We got married at the beautiful Bishop's Palace in August 2025 and overall, we had a truly memorable day that we’ll cherish forever. The venue itself is absolutely stunning, full of historic charm, with castle walls, towers, and a moat that created an incredible backdrop for our photos. The extensive gardens surrounding the Palace added a magical, romantic feel that our guests couldn’t stop talking about.

One of the things we really appreciated was that the Palace only hosts a couple of weddings per month. It never felt like a “wedding factory,” and we felt like our day was treated as a special day. We were also able to set up the afternoon before and clean up the morning after, which took a huge amount of pressure off and allowed us to really enjoy the experience.

That said, our planning journey wasn’t without its challenges. Over the two years from booking to the big day, we had four different wedding coordinators. Unfortunately, communication around these changes was very poor, in two instances we only found out a coordinator had left or been changed when we tried to get in touch and received no reply. There was no centralised point of contact or clear escalation process when coordinators were unavailable, which made us feel quite isolated during what should be an exciting and supported time.

Each time the coordinator changed, we had to go over all of our wedding plans again from scratch, which was frustrating and time-consuming. Some of the new coordinators also seemed very reluctant to honour previously agreed-upon details, which made things unnecessarily stressful. Additionally, as the Palace has the Bishop in residence, this adds another layer of restrictions, anything out of the ordinary requires special permission, which isn’t always easy to obtain.

In conclusion, we’re very happy with how our wedding day turned out, it was everything we had envisioned, and thanks to our own careful planning and perseverance, everything came together beautifully. We just hope that Bishop’s Palace can improve their coordination and communication processes for future couples. A consistent point of contact, better handover procedures, and more proactive updates would go a long way in making the planning experience as special as the venue itself.