in the ashes telling the truth sadly, so asking the ashes via email if the day had been fulfilled they have said no every time.
On the date we were supposed to get married, I rang the ashes asking if it’s ok to pop down and possibly thinking of booking with you as I’m in the area nearby currently (did not give my name / details) this was at around 10am
So the women I spoken with stated I’m more than welcome to come have a look at the venue and would love to show me around today but would need to arrange an appointment as they have a WEDDING ON, now this of course wasn’t our wedding because like stated above we were not able to go through with due to medical reasons.
So great, knowing that the ashes fulfilled our date we know we’d be getting our money back right?
Contacting the Ashes regarding this, the very next day we were emailed back to say sorry there was no wedding and you would not be getting any back.
So, one of them was lying and who?
To our regret we couldn’t drive to the venue on the date and confirm this due to my partner being in hospital as we stated would be the case to the ashes.
However the phone call I had with the lady in the morning made me feel confident since she told me there was a wedding on, surely the calls are recorded? Perhaps, we may take this further though just looking at our option and seeking legal advice.
Don’t get me wrong some of the girls we dealt with I.e Libby and Tamara were lovely but they were admins whom couldn’t help with much sadly.
It is the management team who soon become hostile and unhelpful should an issue arise.
A simple warning about The Ashes Barns and the Best Day Ever group (ashes is part of this group)