Wedding Client Welcome & Wedding Tips Monthly Letters
Wedding Planning > Plan your Wedding Day
Wedding Planning Letters for Couples getting married in South Wales
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Forms & Templates
Wedding Client Welcome &
Wedding Tips Letters
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Client Letter Index
Month 1 Wedding Planner Guide for Wedding Couples to help you plan your wedding - General Planner
Month 2 Wedding Planner Guide for Wedding Couples (II) - Specific Planner to help you plan your wedding at the Castle
Month 3 Wedding Suppliers – Entertainment Opportunities Day and Evening
Month 4 Wedding Suppliers – Venue & Table Décor Suppliers for your Wedding Day
Month 5 Accommodation – Booking and Reserving B&B for your wedding guests at Craig y Nos Castle
Month 6 Accommodation – how your guests can pay half price on the night before your wedding
Month 7 Accommodation – keeping tabs on how many guests have reserved or booked rooms at the Castle, to ensure you meet the Wedding Package accommodation guarantee
Month 8 Wedding Venue ‘Extras’ to add to your Wedding Package at Craig y Nos
Month 9 Wedding Themes – have you yet thought of an overall theme and colours for your wedding reception, ceremony and wedding banqueting room?
Month 10 Contacting us, your Wedding Planner Team, and when we assign you your personal wedding planner
Month 11 Wedding Fairs and Wedding Open Days
Month 12 Planning your Wedding – the Wedding Planner Guide
Welcome Letters to new Clients – frequency - Monthly
Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 1.
Re: Wedding Planner Guide for Wedding Couples to help you plan your wedding
Dear
We are delighted you have chosen Craig y Nos Castle for your wedding day.
I will be sending you a monthly email in the run-up to your wedding featuring Wedding Planning tips for your wedding. This is the first email of 12.
Our monthly client advisory / wedding planning emails are sent out automatically and will continue monthly until you stop them. They will be sent even beyond your wedding date, if your wedding date is within the next year, so you may wish to unsubscribe once your wedding date is over.
You can stop receiving these emails at any time, by clicking the Unsubscribe option at the end of this email.
This month I would like to draw your attention to our complimentary Wedding Planning Booklet, which is on the website and is free and very comprehensive. It starts with planning your wedding budget, but the most important first page to look at is the Wedding Planner Countdown to your wedding day. This is where you create an aide memoire of all the tasks you want to tick off before your wedding day.
There are quite a few pages to this Wedding Planner Guide, and I hope you will feel able to dive in and out of the site regularly, to help plan your wedding.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 2.
Re: Wedding Planner Guide for Wedding Couples (II) to help you plan your wedding at the Castle
Dear
Last month I introduced you to our Wedding Planner Guide and suggested you first look at the schedule of tasks/ wedding day countdown so you get everything done before your wedding day. I hope you also found a few of the other pages in the general Wedding Planner Guide useful.
This month I would like to introduce you to some of the Wedding Planner Guide notes specific to Planning your wedding day at the Castle.
The Castle Wedding Planner Guide is specific to how we plan your wedding at Craig y Nos.
There are four main sections:
2. Menu Planning templates and how to select your two options for each course of your Wedding Breakfast
3. Guest seating and Table Plans for the Wedding Banquet room
4. Running Order templates for the plan of your wedding day
While a lot of this is quite far off, and so is not necessary to look at in detail at this stage (unless your wedding is quite soon), it is helpful to get a preview of the full planning process our end.
A month before your wedding date we will invite you to an Event Finalise Meeting where your own Wedding Day’s Running Order will be finalised.
Before then, you will be selecting your Suppliers, which we will look at in more detail next month. See our Wedding Suppliers Index here.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 3.
Re: Wedding Suppliers – Entertainment Opportunities Day and Evening
Dear
Last month we looked at the Wedding Planner Pages briefly, but the first thing to organise once you have chosen your Wedding Venue, are your Wedding Suppliers.
This month I would like to focus on Suppliers in the ‘Entertainment’ category. I have listed your possible ‘Entertainment’ Suppliers in order of importance, below.
2. Some weddings have a day band play in the Gardens, and then a DJ in the evening.
3. In addition we have our own recommended Evening Entertainment Package which includes both the Weddings DJ and an evening Buffet, for a fixed rate per head (min. 100 guests).
4. For entertainment during the day, maybe at the Wedding Breakfast or at tables in the Evening, many weddings opt for a Table Magician. This is a useful addition especially if you have children that need entertaining.
5. Additional options for music in the day (during Welcome Drinks, in the Ceremony itself, and in the day before the Wedding Banquet) are Pianists and Harpists. Harpists are very popular at weddings and Ceremonies. A golden harp playing on the stage sits very well alongside the gold thrones and gold leaf paintwork in the Opera House. The Harpist (or pianist) will play during the welcome drinks and in the two-hour period during photographs and drinks outside in the gardens – very pleasant if the weather is fine. Also in summer we have seen live bands and singers hired, playing on the lawn beside the theatre.
6. If you have full use of the Ground Floor of the Castle under your wedding package, you can consider Casino Tables. These are especially popular and really lend a sense of occasion. The casino tables are arranged in the Nicolini lounge with guests crowding round excitedly. This option is best for large weddings where you can afford to split the wedding party up over different rooms in the evening, without emptying the dance floor too much.
Next month we will look at another batch of suppliers, specialising in Table and Venue Décor.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 4.
Re: Wedding Suppliers – Venue & Table Décor Suppliers for your Wedding Day
Dear
Last month we looked at Wedding Suppliers specialising in Entertainment. This month I would like to focus on Suppliers in the Venue Decoration and Table Decor category. I have listed your possible ‘Venue Decor’ Suppliers in order of importance, below.
1. Centre of Attention based in Brecon are our favoured Supplier for flowers and table décor at Craig y Nos Castle. (I believe the picture shown predates our involvement with Centre of Attention - shown only because this was a rather unique display!)
Centre of Attention have provided us with a permanent display in the Theatre, so you can see what they offer for the Ceremony, and we will often have some of their table décor and chair covers and sashes on display in the Wedding Banqueting room.
You can see some samples of Centre of Attentions Venue and Chair Covers display here – scroll down to see displays at some of our past Open Days.
2. Florist – if not choosing Centre of Attention – see a list of Wedding Florists here.
3. See here for more general Table Favours and Sweets / Chocolates displays – which can form part of your Centrepieces and Table Décor
4. Chair covers – alternative suppliers list of Swansea Chair cover companies
5. Not so common these days – wedding balloons
Have a look at all the above links to decide on your table and venue décor. Next month we will look at accommodation for your wedding guests.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 5.
Re: Accommodation – Booking and Reserving B&B for your wedding guests at Craig y Nos Castle
Dear
Last month we looked at Venue Decoration and Table Decor suppliers. This month we’re answering some common questions on Accommodation for Guests.
Q1 – How many Guests can sleep in the en-suites at Craig y Nos Castle?
Ans: 100 – see Guest Capacity here and also see an offer for 30% off on the night before the wedding, to encourage your guests to travel up and stay the night before the wedding. Saves travelling on the wedding day.
Q2 – How many guests stay overnight as a minimum on the wedding packages?
Ans: 50 on Special Weekend Package, 25 on midweek – see more here.
Q3 – How do I pick the most suitable rooms for my guests and find out how many can sleep in each?
Ans – See rooms table with guest capacity for each room and links to each room’s description.
Q4 – What is the charge for families in family rooms, how can singles be accommodated?
Ans – See family rooms and tariffs here.
Q5: How do I go about reserving rooms for my guests, ahead of them booking direct?
Ans – See room reserving for guests here.
Q6: I am worried about getting everyone to stay. How do I encourage guests to want to stay over?
Any further questions on accommodation are addressed within the above links!
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Month 6.
Re: Accommodation – how your guests can pay 30% less on the night before your wedding
Dear
Last Month I gave you some links to our Accommodation Capacity showing how you can fit 100 guests in the en-suites and also how you can reserve either the family rooms only or all the rooms ahead of guests booking rooms direct with us – see Reserving Rooms for Guests.
Today we’re going to look at how your guests can be encouraged to make a two-night break of their visit to Craig y Nos, and how you can end up having a two night mini-break for yourself and a substantial number of your guests by having many people stay informally at the Castle the night before your wedding.
If your guests book in only on the night of the wedding, yet are traveling long distance to get here, the chances are they will be seeking accommodation elsewhere, locally, on the night before your wedding. Either that, or they are going to have to get up early to make a long journey to the castle on your wedding day.
We would much rather they stayed with us than at a local pub, and this is going to be much more convenient for your guests as well, as they can arrive the night before.
For anyone living over an hour away, it makes sense to travel up the night before and stay one extra night for 30% off regular rate, under our two-night midweek breaks deal. All you need to do, is in your invites, to let your guests know that they can stay for 30% off on one of the two nights if staying in the same room two consecutive nights.
Let your wedding guests know they pay full price on the wedding night and 30% off the night before; loads will stay!
Send your guests a link to our two night deal here:
https://www.dogfriendlywales.com/castle-stay-deals.html This link brings them to our Dog Friendly B&B website, with loads of ideas on places to visit and local walks. As the wedding tariff on their first night is £150, the night before is £105, so they’ll pay £255 for their two night deal.
This works out at just £63.75 per person B&B per night over two nights, based on two sharing an en-suite, rather than £75 per person per night for one night. This will be seen as much better value.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 7.
Re: Accommodation – keeping tabs on how many guests have reserved or booked rooms at the Castle, to ensure you meet the Wedding Package accommodation guarantee
Dear
Last month I gave you a link to our Dog Friendly Two night midweek deal. It’s worth encouraging guests travelling long distance to stay two nights, rather than travel too far on your wedding day. It also makes it easier for guests as they then do not need to try to find local accommodation for the night before your wedding. It is much better value, staying two nights, due to the 30% reduction on offer on the night before the wedding.
We do get a lot of Couples who are confused about the room reserving and room booking process, and how to keep tabs on who has confirmed their room booking. Since you will have guaranteed some rooms under your wedding package, you want to be sure the accommodation is booked up to the guaranteed level.
If you need more beds than the minimum you’ve guaranteed, you will need to reserve these in your name, as extra rooms.
You can start by reserving rooms for specific guests on the night of the wedding.
Subject to availability and there being no wedding before yours, or a wedding that does not require all the en-suites, you can also reserve rooms for the night before the wedding.
You then need to get guests to confirm their room booking as soon as possible. See more on room reserving here.
To create a room reserve list you will use a SRUM – Special Room Use Monitor spreadsheet in Excel. .
You then invite people to book.
See a useful letter to use to encourage guests to book rooms. Once they book with us, we take their card details and address and we mark their POSTCODE on our system and can update your SRUM on request.
Whenever you want to see who has booked and who has yet to book, you can ask us for an updated SRUM and we will send it to you. Guest names with post codes are confirmed bookings, and guest names listed without post codes are ‘reserved’ by you only, but not yet booked by the guests in question.
The SRUM will become an important and useful document to monitor your guest room bookings.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 8.
Re: Wedding Venue ‘Extras’ to add to your Wedding Package at Craig y Nos
Dear
Last month we explained how the SRUM can help you monitor room bookings by guests, to ensure you meet the accommodation usage guarantee – see Special Room Use Monitor template here.
Today we are looking at the extras we as a wedding venue offer, that you will most probably want to add to your wedding package.
Extras 2, 4, 5, below are in line with what is traditionally provided for guests at the Wedding Venue, though they remain optional, while the rest are entirely optional though 6 is an attractive display to have as well.
1. Choose the wedding breakfast three course menu to offer your guests.
2. Choose a third option for the Vegetarians noting that Vegetarians tend to have limited choices so it may be worth stipulating your own bespoke preference if you have a large contingent of vegetarians.
3. Chooe a third course on your wedding menu – see pudding menu.
4. Decide if you want an evening buffet and if so, which 6 items do you want to select from the evening buffet menu. Note also the cheese board offer to cut down on costs.
5. Do you want to add a Drinks Package – see Wedding Drinks Package.
Most Couples will provide both welcome drinks and drinks at the banquet table, including toasting wine for the toasts. But it is NOT customary nor in the least bit necessary to put money across the bar. Guests are happy to buy their own bar drinks, so you do not have to!
6. If you are feeling generous or having a large gap before the main banquet, you can add a selection of Canapes Choices to the Welcome Drinks option.
This is a handy addition given there is a big gap between the Wedding Ceremony and the Wedding Banquet starting around 3.00 to 4.00 pm. Guests will feel peckish around lunch time, so Canapes will just keep them going a little longer, before the wedding banquet, without filling them up too much.
7. You may also want to consider some menu items from the Superior Wedding Breakfast, for a small extra charge. You can mix and match, rather than upgrade fully, and indeed you have two menus to choose from in both wedding breakfast options.
8. Candy Cart – either stocked by us or un-stocked for you to stock.
Have a look at the links above and if you would like to add anything to your wedding package, either email us or a wedding planner specifically via the Contact Us Page or give us a call, or simply diarise for your next meeting with us.
See also the Wedding Tariff chart for all extras.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 9.
Re: Wedding Themes – have you yet thought of an overall theme and colours for your wedding reception, ceremony and wedding banqueting room?
Dear
Last month we looked at the various extras you could add to your Wedding Package – the most common of which are the evening buffet or the Cheeseboard, and the drinks package.
Today I am directing you to a section of the Wedding Website you may never have seen nor appreciated. It is a hidden gem and will give you plenty to think about, regarding your wedding theme.
Did you know it is possible to choose some wedding theme ideas based on the home town features of one or both partners? We have seen themes based on Green Apples, Bunting, London Tube Stations, Star Wars, Castles in Wales and of course chair colours and matching colour themes in numerous shades of dark blue, pale blue, pink, pink and red, cream and white, white and pale yellow, shiny silver, subtle silver and cream, and gold, many of which you will find dotted around the site.
We have also seen table names and centres designed around names, features, historical aspects or landscapes in the Bride’s or Groom’s home town, to bring something of the Couple’s background and roots, into the wedding venue. This led us to devise a whole series of ‘wedding themes by town’ – see our index of towns and town wedding themes here.
Many towns are represented including the major English Towns and a number of towns in Wales. See for example Swansea themed wedding ideas or Swindon, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham themed ideas. Have a look to see if your home town is featured on the list.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 10.
Re: Contacting us, your Wedding Planner Team, and when we assign you your personal wedding planner
Dear
Last month we looked at wedding themes, with links to various colour themes and also to wedding themes by town. Over the last few months we have covered a wide range of hints and tips on planning your wedding at Craig y Nos Castle.
Depending how far ahead you have booked your wedding, it may be a while yet before your wedding takes place. My wedding tips emails are sent out monthly, automatically, and because they are automatic, will not stop even if your wedding has taken place. If you wish to stop receiving hints and tips emails, please unsubscribe yourself at the end of this email.
Assuming your wedding date is now drawing near, you will probably have a load of last minute questions for us as you make your final plans. Please refer to ‘plan your wedding in a castle’ and all its associated links, which will address most of your questions.
Should you wish to contact us, an up to date list of wedding planners and contact information can be found on our Contact Us Page here. There are photos and biographies on the current wedding planners, but because staff do change from time to time, we do not assign you a personal planner until 5 – 6 weeks before your wedding day, at which point you will need to book to come in for an Event Finalise Meeting. At this meeting our wedding planner will sit with you to finalise your Wedding Day Running Order.
On the Contact us page there are also many useful links to parts of the site you may not yet have explored, so it is worth perusing the whole page to check anything you may have missed out on.
You can use the above links to directly contact a named wedding planner if you have already been assigned or have been dealing with a specific named person for some time. However the actual wedding planner on your wedding day will be governed by staff availability, work rotas and holidays etc, which are finalised about 30 days in advance.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 11.
Dear
Last month we looked at the assignment of a wedding planner and the contact us page, so you could see who we have on our wedding team. This will help you get a better idea of who is who, and who will be organising your Wedding Day Running Order this end.
You should by now be fairly advanced with Menu Planning, and your table plan, you should be up to date with your guest’s accommodation bookings via the SRUM (special room use monitor) and have mostly planned your own Wedding Day Running Order. If you feel you are behind on any of these, please contact us for help and assistance.
As your wedding nears it is a good idea to visit the castle a few times to get a good feel for the layout, for where you will have your wedding photographer, for where you and your guests will be moving around on the Day, which rooms you are using for which aspects of the wedding day. A good day to pop in and have a look around is on one of our Wedding Open Days.
The rooms you’ll use most probably include the Nicolini Room for your wedding drinks, the Conservatory for your Wedding Banquet, the Ceremony room for your Wedding Ceremony, the Patti Bar where your guests will be milling around after the Ceremony and in the evening, and the Function room (if not in Conservatory all day) for the night time wedding party.
At a wedding open day we have typically 20 booked Wedding Couples and 60-70 prospective wedding couples, so this day is mainly designed to see the venue set up as it might do for a wedding. You can also have a word with our two most favoured wedding suppliers – Centre of Attention for venue décor, and Darren Tipples Weddings DJ, who run our evening entertainment package.
You’ll not have much time to speak to a wedding planner at an Open day as we’ll all be rushing around seeing loads of people, each couple very briefly. For a fuller discussion on your wedding, an appointment should be made separately, before or after the Open Day.
If travelling long distance, it’s worth staying overnight (see B&B availability here) to attend both an Open Day and to separately have a meeting with a Wedding Planner the day before or the day after.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
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Welcome Letters to new Clients Email
Month 12.
Re: Planning your Wedding – the Wedding Planner Guide
Dear
Over the last twelve months we have sent you a number of emails with hints and tips on planning your wedding. Should you wish to look at any of the past letters, you’ll find the full set of twelve has been reproduced here under ‘Wedding Welcome & Tips Letters’.
The Key places to check, in case you have forgotten anything, are:
1. The general Wedding Planner Guide, starting here and then going to each page
2. The Plan your Wedding in a Castle page and the links on this page to accommodation bookings, table planner, menus etc.
3. The Wedding Breakfast choices and the Evening Buffet
4. The Suppliers Index to be sure you have chosen all the suppliers you could possibly wish
5. The Wedding Packages Wedding Tariff page for extras you may wish the venue to provide
As your wedding day approaches it will be worth paying particular attention to
6. The Wedding Day Schedule – very relevant to planning your Wedding Day Running Order
7. Obtain from us an up to date SRUM to monitor your accommodation usage
8. Set up by Suppliers, with a warning about suppliers over-running (especially Photographers)
9. Read up on the Wedding Ceremony programme, including seating plan and guests arrival and seating order, music playing etc.
And if you fancy coming up to the Castle just for a day out or B&B stay, see our Dog Friendly B&B website here with links to local walks and excursions near the castle.
This email is the last in our set of 12 monthly wedding tips emails, so it’s been over a year since you chose Craig y Nos Castle for your wedding. We look forward to seeing you on your wedding day. Your wedding planner will make sure the day of your dreams is as special as you deserve and expect it to be.
Kind regards,
Martin Gover
Proprietor, Craig y Nos Castle.
For Letters to Enquirers who are considering Craig y Nos Castle for their wedding venue - click here
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