PEOPLE ENTREPRENEUR’S CHAT Emily Aitchison Emily Aitchison found her entrepreneurial feet at a young age, diversifying the family farm’s offerings to include weddings, hen parties, cookery courses, foodie weekends and much more 16 WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM
PEOPLE t was a little over 10 years ago, at the ripe old age of 21, that Emily Aitchison launched her wedding venue at Kenton Hall Estate – the family’s arable and Longhorn cattle farm in Suffolk. Having held six weddings in the first year, the venue has been in demand with couples ever since. “I had moved back to the farm with the idea that running a wedding venue might be fun as well as profitable,” she says. “The timing couldn’t have been better, as my dad had just secured planning permission for exactly this purpose. I think having three daughters had firmly planted the seed in his mind that it was something he should plan for!” With minimal event experience but plenty of drive and determination, along with a supportive family, Emily made the jump. “Obviously, I did some research before starting out, but having grown up here, I knew it would make a great wedding venue. I didn’t have much in the way of start-up capital, but I had a lot of time and energy to put into promoting the business. Most of this was done via Facebook, as there were fewer social media options back then.” WOODLAND SLEEPOVERS Ever the entrepreneur, it wasn’t long before Emily began thinking of ways to enhance the wedding offering further, as she explains: “When I was a girl, we had a yurt in the woods here, and I remembered how much I enjoyed having sleepovers. I figured that wedding couples would enjoy the experience, too. There were lots of big wedding venues around with plenty of rooms for guests to stay over, and this was something we, unfortunately, couldn’t offer, but glamping represented the perfect way for us to provide accommodation while complementing the whole outdoor wedding experience. In fact, I think we were one of the first glampsites in Suffolk.” Starting out with just the original yurt from Emily’s childhood and a shepherds hut – both built by her father – the overnight guest space was quite limited in the early days. But this would be expanded later. “Five years after we first offered overnight stays, we expanded our offering to include lodge tents, sited alongside our medieval moat. This increased our capacity to 20, which meant that newlyweds and guests could now enjoy a super relaxed end to the day together around a firepit before retiring to their cosy accommodation. The structures themselves are wooden with a canvas roof and are loosely based on a safari tent concept. We designed and built them ourselves with the help of a local sailmaker who made us the canvas tops. “From the outset, I wanted the stays to be as luxurious as possible for guests. The yurt and the shepherds hut, for example, have king-size beds and private shower rooms. The lodge tents are equipped with a mix of king-size beds and twins to cater for everyone. I have always specified the best quality cotton bedding possible, as it really does make a big difference to the overnight experience. Guests definitely notice this.” In terms of the weddings themselves, Kenton Hall Estate recently switched to dry-hire. “We used to have a large marquee that could seat 200 people, but we made the decision to give couples the flexibility to hire a structure appropriate to their own tastes as well as the size of their party. With the marquee, we found that smaller weddings of <strong>60</strong>-80 people were being dwarfed by the structure and missing out on that warm and intimate wedding atmosphere. We also stopped running a bar, leaving it to the clients to hire what they deem appropriate to their guests and budget. Beyond that, nothing else has changed; we’re always on hand to advise and assist, and we still offer our woodland blessings, which have been very popular since we started them. This works really well for both our couples and ourselves.” NO WEDDING FACTORY “Our wedding season runs from May to September, with around eight to 10 weddings taking place, so we’re a million miles away from being WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM 17