The Victorian Barn

Disastrous, unprofessional and an unnecessary stressful experience attempting to organize our wedding at The Victorian Barn in Blandford, Dorset, before being cancelled. Thank god it did; we feel we had a lucky escape.

Any future couples considering the Victorian barn in Blandford as their wedding venue in Dorset; please don't hesitate to contact me if you would like further information. I have evidence to prove all statements in this review. I encourage you to view the other wedding review on Trip Advisor and the owners responses to reviews as an indication of what they are like to deal with. My fiancé and I got engaged on August 2017 and visited the Victorian Barn in Dorset as a potential venue for our wedding on Sunday 10th February 2018. We booked the venue for the 6th July 2019 based upon the verbal agreement of our vision. Further details of this are outlined in a initial complaint made on the Thursday August 30th 2018 via email and the morning of Thursday 7th 2019 before the Victorian Barn wedding venue cancelled. My fiancé and I had a strict budget for venue and catering, and a vision of a fun filled weekend with family and friends. Family from America, Tel Aviv, Spain and more would travel for the wedding so our wishes were for family to all be together on one site for a weekend if not more. Over the 18 months of organising the wedding at the Victorian Barn, I had spoken to 4 different representatives, all of which gave differing information (2 of which are no longer there). Prices of accommodation, catering costs, terms and conditions changed more than once, information was missing from initial bookings...I could go on. The biggest worry was that it was apparent we weren't given all information or a full set of terms and conditions before we entered into a contract with the Victorian Barn wedding venue in Dorset and paid the deposit. The whole operation was unprofessional. We booked a decorator, ice cream van, Ceilidh and catering. Over 28 emails were exchanged, two in person meetings between myself and the VB, 1 in person meeting between my parents and the VB and 1 phone call, all of which were my attempts at gathering information. Evidence we have collected demonstrates our exasperation at attempting to organise the wedding with VB. I imagined wedding planning to be stressful, but assumed that the VB had experience and professionals, maybe even a wedding planner, that could help me plan my special day. I imagined the VB to fully transparent, supportive and professional always, especially considering the cost. This could not be further from the truth. On the morning of Thursday 7th of February 2019 | received the response from VB (after a detailed email detailing our disappointments with hopes to mediate) saying: "After careful consideration, and with the expectations from your email we have decided that the best way forward would be for you to find another venue who can offer everything you require. We will refund your two payments which you paid towards your day and also any room bookings taken to your guests. We are sorry it has come to this but you have left us no other choice." This was less than 5 months to the wedding, with 4 suppliers booked and deposits paid, flights booked, alternative accommodation booked near to the VB. I was understandably distraught. That statement to us, was a cancellation. Since then the VB then retracted, saying that wasn't a cancellation and refused to give our deposit of £2500 back until WE cancelled. The email correspondence that ensued was horrendous, unprofessional and borderline harassment, for us and my entire family; we had to seek legal advice and a letter before action with the purpose of entering county court claim to recover our money. Upon receiving that letter they sent the money that morning. They have failed to give our catering deposit back of £350. (You have to book their caterers in order to book the wedding). They have since threatened legal action should I wish to leave a review. I would urge all couples to consider a wedding with absolute caution at the Victorian Barn wedding venue in Dorset.

The Victorian Barn was the most amazing venue for hosting the most magical day of our lives. Penny & Claire were so helpful in the run up to the wedding and on the day and everyone commented on how smoothly the day went. It was great to be able to have the ceremony and reception all in one place and the additional bonus of the accommodation to allow friends and family to stay and enable us to meet with them all in the morning to share our memories and stories of the wedding day.

We had our wedding here in June 2016, and everybody commented on how lovely the setting was! The barn is lovely and wonderfully light, and ideal for the ceremony and wedding reception, even for a larger numbers of guests like we had. Penny, Claire and the team were great on the day, sorting any minor changes without any difficulty. The food from Mill Farm Catering was absolutely amazing, and the Southern Mobile Bar team and DJ were brilliant. We were all able to stay in the onsite accommodation the night before, as well as the night of the wedding, and so did many of our guests. This made for a perfect weekend for our wedding- it couldn't have been any better!

We attended a wedding and therefore all the barns had been taken over for the event. Lovely peaceful setting with good facilities. Our barn was shared with other guests. We shared kitchen, lounge but each had our own bedrooms. There was a lot of flexibility in regard to check in time which was perfect allowing us to travel and refresh ourselves prior to the wedding. The wedding was perfect day making use of the glorious weather, setting but also rooms available. Not sure who the caterers were but they were fantastic and the food was delicious.