Award-winning Manchester venue The Wellbeing Farm is set to appear on Channel 5’s Rich Wedding Poor Wedding on Sunday (May 3), and is now being showcased as a luxury option on the show.
Founder of The Wellbeing Farm in Edgworth, Bolton, Celia Glaze, sat down with the Manchester Evening News as she gushed over how Channel 5 “put Manchester on the map” as her gorgeous wedding venue features in a brand new series.
Rich Wedding, Poor Wedding features two couples in very different financial situations looking to tie the knot. Both couples are shown three venues until they choose their dream one to say “I do”.
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Couple Janet Royle and Gary Griffin attended The Wellbeing Farm as one of their venues to choose from, but viewers will have to tune in on Sunday to see which one they picked.
Opening up about their luxurious venue, Celia told us: “We’re 13 years in business now. It originally started because I was a director in the NHS, who kind of experienced burnout, and needed something else to do with my life. My partner he had a sort of rundown farm and I set about transforming it into this events venue.
“That’s why it’s called the Wellbeing Farm because I based the design of the farm on the five ways to wellbeing. From that we’ve done all sorts of things but we’re now a wedding and events and party venue.”
The venue boasts a capacity for up to 300 standing and 200 seated guests, as well as a small barn for those wanting an intimate ceremony and even a licensed outdoor pavilion.
It’s now one of the UK’s leading B Corp certified wedding venues, demonstrating how local businesses are leading the way in sustainable hospitality. The venue has built a national reputation for its unique countryside setting, sustainable ethos and memorable weddings.
B Corp Certification is a third-party designation verifying that for-profit companies meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
Explaining how she installed a wind turbine after researching renewable energy, Celia added: “Everything has been created within the farm through upcycling, recycling, you know, kind of all different ways of waste. Everything has been looked through a sustainability lens.
“In 2022, we became the first independent wedding venue in the country to achieve B Corp certification, and then obviously since then, it’s all being about kind of sustainable venues, purpose led business.”
Featured on the Channel 5 show, viewers will be able to see the venue’s adorable llamas and alpacas that have stolen the hearts of many visitors – especially when donning a bow tie for the occasion!
Celia exclaimed: “I looked for an animal which would survive cold winters, didn’t take a lot of work, and 14 years ago I came across the concept of llama trekking while studying stress after burnout and things.
“I fell in love with them, and bought them up to Lancashire, and then had a crazy idea about putting a bow tie around the neck of one! Since that point we’re known as the place with a bow tie wearing llamas. It’s a very strong brand recognition that we have for the venue because of those llamas.”
Celia went onto add that she “can’t forget” her sheep, Sandra and Mabel, with Sandra wearing a diamante collar around her neck for the extra glitz and glam.
Touching on her venue being chosen as one of the “luxury” options on the Channel 5 series, Celia gushed: “When we got a phone call from the production company saying, ‘look, we’d like to consider you for this new television series called Rich Wedding Poor Wedding’, the first conversation was well, we’re not being considered for the poor wedding, are we? Because people sometimes associate farms with being a cheaper option.
“We just had to deliver a show around, like you would in any other couple who was looking for a venue. The places that we were up against were incredible.”
Celia went onto say how amazing it was for a venue in Lancashire to be featured, as she continued: “A lot of these things are done in the south, or Cheshire with these big stately homes. I think what is brilliant about this, is it shows that weddings can be luxury and sustainable as well, and sometimes you don’t put the two together.
“The television show were quite excited to showcase it. We’re all very excited, it puts Lancashire and Manchester on the map because obviously we’re a Bolton venue, so it’s nice for something like that to happen.”
Rich Wedding, Poor Wedding airs on Channel 5 at 9pm on Sunday May 3
