…Tune in next week for Part 2 – January 2020 – July 2020
In the Beginning…
Thicket Priory has been on a journey over the past decade to become the wedding venue of your dreams! As Monday 6th July 2020 marks one year since our first wedding we thought it would be lovely to share a timeline over the past 12 months of the voyage we have been on! We hope you enjoy…you might want to get comfy, it’s a meaty read!
Before we could host our first wedding there was to do lists after to do lists after to do lists…but we got there and much to the hard work of the Thicket Priory Team we opened the doors for the first wedding and delivered an unbelievable weekend for the wonderful Daria & Dougie, A.K.A. Mr & Mrs Marsh!
Before July there was a team working hard to ensure the building was ready and at it’s best for welcoming our first guests. Bruce the brilliant owner of Thicket Priory has been at the heart of design and creativity behind what you see today. His vision for the Priory has then been cleverly delivered by a team of very driven gents lead by Andy Stephenson. Andy is not just our onsite maintenance man, he is a craftsmen, grounds keeper, gate keeper, engineer and much more which has helped us showcase a wonderful building in the most stunning grounds!
Anna was taken on as the General Manager in December 2018 landing her dream job and she has been driven by the same enthusiasm as Bruce and Andy to carry the baton on it’s last leg of the race to deliver a ‘finished product’…although we’d never called it a ‘product’, it’s so much more than that! Consultancy and support from the delightful Zoe of Treasured Brides was a wonderful addition to the makings of our finished article, topped off with the wonderful mind, creativity and fervor of Flame who joined the team in May 2019.
The first Thicket Priory photo shoot took place and delivered amazing images to start sharing the magical world of the Priory with our new fan base!
Pink Lily Photography – Treasured Brides – The Rain Florist
July 2019
The excitement and anticipation in the weeks running up to our first wedding was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. The bedrooms were ready, the bar was stocked, the wedding was planned, the music system was raring to go…it was time to have our first wedding and it could not have been better weather! As a venue offering everything under one roof for a two day wedding celebration the guests were able to enjoy the Yorkshire sunshine in the grounds, relaxing on the lawns, sipping Pimms and dancing to the incredible ceilidh.
A few other highlights from July include; The Great Yorkshire Show, the blossoming linseed in the Mighty Oak field, the start of our journey with Kelly Chandler Consulting and I got to move in to the Priory…well not quite, the beautiful Chauffeur’s Cottage!
August 2019
Going into August we were just so excited to see Kate & Tom arrive for their wedding on 3rd August and once again the British weather did wonders; we even managed to have an outdoor ceremony!
August also brought us the ingenious technology of the virtual 3D tour which has been a god send for the current world situation and helped us to conduct virtual show-rounds of Thicket Priory via Zoom, and allow everyone access to the venue from the comfort of their sofa! Mark & Rob from Apollo 3D really embraced the labyrinth that is Thicket Priory and created one of the largest 3D tour models for any venue in the world!
A well deserved pint for Zoe & Flame after a seamless day for Mr & Mrs Daykin, check out their Real Wedding Blog here!
The end of August saw two new exciting relationships for the Priory, one being our new team member Becca who joined us a our Creative Events Manager, and also the start of our journey with Kelly Chandler Consulting. Without a shadow of a doubt both Becca and Kelly became part of the Thicket Priory ‘Family’. Another lady to join Team Thicket in August was the ever so glamourous Mervyvia, our vintage Silver Cloud Rolls Royce!
The final icing on the cake for August 2019 was our appearance on Made In Chelsea, featuring Jamie Laing, Alex Mytton and many more the for E4 MIC cast!
September 2019
In September we experienced our very first petting zoo at a wedding which made for some fabulous photo’s for Daniel and Irram…I mean who doesn’t want a photograph with an alpaca on your wedding day! AMAZING!
Daniel & Irram’s wedding was an Asian fusion wedding with blended cultures hosting both a traditional Nikkah Ceremony with an Imam present, along with a traditional civil wedding ceremony with the local registrars! We had am amazing time getting to know Daniel and Irram during their quite short-lead wedding and thoroughly enjoyed learning about such traditions as the groom paying his way into the wedding breakfast! The bridesmaids sure did drive a hard bargain!
Late September when we were witnessing some of the most stunning sun sets I’ve ever seen we had the joy of welcoming lots of our ‘Friends of Thicket Priory’ to our very first suppliers evening. The suppliers evening gives like minded industry folk the opportunity to enjoy and explore Thicket Priory without the pressure of something like a ‘wedding fair’, therefore we find the evening is great for networking and building relationships with our local talent! The sunset images were captured by Carla Whittingham Photography.
October 2019
We have the pleasure of hosting our very own Luxury Wedding Planners event in October, as well as welcoming ITV Studios for a spot of filming…featuring a few familiar faces from ‘The Chase’!
Map by Velvet May Designs
The beautiful Old Kitchen table featured on the images above arrived in style early October, transported by non other than the Thicket Priory Team…and lordy was it heavy!!!
Preparations for Autumn well underway we required a stock of wellies, the garden furniture got itself a new lick of paint, some training on sloe gin by the fabulous Morgan at Sloe Motion (a staple diet for the winter) and we couldn’t go through our first Halloween as a Team without a Pumpkin carving competition! And not forgetting we received our first wedding save the date a year to the date from Ieuan & Nicola!
October was a busy month for photoshoots with an abundance of super talented suppliers getting together to capture just how beautiful the Priory is! We have various themes from sage green bliss and swan lake, to whimsical English garden and bold sleek vogue!
Something wonderful we gained in October was our amazing footage captured by Hello There films! They captured the venue with every detail and we LOVE IT! Here’s a few video clips to help you understand exactly why!
November 2019
Remember, remember the 5th of November…or the 9th in our case for Rachael and Kyle’s Autumnal Wedding, themed with pumpkins, autumn leaves, sparklers and stunning red bridesmaid dresses!
The Rolls Royce made her debut, which may have ended up with Anna and the affectionately known ‘Mervynia’ having a small fall out!! But here’s a few images to show you how to dress when driving a Silver Cloud 3 Rolls Royce…which one do you think is mostly suited to me! Ha!
November was the month we welcomed Sarah as a fully fledged member of the Thicket Priory Team, bringing onboard insane levels of drive and organisation to push our bar and operation to the next level! This was perfectly timed for what would be our biggest challenge to date, the delivery of an incredible product launch for GHD…all themed around ‘Royal Dynasty’. The images say it all, the operation was slick and to the highest quality to impress both influencers and journalists during their stay. We got to work with incredible industry experts such as Bob and his team from Creative Styling UK and Ricky Paul Flowers.
…we did celebrate Flame’s birthday whilst working through this amazing event with Becca ensuring we added something ‘so extra’ to Flame’s desk!
Photoshoots in November included the gorgeous Belle Bridal, Vivienne Edges Weddings and Treasured Brides!
December 2019
December helped us to see that you can have bright and beautiful colours without creating a ‘Christmas theme’ for your wedding! Georgina and James wedding for 120 guests, plus an additional 80 evening guests was the perfect Winter family get together filling the Priory with love and warmth!
So…thanks for sticking with the blog this far! The last month of Part 1 covers December and what an exciting month it was to finish our first year!
The first Christmas at Thicket needed a ‘hint’ of Christmas…but with a gang of gals involved we had some fun with fake snow, Christmas trees and branded tree decorations!!! We got to show this all off at our Suppliers evening which was a welcome night of social for lots of our Friends of Thicket! Enjoyed more so by those who won prizes in our business card raffle like Steven MacDonald Photography!
Christmas simply wouldn’t be Christmas without some gift giving, and our secret Santa at work saw this corker for John A.K.A. JTP (John the Plumber!) We received some fabulous thank you gifts from our wonderful Friends of Thicket Priory, including these gorgeous deliveries from Lisha at L.S. Cakery and Kathrine from Fleur Adamo Florists.
I loved creating these lovely stockings for the team filled with goodies that were a big thank you for being so amazing, followed by a fantastic meal out with the gang to celebrate a fantastic year!
And finally, to finish the year we attended the Carol Service at the Carmelite Monastery, sang Christmas carols, drank mulled wine and ate mince pies, yum! We signed off the year with then 12 blogs of Christmas which was our first dabble into the world of Blogging! We’ve come far since then with our blog and hope to continue with this wonderful resource for all our fans out there!
Thanks for reading!!
Anna x
Tune in next week for Part 2 – January 2020 to July 2020
Here’s a sneak peak…
January 2020
February 2020
March 2020
April 2020
May 2020
June 2020
July 2020
Photography Credits:
Pink Lily Photography
Carla Whittingham Photography
Jane Beadnall Photography
Victoria Baker Weddings
Jo Lawrence Photography
Phoebe Jane Photography
Studio Lester
Nicola Dixon Photography
Tom Scott Photography
Josey Grace Photography
