I have never in my life received such a high level of service as I did at Cringletie House. I had the best experience of my life here- not only because it was my wedding but also because the staff are just absolutely incredible.
I began my search for wedding venues in Southern California, and eventually had a full wedding planned for the US Virgin Islands. I found I could get more value for our money outside of California. When two hurricanes hit the virgin islands 8 months before our wedding, I was scrambling to find a new plan. I read about Scottish castle weddings in a destination wedding book- you could rent the entire castle out for an extremely reasonable fee, and an owl could even deliver your rings. From this, I was pretty excited to have a Scottish wedding.
I emailed multiple venues, but the instant I got a response from Johanna, the wedding coordinator at Cringletie, my fiance and I instantly knew that we wanted our wedding at Cringletie. Johanna went out of her way to be so kind to us, and answered every single one of my many questions. Planning a wedding from Southern California in a place I had never been to was daunting, so I had a lot to figure out. Johanna was the reason our wedding was such a success. I had emailed vendors in so many different places by this point, and never had I received such kindness and helpfulness, and in my opinion, when you're spending this kind of money for a wedding, you better receive amazing service. Johanna surpassed my wildest dreams.
I believe Cringletie is a hidden gem- there are other more well-known castles for weddings, but I can't imagine any of them live up to our experience at Cringletie. From the moment we arrived, someone came out to take our bags and show us to our room. I saw many of the rooms in the hotel since we had a full buyout on the castle, and every one was unique and stunning in their own way. All of them had gorgeous views. Coming from SoCal- the land of traffic and too many people, I felt like I could finally breathe when I arrived in Scotland, and Peebles was like nothing I had ever seen before. I spent some time walking around the grounds and visited the horses next door. The rolling hills around the castle took my breathe away.
They allowed us to settle in and I had a meeting with Jeremy (the manager), Louise (the new event coordinator) and Will (the head chef) and we went over every detail of the wedding for the next day. They are experts at what they do, and had many suggestions to make everything run as smoothly as possible. They handled every.single.detail. I have to emphasize that for a wedding where I am from, none of this would be included. They handled a million details that I would have had to do myself or hire someone separately for.
I think the best example of their service is illustrated in how well they treated my flower girl, who has an extremely long list of dangerous food allergies. When I originally spoke to Johanna about these allergies, Johanna insisted that they would be able to accommodate her allergies, yet I was still skeptical. Her mother normally has to bring and make all of her own food because it is hard to find food at restaurants that will be ok for her to eat. The staff at Cringletie went shopping especially for her, created an entire menu that she could eat, and double and triple checked with her mother that everything would be alright. I have never received such service anywhere for any reason.. I was and still am completely blown away by this.
The food itself was very high class and extremely delicious. We had 4 courses, two options for each, and everything was so yummy. The included full breakfasts were also absolutely delicious and the variety of food offered was immense.
The day of the wedding was flawless. As mentioned before, Jeremy was our MC, Mark the bartender created new drinks to suit our guests requests and was generally delightful for everyone to chat with. He also stepped up and handled our music and video cameras. Louise coordinated with all of my vendors and kept the timeline running seemlessly. It was truly a magical day. I had accepted that since I was planning a wedding from so far away, not everythign would be perfect, but because of Cringletie everything WAS absolutely perfect.. it actually somehow exceeded perfection because of the efforts of all of the staff.
I know we will go back to Cringletie time and time again. The full buyout was so special because it felt like we lived at this lovely, warm manor. The inside of the castle is stunning, with so many different rooms to lounge in and explore. I have to say- it is now my favorite place in the world. read more