Horstedpond Farm

Apr 25th, 2023

Apr 21st, 2023

Though our wedding is not until next year, Annabel has been incredibly helpful in supporting the planning of our wedding day. We booked Hosted Pond in Spring this year as we had fallen in love with how beautiful, secluded and quiet the Lucerne Field is. We had initially planned for a relatively small event, but over time, the event has grown to be much larger than intended! Throughout this, Annabel has been kind and incredibly helpful, providing us with support on ideas, suppliers, advice and pretty much everything in between. Annabel is always at the end of the phone, no problem is too big for her and she responds back very quickly. We have already visited the site 3 times and for all three visits, we have really worked with her to develop the vision of our day. We're really excited to continue working with Annabel and the whole team over at Horsted Pond over the next few months!
Nov 9th, 2022

We had our wedding reception at Horstedpond farm. It was a wonderful setting with the flexibility we were looking for to create the perfect day. Annabel was so accommodating and happy to help wherever required. We would recommend to anyone looking for an outdoor, unique celebration!
Aug 3rd, 2022

Unfortunately our experience at Hostedpond Farm for our wedding in June 2022 was- by far- the most stressful element of our entire DIY experience- and thats even with having a delay due to Covid! The venue itself is fine, it's an isolated field surrounded by trees. Just dont be lured into thinking its a blank canvas. Our experience and communication with Annabel was also fine in the 2 years of our booking but when it came down to it, the excuses, obstruction and being made to feel as though issues out of our control were our fault & our problem to deal with (even in the final hours before the big day) were unacceptable & unprofessional of anyone advertising as a wedding planner & venue. 2 weeks before our wedding (which wed had booked 2 years previously) we went to the venue for our final walk around/ check in. We were excitedly told by Annabel Lets look at the lovely new chapel!. 2 weeks. Before our wedding. We had already purchased accessories and furniture to fit in the woodland space that we had been viewing and planning for the past 2 years. Due to a several-year-long land dispute with Annabel and a local landowner, it meant we were no longer able to use the woodland chapel. Or at least we could- at our own risk of the police turning up on our wedding day. Instead we were presented with a last minute arrangement of a piece of wooded area in the boundary area between 2 fields. We were kindly told that we could borrow a shovel from Annabel to dig soil from the adjacent field to build up the floor of the aisle and seating areas as it was incredibly uneven and dangerous. Just what everyone has time to do in the final days before their wedding, when their wedding venue has been dramatically changed. We were however reassured that guests could still walk through the original woodland area as this is a much nicer entrance than walking along a dirt track through several fields on the long walk from the car park, particularly during the heat which we were experiencing in June. However, on the night before our wedding, the woodland area had not been cleared and the grass was vastly overgrown. When we called Annabel regarding this, we were met with a barrage of excuses; the first being that she is an impeccable note taker and that she had not made note that we would be using this area for guests when we discussed it, so she hadnt prepared it. Then came the second excuse- there was a ditch alongside the wide woodland walkway with a blue water pipe ready to be laid. For health and safety reasons she didnt want guests walking and falling into it, sober, in broad daylight. The final excuse was that she didnt think her husband was on site to cut back the lawn. * * On this same bombshell of a trip, our final walk around before our wedding in 2 weeks time, whilst trying to console ourselves with the change of our dream chapel area (1 of 2 reasons why we booked at Horsted in the first place), we mentioned how guests would walk from the last minute chapel area to where our tipi was planned to go. Remember, that on many sites advertising Horstedpond Farm it is marketed as a blank canvas. The second reason why we booked Horsted. This is not entirely accurate. Despite the huge amount of land that the venue has, you are only permitted to have all your structures and vehicles visiting in the top eighth of the field. Nowhere in our many previous visits over the 2 years of us having booked the venue was this ever mentioned, nor was it in the written terms and conditions we signed upon our booking. Not such a blank canvas after all. So every wedding hosted there will have the structures in the same place- all together at the top end of the field by the toilets. We made it work & we had the best day of our lives. But the additional stress & poor experience we had at Horsted left a shadow on our experience, & we wouldnt wish that on anyone, which is why weve taken to writing a review.
Sep 4th, 2022