The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Venue is a labour of love for couple
Acouple have said it was a “nobrainer” after spending £1.5 million on buying and transforming Fife wedding venue Pratis Barns.
Pratis Barns’ cattle court, near Leven, was built in the late 1700s, was taken over by husband-and-wife team Patrick and Nicola Gilmour in 2019.
Since then, the couple estimate they have spent more than £500,000 on renovations to the adjacent house and barns.
Running their own business has not been without its challenges, with Covid halting weddings at the venue for almost a year until restrictions were lifted.
But Nicola, whose background is in sales and marketing, insists it is a labour of love.
“It’s a great venue but it needed a bit of love and attention,” she said.
“When Covid hit, we didn’t have an event for about 11 months.
“In terms of a business, it was a pretty terrible time, but we spent every day renovating the venue.”
She said the house needed a lot of work, with jobs uncovered at every turn.
“As with all old buildings, we’d discover one thing and it became a big job,” she added.
“The house needed a huge amount of love and attention.
“We said we wanted to do it properly from the outset because we didn’t want to find in five years’ time we needed to do more.”
That has reaped rewards for the couple, who will host around 50 weddings this year.
That follows more than 40 at the Fife venue last year.
Patrick, a chef for more than 20 years, who runs his own catering firm, added: “We’ve done half a dozen already this spring.
“We’ve got 42 booked up until the end of the year. We want to give people a service and them not feel they are on some sort of conveyor belt.
“These are big events, so it’s about being flexible and giving them a service.”
Nicola said the couple are looking for opportunities to diversify their offering.
They hosted a drive-in cinema during the 2020 Covid lockdown and hope to bring that back.
She said the opportunity of taking on the venue was too good to pass up.
Patrick added: “Catering all over the place, I was setting up marquees and it was hard work.
“I always joked with chefs that it would be easier if we had our own venues.
“When this opportunity came up, we had to pinch ourselves.
“This could be the dream come true.
“Life has become a lot easier.”
Nicola admits there have been difficult times over the past three years.
“We have a young family and there are some pressure points,” she said.
“We both support each other.”
Patrick added: “I think it’ll take us four or five years to get back to where we thought we would be if Covid hadn’t come.
“We were hugely fortunate that the Scottish Wedding Industry Alliance lobbied the Scottish Government.
“We were fortunate to get some support there.
“It has been tough but the one good thing is because we’re weddings, brides are set on venues.
“We only lost a handful of bookings – the income just kept being deferred.
We made sure we were looking after our couples.”
Having weathered the storm of the pandemic, the couple say the feedback from guests makes their long hours and hard work worthwhile.
Nicola added: “We’re hugely proud. We’ve never stopped – a lot of people asked what we did when Covid hit, but we really used that to our advantage.”
Patrick added: “We have had couples coming back who’ve seen what we’ve done. Seeing their comments, we have made a difference.
“There’s a long list of what we want to do, we’ll just keep working at it.”
Looking ahead, the couple plan to diversify the offering but acknowledge it is a “life project” at the venue.