Norwood Park Country House, Southwell, Nottinghamshire

We got married in Norwood Park in July having booked the venue over two years ago.

The team were incredibly friendly and helpful and when I emailed them questions (which was relatively often) they always replied quickly no matter how small or silly my query was. They gave me the option of coming to set up the rooms myself or they were happy to do it for me. On the actual day the team made sure my wedding ran perfectly and I could have not asked for a better day.

The highlight of Norwood for us was the food! We were invited to a tasting day where we got to try a platter of Norwoods meal options. We loved everything and found it really hard to choose our menu (in the end we went for Beef Wellington and Mushroom and Ricotta File parcels - Yum!). The food wasn't like standard mass produced wedding food but rather like eating in a gourmet restaurant. All of our guests commented on how much they enjoyed it.

The venue is beautiful and the grounds are spectacular. There are plenty of different areas for people to explore.

In my opinion there is not a more perfect place to get married, it was worth every penny!

We knew from our first visit to Norwood Park that we were in good hands but Sasha and Matt's wedding day exceeded all our expectations and gave them the English country wedding that they had dreamt of.

Tracey and Kristy were so friendly, professional and helpful through all the preparation and organisation putting our minds at rest, we always felt we could contact them over the smallest detail and they would respond quickly.

Norwood Park is an interesting and beautiful venue with lovely grounds and the weather on the day was better than we ever hoped for but it was the hard work of staff behind the scenes that made the day run so smoothly allowing us all to relax and enjoy the happy occasion.

The wedding breakfast with totally delicious food beautifully presented ran like clockwork and so many people have commented on how much they enjoyed it all.

We couldn't have chosen a better venue and better people.

This would have been my second time as a guest at Norwood and i must say it is the best venue i have ever been to as a guest.

The house its self is amazing,its not a hotel its a family home. We had a whole section of this large house just for the guests stopping. The rooms were great and worth every penny

The staff could not do enough for us and are very friendly

The food was possibly the best iv had and its a shame there isnt a fine dining restrant as i would love to eat there again.

Im just hoping i get invited to another wedding there again soon!

Well done Norwood and its team

Having attended a wedding here in the summer, I found that the actual wedding venue which is not in the main house but an odd L shaped cramped room, was most dissapointing. The food, staff and everything else about the place is just very average and they seem to just hold the weddings as if they are conveyor belt weddings. Not bespoke, just in and out with very litte care or attention.

A relative got married at this place in August. Unfortunately, my dress got damaged during the reception - on a tiny catch in the wood on one of their chairs - and management could not have cared less. I got fed various excuses, that they hire in the furniture and so it was not their fault, that they examined all the chairs carefully and found nothing (1. examining 92 chairs 'thoroughly' - I doubt it and 2. are they saying I lied about my dress getting caught...?), that I should have reported it there and then so the chair and dress could have been examined (reporting it first thing on the Monday morning AFTER the event was, apparently, too late, plus they suddenly mentioned their policy about reporting such things on the day over 2 months after the wedding), they commented that I would struggle to prove anything and, whilst I was welcome to take my complaint further, I would not have a leg to stand on. Oh but they were sorry to hear about what happened to my dress. That makes it all ok then and fixes my beyond repair dress, which happened to be my wedding dress......

To add to this, the hanging around before wedding breakfast area was a little small and lacked any real atmosphere, plus there was no piano. Probably a minor point to many guests, but for me, such a wedding venue (ie who charge stupid amounts of money) needs a piano and not a small tacky CD player!

Guests generally found the accommodation rooms to be way overpriced. We shared a bathroom with another relative and the toilet took about half an hour ro re-fill, the shower was nothing short of useless. There was no lock on our door which made us nervous as there was absolutely no security - external doors open for anyone to go and explore inside. Also breakfast was really disappointing (although they had plenty of it and were happy to top it up) and consisted of breads, pastries and meat / cheese, tea coffee and OJ. Basically what I would expect in a hostel paying maybe £15 a night - not £80. We had to ask for butter for the toast which took ages to come (we joked about them having to go and churn it!) plus there was no marmalade at all.

Although the setting is beautiful and the food was nice, don't let them have any more money as they don't deserve it. There are other beautiful places out there with people who have excellent post-event customer care and who care about you AFTER they have been paid too much money.

What we hadn ' t given much thought to at the time was that the people working in these places would play a part in our wedding too. This was one of our most pleasant surprises on finding Norwood Park Country House (as well as the beautiful and individually decorated bedrooms for our guests). The team made our whole experience amazing right from the early planning stages through to the big day. Nothing was too much trouble for Pirie (our co-ordinator), and we were so pleased to have them all around us on the our day. If there were any issues, we were not aware of them and nor were our guests, who have all told us how lovely they thought the place was and that the food really was of exceptional quality, presentation and all timed to perfection. Of course we completely agree with them!

We cannot recommend Norwood Park highly enough and we have such wonderful memories to look back on, thanks to the friendly professionalism of the wedding co-ordinator her colleagues.

Thank you so much everyone

Fay and Mike

7th February 2009

I got married in 2008 at Norwood Park and could not have wished for a better day. Nothing was too much trouble for the staff and the family were very nice to us we didn't see them until the next morning when they helped us with our bags and wished us well, we didn't actually leave until 11.30am, which they did not mind. We received lots of information from Norwood Park regarding the rooms and picked the rooms ourselves for the guests. We loved the personal touch and the fact that we were the only people there was great. We did not feel like we were on a conveyor belt and 'just another wedding'. All of our requests were catered for, the event manager is very good at what she does and helped us no end with timings, suppliers, menus, drinks, invitations etc. I was very lucky to be able to get married at Norwood Park.

Norwood Park is exclusive hire venue and is not a hotel which is why we chose this venue as it is traditional and very welcoming, we did not want to feel like we were 'just another wedding'. We did receive a letter to send out to our guests explaining that Norwood Park is not a hotel, check out is 10.30am and that tea, coffee and water is provided, and why would you want a TV in a room it only encourages guests to go off away from the wedding. The family were very kind and let our smoking guests use the garden door to go outside, we only saw them at the end of the night and in the morning to give us our privacy which i thought was very good of them as it is their house but they explained that they were separate to the wedding area. We were not allowed to take drinks into the house from the bar but we did arrange for a bottle of wine and cheese platter for when we got back for us and a couple of close friends. We only noticed one en-suite room which had no door but no-one else could get to it so it didn't bother the guests that stayed in their the night of our wedding. I would recommend Norwood Park to anyone.

Norwood Park Country House also houses full time residents and it appeared to me very quickly that Norwood Park seems not set up to provide a service but to maintain their status as residents. I thought their manner was condescending at best and at worse seemingly rude. For example, none of the bed rooms had locks on nor did they close properly and one of the residents thought nothing of entering a room without knocking at 12PM and with steam coming out of his ears (all guests were wedding guests, no complaints were made by guests). The wedding I attended was not 'rowdy', not a single glass had been broken but the staff made me feel like I was intruding despite paying a large sum ( £130) for booking a room. We were told to leave the bar at 12PM in a seemingly abrupt, cold and bothered manner much worse than any nightclub bouncer. No drinks were allowed to be taken into a bedroom from outside, as though we weren't capable of maintaining a room whilst drinking a G and T! None of the en-suite toilets had doors, which as you can imagine made life a little difficult for the guests.Buying a drink was not easy, any large numbers waiting for a drink tended to coincide with a sudden lack of staff, very frustrating. Please be reminded that ALL the guests were in bed by 2AM. In fact we had to be in our room at the time the bar closes outside, there is no bar inside and nowhere for guests to 'carry on' after 12PM other than the bedrooms (yes, the ones with no doors, no toilet doors or any kind of privacy attached). There were no televisions, telephones drinks or modern conveniences in the rooms, only the prices appeared to be modern. Spending money is not that easy a thing to do once you've arrived at Norwood. All guests must check out at 10AM.

I feel that Norwood Park as a business and service for overnight guests needs to rethink it's outlook drastically and quickly. It appeared to me that paying guests are considered a necessary inconvenience in the pursuit of maintaining the status of the residents, the irony being that with the right attitude and attention this venue could easily make enough money to buy other Norwoods!