A Wedding in the Middle of Storm Bert: A story from Tall Johns and how we handled it

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2 Jan

The bride and groom kiss outside the front door of their barn wedding venue Tall Johns house near Brecon in Wales under clear umbrellas in the middle of storm bert

Let me take you on a journey through my recent wedding at Tall Johns House Brecon. November 2024, the day of Storm Bert!

“Laura Beth and her team, are most definitely worth their weight (and more) in gold! She kept us calm and expertly managed what could have been a very difficult day thanks to storm bert! Our family and friends involved just said how wonderful she is. We had quite a few comments saying it was one of the most stress free weddings they had been to, despite the rain!”

— Sophia & Rhys - our Bride & Groom

As a wedding planner, we try to be prepared for absolutly every eventuality. Unexpected guests turning up. Unknown diets. Floral dramas, power cuts, wet weather…. But storms are few and far to come by in the UK (usually!). So this was a first for me! And I’ve been apart of over 500 weddings in my 15 year career!

The day started out as any normal wedding day in November. Beautiful as we are amounst the mountains and countryside of the Brecon Beacons, but also a little grey and wet!

We had been prepared. Id worked with the wedding photographer Luke Hassall before. We had made a few A,B,C and D plans on where we could do family photos, the confetti shot. Where the drinks reception would be held, and how the main room would be flipped from ceremony to wedding meal and again to dance floor with the help of Pickled Pumpkin our catering team on the day.

But what I hadn’t expect to happen, were all the surrounding roads to turn us into an island!!

We didn’t like to panic guests when all the taxi’s cancelled and roads flooded!

We had a beautiful ceremony. Decorated with florals from Queen of the Meadow and tons of personal areas I had set up to fill and warm the room as guests entered. We have flickering candles and the perfect wedding playlist.

Following the ceremony, guests headed to the granary bar for drinks and canapes with acoustic music from their duo. We turned over the main barn and within less that 2 hours had all guests returning to their seats.

At this point I had heard the whispers of our issues. Guests having taxis cancelled and the local area being reported on the news for horrendous conditions!

I asked the best man to ask any one with issues to head to me after the speeches, and during the speeches came up with a plan!

We organised shuttles with local people we knew, arranged routes (as of course everyone was at a different location!) and I got my mic out to entertain and make sure everyone was kept in the loop after the DJ finish. By 1am having everyone tucked up home and safe!

“Our friends and families taxi’s were being cancelled as a result. We didn’t even know, Laura was all over organising shuttles resulting in all our guests getting home safe and sound. Without Laura Beth, that Saturday night would have been a disaster but she seemed to handle it with ease! Laura Beth is a superstar. She made our wedding dream come true for both of us. We will forever be grateful and the words thank you doesn’t seem enough”

— Sophia & Rhys - our Bride & Groom

Thank you so much for having me as your wedding planner Rhys & Sophia. Putting your trust in me and just totally enjoying your day as you should! You were an absolute dream to work with!