Wedding - and celebration - bells ringing out for Abbey Farm

Abbey Farm Weddings have been named as East Midlands’ Regional Winners for the Barn Venue category for the second year running in the prestigious Wedding Industry Awards, and have also received a Highly Commended award for Event Team.

The team will now go on to the national finals, competing against eight other regional finalists for the award at The Underglobe in London in February 2023.

Abbey Farm is home to the Nelstrop family, who decided to use the Covid-19 pandemic – which put the kibosh on weddings during the two lockdowns – to completely renovate one of their grainery barns to offer a complete wedding experience under one roof.

"We completely transformed it,” Jo Nelsthrop said, “We re-roofed the building, put in under-floor heating, changed the windows, replastered and more.

"The way the pandemic fell, we were given the chance to do all this work which could have taken years trying to fit in around weddings.”

Jo said they have had great feedback from their couples as the new barn allows them to offer a completely flexible experience:

"Once you’re in, you’re in, so you don’t have to go from barn to barn to go to the bar or the reception soon,” Jo explained, “That makes it useful all year round.

"We used local craftsmen and used wood from local woods – it is a true Lincolnshire story.”

And now their endeavours have paid off as they are once again regional winners in the Wedding Industry Awards, after being nominated by the couples whose weddings they have hosted and then being graded by a panel of independent judges.

As their initial nominations came from their couples, Jo said it made their win all the more special:

"We’ve had some great feedback which makes the job so satisfying.

"To know we’ve made a couple’s wedding day exactly as they dreamed it is a wonderful thing.

"We’ve got a brilliant team here and a huge amount of work goes into what we do.”

To find out more about Abbey Farm Weddings, visit https://abbeyfarmweddings.co.uk/