The Garden Station - Northumberland

We enjoyed sitting at an outdoor table in the sunshine, sipping on Earl Grey tea and indulging in freshly baked lemon drizzle cake. The scenery was lovely and the owners were very hospitable.

I attended the most enchanting wedding at The Garden Station, and it was truly a magical experience. Both the venue and the couple, Suzie and Daniel, put in a lot of effort to create a wonderful day. The food was outstanding, the organization was impeccable, and the staff was well-coordinated. The atmosphere was incredible, with fantastic guests who made the couple's day truly unforgettable. The staff at The Garden Station were efficient, and the venue's garden was meticulously maintained. It is truly a unique and special place to host a wedding.

We visited on a Friday afternoon, but unfortunately they were out of sandwich options so we settled for a scone and tea instead. Although a bit pricey for what we received, the stunning views and beautiful garden make it worth a visit.

Had a lovely afternoon at The Garden Station. Staff extremely friendly. Tea and scones were delicious. Will definitely be back.

If you want your wedding experience to feel totally un special, have no idea of how much your wedding will cost, receive stinking communication and service, and not be kept informed of how the planning is going, then YES this is the place for your special wedding day! We had this venue booked for our wedding, but after months and months of truly atrocious communication and service (if you can call it that) and months of us having to chase up contact to try and plan our wedding, we felt forced to cancel our wedding with only four months to go. Up to this point we had little communication, no proof of our wedding actually being planned and a real feeling that no one actually cared. We did not feel special. We got in touch with the owner in September 2016, after initial emails went for a viewing in October and paid our deposit in mid November. We did not receive any confirmation of payment until 4 days later, only after emailing/texting various times to chase! Little did we know this would be a common thread of our experience. By the end of January 2017 we still had heard nothing from The Garden Station. Bear in mind our wedding was planned for September (only 8 months away) and we had not been asked to confirm any of our plans for our wedding as yet. We got in touch and received an email back, with a very basic estimate costs. From this we had a few things to clarify so we arranged to meet in February (7 months to go). The meeting (we thought) had gone well. We were told we would receive an updated estimate in a couple of days. 1 week later no reply, no estimate! We sent an email to chase. A further 10 days later, still no reply, no estimate, no nothing! We sent another email to chase. This time we received a response within 4 minutes apologising and saying we would receive it that night. We received NOTHING! We decided to ease off for a few weeks, be patient and give some space. Perhaps we were being too needy in expecting effective communication? However by mid April (5 months till the wedding date) we were starting to get worried. We had received no information to say anything was being organised, nor had we received an updated quote. We chased up again, explaining we needed to work out how many people we could afford to attend and get invites out to guests in good time, time was ticking. 10 DAYS LATER Still no response, no quote, no nothing! We emailed her advising she was making us anxious, asking if there was any problem with the wedding. We said we would not be upset, but we needed to know if it could not go ahead as we would need to find a quick replacement venue. We received an email 1 hour later advising everything was fine and we would receive an estimate tomorrow. You guessed it we received NOTHING! By May (4 months till the wedding) we were feeling extremely anxious and getting a bit fed up. We were disappointed with the service/information received and in general felt unappreciated. Just what you want to feel during your wedding planning? My fiancee called the owner to voice our concerns and was told she couldn't talk but would get back to us that day. SHE DID NOT. My fiancee called back the next day 3 times, but to no avail. Finally she got back to us to with apologies and said she would send an updated quote for us. We received this, however it was almost the exact same quote we had received in January, nothing had been updated from our visit in February. We felt we had not been listened to and nothing had been done since our visit. We emailed back to state she had not added anything from our meeting in February. She had took notes at the meeting so we gave her the opportunity to re check her notes or we could send a list of the items we wanted, so she could send an updated quote. We received NO RESPONSE and NO ESTIMATE. 2 days later we felt we were being ignored, we again emailed and received a response saying she had sent the wrong one and would get it to us tomorrow. ONE WEEK LATER yep, we hadn't received anything. Getting the theme here? By now, we had had enough. We emailed with regret to advise that because of the way we had been treated, we no longer trusted her to host our wedding. We advised we wanted to cancel because of the poor communication (to be kind to her) and that we were very unhappy with the service we had received. We said the way our wedding had been handled was very unprofessional and asked for a full refund of our deposit. Surprisingly, no response! We called and spoke to her at the end of May to explain our concerns. We were advised we would only receive a refund if she could re book the date. We have no idea if anyone did re book the date, but we never received a refund. Luckily, with 4 months to go we found another brilliant and extremely professional venue and we had an amazing wedding day! So pleased we didn't give any more money or time to The Garden Station and it's unprofessional owners. If you are hoping to have your wedding here, I would look at how special you want your wedding to feel. Do you want to have someone planning your wedding who listens to you, who you can contact, who shows interest in your plans, who cares that you have a brilliant day? If so, I would look elsewhere. This is not just me, look at the other reviews on The Garden Station (and on it's other TripAdvisor page), others mention poor communication and organisation too. I wish we had checked all of the reviews on this website before planning our wedding. We are writing this in the hope you have a better experience during your wedding preparations than we did.