As 2020 ends it is clear that we have never had such a challenging year. We wanted to take a moment to reflect and to share our thoughts with you as we move into 2021. We whole-heartedly hope that 2021 will bring brighter days for all of us. We really can’t wait to get back to doing what we love which is of course hosting our couples’ amazing weddings!
2020 has been an emotional rollercoaster for us, for our couples and for our suppliers and we want to take a moment to thank all of you for the support, resilience and kindness shown to our team over the last nine months.
Although difficult to navigate, the year wasn’t without it’s highlights. We were able to support our community during the first lockdown with our smallholding community project, enlisting some of our smallholding staff and a team of enthusiastic volunteers to work together in growing, donating and delivering fresh produce parcels from our farm to the vulnerable members of our community and to NHS and keyworkers.
In early June we were thrilled to be able to re-open to show couples around South Farm again – it felt lovely to have a little bit of the South Farm normal back.
This was topped in July by being able to hold our first wedding in over three months. Many of our wonderful couples had chosen to go ahead with a small Covid-safe wedding in 2020 and it was an absolute joy for us to be hosting weddings once again. We were blown away by our couples’ small intimate weddings – our long held belief at South Farm is that every wedding is unique and totally individual to the couple. We have really loved being back planning and hosting your weddings once again!
In August we held the first of our Pop Up Restaurant Evenings making use of the abundance of fruit and vegetables growing in our smallholding. Our talented team of Chefs created a stunning seasonal six course taster menu and, overwhelmed by the support from everyone, we quickly went on to fully book our first, and subsequent, Pop Up Events which continued through to December with a new delicious seasonal menu created each month. We are so grateful to all those who joined us, showed their support and shared their lovely feedback – we hope to be able to host more of these events in 2021.
Finally we launched our new website in December, it’s been a long project and a real labour of love for our team and we hope it showcases all that we do, all that we care about and our delicious and wide ranging home-grown catering options in all their glory!
What has undoubtedly sustained us throughout 2020 is the wonderful feedback we have received from our couples and guests from weddings in the pipeline, weddings that went ahead and also from our Pop Up Events. It makes our job truly worthwhile to know that, even in these difficult times, we have still been able to share a little South Farm magic with you.
We’ll finish with a perfect example of this with a quote from Sarah & Alex who got married with us in August 2020 having postponed their wedding from earlier in the year.
“The venue is just so beautiful but it’s the team that makes this place special. Nothing is out of the question and they have a truly individual approach. We loved this personable treatment as having viewed other venues and been to wedding fayres a lot of places felt very formulaic and we didn’t want a churned out, identikit ‘cookie cutter’ wedding, we wanted to get married somewhere that felt like ‘us’. South Farms ‘Distinctly Different’ motto was perfect for us and we loved sharing ideas with the team about making our day just right for us, from the veggie menu we created, to the decor and the special drinks, everything was exactly how we wanted it.
Whilst this year has been really tough for wedding planning and the industry as a whole South Farm stayed calm and informed keeping us up to date on the changing government restrictions and were prepared and forward thinking with what they could offer throughout. We had our wedding with 30 people and within all the government guidelines of the time but it was still our perfect big day and we’re so glad we went ahead.”
We hope so much to be able to make our couple’s dreams come true in 2021. For now thanks again to you all and we wish you a healthy and happy new year – with love from us all at South Farm xx
