Restored Chapel At Cathays Cemetery Hosts Its First Wedding!
Restored Chapel at Cathays Cemetery hosts its first wedding!
Congratulations to Claire and Mark Slessor who have become the first couple to tie the knot in one of Cardiff’s most unusual new wedding venues – a recently restored chapel at Cathays Cemetery.
Claire Slessor (née Hill), who works as a Teaching Assistant at Ysgol Mynydd Bychan, first saw the chapel when the school was involved with an art exhibition at the Cemetery. She said: “The moment I saw it, I just thought, this is it. We wanted somewhere original, something really different, but old-fashioned like a chapel and nothing in Cardiff was really jumping out at us until this.”
Luckily husband-to-be Mark was equally taken with idea of getting married in the stunning Grade II Listed Victorian building so the only thing standing between them and their perfect wedding was the small matter of an ongoing restoration project.
Last year a successful fundraising drive raised £31,000 to enable works to be carried out the non-conformist chapel, one of two chapels at the atmospheric site.
“The walls and floors all still needed doing but they guaranteed it would be finished and that it would all be in keeping with how it originally looked so we just went for it!”
Skilled stonemasons started work in December and when the restoration work was completed the couple, who first met eight and a half years ago in Weymouth, were able to fulfil their dream.
“It was amazing,” said Claire, “the weather was on our side, which is lucky because a couple of days before it had been really bad. Everybody’s still talking about the wedding, saying how lovely it was and how much they loved the building.”
If you’d like to walk down the aisle at Cathays Cemetery contact thornhillreception@cardiff.gov.uk or call 029 2054 4820
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