Venue Number 1

The one we booked!

This was the private house, and was my favourite although neither of us had been there before but on the website it looked good. We saw this venue first, on the morning before going to the large hotel. The house is a private hire venue, so you hire the whole place exclusively for the day and night, an idea I really liked.

I was actually really surprised when we started looking that we could afford this type of venue, I looked at the website for one private house on a whim expecting it to be way out of our price range but nice to dream about hiring a stately home for the day, and was shocked to find that it was within our (modest) budget.

The house has a long tree lined drive, you can’t see it from the road, it faces away from the road and looks out over the gardens to the river at the end (too big and deep for duck races unfortunately but lovely for photos). The gardens are pretty simple but look good, with a walled courtyard between the house and coach house, then a patio area onto a rolling lawn sloping away from the house down to woods and a river. There is a pagoda in the garden for an outdoor ceremony, which we are considering, they can set up for an outdoor ceremony but if the weather isn’t great bring everything inside on the day so it’s nice to have the option.

You enter into a hallway with a spiral staircase at the end which goes up through all the floors of the house and has a glass dome at the top, it was really pretty and let in loads of light and really a feature of the house. The manager who was showing us around showed us examples of photos people have had on the stairs and they make a great backdrop. There is the bar adjoining this room with a big fireplace and a few tables with chairs.

Also on the ground floor are the room for the ceremony and next to it a larger room for the meal and evening entertainment. All the rooms on the ground floor have large windows (floor to ceiling in some rooms) and the whole ground floor had hardwood floors and was decorated neutrally in white, cream and beige tones so you could go with any colour scheme. I really liked the ceremony room as it was light and airy and felt very spacious, we would stand in front of large windows looking out into the gardens to say our vows. It also had nice features like a fireplace and chandelier and was large enough to easily accommodate our guests.

The ballroom where we would eat and have the music in the evening is also really spacious and has huge windows that let in loads of light. On the ground floor there are also 2 other smaller rooms, the ‘garden room’ had windows covering one wall facing out onto the patio and a bar along one side, it’s apparently usually where people serve the evening buffet. There’s a TV mounted on the far wall and we’re debating on some way to display photos people have taken at the wedding, like on a twitter feed or instagram. The smallest room was the library or ‘white room’, a corner room with nice views over the gardens, it would be where we would meet the registrar prior to the ceremony and nice for people wanting to get away from the music and partying later on.

Up the spiral stairs were the bedrooms, the bridal suite was huge, you entered into a hallway and off that was a large corner bedroom with views over the gardens, then a bathroom and a large dressing room with a sofa, hanging rail and bar and stools along one side with mirrors for applying makeup. We would be able to go up early to get ready, or even stay the night before if we booked a minimum of 15 rooms. The dressing room also had 2 doors coming off of it interlinking into 2 other bedrooms, which in turn linked to another so you could have 4 rooms all opened up for getting ready in the morning.

The rest of the suites and rooms were nice, although with it being an old house some had odd layouts and not all rooms have en suite bathrooms. Most do have an en suite, some have a private bathroom which is over the corridor or next door, but a few rooms have shared bathrooms and some of the suites have 2 bedrooms but only one bathroom. This was the only downside of this venue really, but it isn’t too much of an issue. Already we have some people earmarked for the suites with shared bathrooms as they’re perfect for a family of 3-4 to share (most are a double room, single or twin room and bathroom). The rooms with shared bathrooms we will just make sure are occupied by people who know each other very well, we get to say who goes in which room so we can hopefully sort it out that everyone is happy. There are also ground floor rooms which is good as there isn’t a lift.

There were nice touches around upstairs as well like large seating areas with coffee tables and magazines etc between the rooms, and all the rooms were decorated well and most had a nice view over either the gardens or farmland to the nearby village.

So, what was right?

• It would be completely ours all day we wouldn’t just be confined to certain function rooms or areas, so if the weather was bad there’d be plenty of room for everyone inside as the ballroom and bar would be large enough but we also have the other 2 rooms and the entrance hall etc in between.

• Flexibility. The manager we met was very helpful and made suggestions of what other people tended to do and what has worked well before but really it would be completely up to us what we want to do where, and if for example a painting didn’t fit with our colour scheme or we didn’t like it they would take it down for our day.

• I liked the idea of having a separate area/room for the ceremony (rather than having it all in one room and having to change it around between sections) as it means we can set up the tables etc before and not have to kick everyone out to change the room over straight after the ceremony.

• The gardens and area were scenic but not too far from main roads for ease of access

• The bridal suite was the best one out of the 3 venues and was complimentary on the wedding night.

What was wrong?

• The only slight complaint I would have is that the rooms with shared bathrooms are the same price as those with en suites when I think they really should be cheaper, I don’t think people would be so worried about sharing if they were getting the room cheaper! We will probably leave the shared bathroom rooms until last to allocate and do en suite first come first served. So if you’re invited book a room asap!

So that's the one we booked, we've been up again recently for a wedding fair and showed some of our family around. Next on the list is the catering, then the dress :)