Allerton Castle, Allerton Park, North Yorkshire

Allerton is a gorgeous venue for a wedding and makes for lovely photos, and the food and service at the meal was excellent. However, the service leading up to the day was so poor that, if we had the choice to make again, we would not have held our wedding at Allerton.

Because it is a listed building, there are certain rules which must be followed, such as no red wine outside of the dining room, and all heels on shoes must be larger than a postage stamp. These are reasonable, however they also charge £4 for heel covers for shoes which do not meet requirements. I found this expensive so purchased some online which cost much less. Even the seemingly simple process of asking if these heel covers were appropriate before I purchased them was frustrating as the Dine and Allerton representatives seemed unwilling at first to communicate with one another to agree on a response. Even after the hassle, on our wedding day they didn't use the heel covers I had purchased and charged us £48 for the use of their own.

Also, in an effort to reduce the expense of the day we would have liked to serve wedding cake as the pudding at the meal. Dine was unwilling to reduce the cost of their food package to make this accomodation, stating that the cost of the food for the pudding was negligible in comparison to the cost of service. Little did we know there is an additional fee for having a cake at all which they conveniently didn't mention until we'd already ordered our cake - £1.65 + VAT per head for serving the cake and £65 +VAT for the chef's time in cutting the cake. In the end Dine did waive the chef's fee after our angry response, but we felt this cost should be built into their package price since nearly every wedding has a cake.

Lastly, we had a makeshift photo booth at our wedding consisting of a camera and tripod, and when we dropped it off we offered to show the Dine representative how to set it up. She assured us not to worry and that she would be able to figure it out. Clearly she couldn't as when we arrived nothing had been set up, leaving our guests to struggle to set it up on their own, and in the end it wasn't fully functional until well into the evening.

Allerton is a very commercial venue which holds multiple weddings every weekend of the year, and as such it is clear that they know what they are doing on the day and the day itself runs smoothly. However, it also means that up until the day they do not have the time for queries or any help with planning. They have a rather extensive set of rules and fees which, if we had been aware of before we signed the contract, would have been more well received, but in the end we just felt squeezed out of every penny they could get.

Well, what can we say..From the moment we set foot into the Castle on the day, until the moment we both sadly had to leave at the end of the night, we both had an absolutely superb day. Nothing in our wildest dreams, (and there were plenty), could have prepared us for the day we had.

All your staff were absolutely superb and nothing was too much for them. The food was superb, and again the service provided by the waiters & waitresses was second to none - they could not have done anymore. I am sure there are many people who help out behind the scenes & please pass on our thanks to them.

Finally, very very special thanks to you personally, from our Initial meeting to during the day, you were always on hand to answer our questions and kept the day moving without making us feel rushed - absolutely brilliant.

We were given a lot of advice prior to the wedding, and a common theme was enjoy the day. Since our wedding, we have asked this question to ourselves and can honestly say we would not have changed a thing - I think that says it all.

Once again, our utmost thanks to everyone involved.

Your sincerely,

Mr & Mrs Walstow

We had an absolutely amazing wedding at Allerton Castle. Despite the fire damage, the castle and caterers and the Garrit's pulled out all the stops to make our day perfect. This is a truly awe inspiring venue and any bride will feel like a princess in this castle. If you want a fairytale wedding, then this is the place.