Wedding Planning Timeline

It's a year until our wedding! 365 days and I'll be a Mrs. It's also my grandparents golden wedding anniversary, so congratulations Granny and Grampy!

Yes we get married on their 51st wedding anniversary, which we didn't know until we booked the wedding but I think it's really nice that we'll share our wedding anniversaries.

This kind of got me thinking about the wedding planning timelines and date booking conundrum people face. We booked ours once we found a venue and let their availability decide the date, but we did have a little bit of disappointment that we couldn't have it this year. Now we have started planning I really appreciate that we have a bit more time as it would have been much more stressful to plan a wedding in 6 months rather then nearly 2 years, but I kind of wanted it this year rather than waiting a whole 12 months more!

So what do you need to think about when booking a wedding date?

Special dates
We had a few dates we didn't want the wedding on (birthdays, anniversaries of deaths, valentines day) but no special date we really wanted it on. It may have been nice to have it on the anniversary of our first date, but that's in September and Tom is in car sales so booking 3 weeks off over September is not going to happen. Are there any special dates you would like to get married on?

Season
We both instantly agreed we wanted a spring or summer wedding, it's just our preference as we prefer warmer weather, so talk about what time of year you prefer. Bear in mind that a lot of venues charge more for the same wedding in July than in March, so look at the season you want to get married in but also how that choice will influence the cost of your wedding. We saved £1000 by booking a week earlier at the end of April rather than the start of May.

Venue
Like I said, we chose the venue then set the date depending on when they were available. So if you have a venue in mind which you love and have to have then go in with an open mind on dates. Also depending on the type of venue what season does it suit better? Are there other factors to think about like traffic on a weekend at peak tourist season in a scenic area?

Mundane things like work and time off
We got engaged in May last year, and Tom originally (like the day after we got engaged) said he wanted to get married in Spring this year. However once we started looking into it we realised this would put a bit of a strain on us both financially and time-wise. We were already into the financial year that we would be getting married in and I had already used up most of my leave so would struggle to get time off for the wedding and honeymoon, let alone time for planning it. With an almost 2 year engagement I can do most of it weekends and evenings and book the occasional day off when needed and not have to push myself to much. However say you have loads of annual leave left, or you have lots of free time then you might want to just go for it!

Money
Everyone will tell you how expensive planning a wedding is, and even if you are planning a budget one there is still going to be some financial outlay. Be realistic about how long you need to pay for this. If you have savings in the bank, or lots of credit which you are willing to use (I'm a credit phobe so not advocating this!), or someone is paying for the wedding for you, then you might be in more of a position to book a wedding date soon. I could have maybe planned a wedding in 6 months, but we couldn't have paid for it in that time unless we had a really budget wedding, and even then it would be tight so we decided to leave it a year longer. We wanted to pay for our wedding as we went, and had offers of help from family as well, so we wanted to leave ourselves breathing room to save and pay for things as we book them. For example we booked and paid for the venue last year, and we have recently booked the caterer and paid their deposit this month. Next up is dress and music and we are saving for those now.

Other commitments
I'm not 100% sure how this happened but we appear to be climbing 2 mountains, raising a target of £4000 each for charity and getting married in the next 365 days. Safe to say this influenced our date booking. Had we gotten engaged 2 years ago we might have been able to plan it in a shorter time as we weren't so busy then, so the benefit of a longer engagement is that we have more time (although I have a rough timeline that I am trying to stick to of what I want booked by when). Although a shorter engagement means you are married sooner and don't have to plan the wedding at all after that...

Relationship style
Not sure what to call it but your relationship style or temperament will have a big effect on how you want to do this, are you a couple who got engaged after 6 months or have you been waiting for that proposal for years? Are you a couple who does things spontaneously or are you both planners? Tom and I are quite laid back, our relationship isn't a dramatic whirlwind romance. Don't get me wrong we are romantic (occasionally) but really we are a team and work together to build our little life in a way that sets us up for a good future. We therefore didn't want to start getting into debt for our wedding, we also aren't in any rush. We will have been together 7 years when we get married. Although saying that Tom wouldn't have proposed if he had no intention of actually getting married, so once we were engaged we were both keen to start planning the wedding but in our own laid back, considered, we'll do it when we're ready style. I sometimes daydream about eloping to an island to get married barefoot on the beach...but that just doesn't seem us somehow.

You
Really this is down to you, are you the kind of people who can plan a wedding in 3 months? Are you organised and efficient? Or would you prefer longer to let yourself book things at your leisure and to have lots of time to think things over? Really think about how long you want to take to plan your wedding. Don't feel pressured to do it all in 6 months if you think it will stress you out just so you can get married this year, why not wait until next year and really enjoy it? Or vice versa, if you're sure you will be able to plan a wedding in a few months, and you have the funds available, then go for it!

Family
Not sure how to word this, but if you have old or sick family members you really want at your wedding then that might influence your decision on how soon to get married. Also if your family are difficult or maybe not so supportive of you getting married then you may not want to prolong the agony of dealing with it, or you might want to leave it a while so they have time to get used to the idea before the wedding...

The best quote I've heard is that a task expands to fill the time you have, so if you have 3 months it will take 3 months, if you have 3 years it will take 3 years...but as long as you are happy with the end result that's all that matters.

Don't forget to enter my easter giveaway over on the main blog, and have a lovely weekend :)

Let's talk money

Right...how much is this whole shebang going to cost? We have already allocated/spent some of our budget, but really at the moment everything is pretty fluid.

OK...I'll admit some things we don’t even know how much they will cost yet…I never thought about how much buttonholes cost before I started planning this!

We know how much we want to spend on the expensive stuff like venue, catering and photography. We've already booked the venue for £3500 (nearly paid off) and have actually booked the photographer for £1000, less than we thought it would be. Catering is next on the list and we’re looking for around £2000-£3000.

After this we will have already spent around £7000 which seems like loads, in fact it is loads but this will be the bare bones of our wedding - venue, food and drink, registrar and photographer. We could get married with just that, the rest is just dressing really. It’s so surprising how much money you can save up if you really try and have something to aim for, I would never think we could get £7000 together in under a year until now, it makes me feel so stupid that we never got our deposit saved up for our own house – after the wedding this will be our next step and now I know we can do it I want to get it together pretty quick!

The budget for the rest is pretty fluid but we want to keep it near to the £10,000 mark for the whole thing, so we have around £3000 left (around being the operative word here this is far from accurate budgeting). We aren't stuck to that limit though, we’re really just going with what we can afford at the time so it might be more, or it might be less. I don’t want to get into debt to pay for our wedding, and while I want to have a beautiful day I also don’t want to make loads of work by having unnecessary stuff there, I'm busy enough as it is! I'm hoping to have the venue paid off by the end of the year and have the money saved up for the catering by early next year so we can pay it off in one go, this will leave us clear for all the other stuff to pay for next year. Our approach is to do this bit by bit, so paying things off as we go and then moving onto the next rather than paying for it all together on a credit card then paying it off until our 10th anniversary, remember we still don’t own our own home and have that to think about in the future.

We do also have the offer of help from family which we are so grateful for, for example Toms mum has offered us the exact amount that our photographer costs, and my Dad wants to help us out although I've not yet taken him up on that offer but we will (possibly with the catering). We are adding in help from family as additional to our budget, so this is where we can allow ourselves a bit of an overspend if needed, and where we can maybe have some nicer things that we wouldn't be able to afford on our own. To be honest we weren't counting on our families to pay for our wedding, in this day and age I don’t think you do, but its traditional for them to help out and they want to so we’ll happily let them.

The things we have left to pay for are:

Music - The ceremony and in between music we're planning to be free, so the evening music is the only thing. About £500 seems to be an average price for a DJ but to be honest we haven't enquired anywhere yet!

Invites – Less than £200 if we can. Hoping to DIY some parts and use offers/coupons for money off printing. Debating also just printing some of the parts ourselves like the accommodation information and directions to go with the invites. We don’t want anything too fussy with ribbons and bows etc, just a nice invite, maybe with a photo background. Postage is also a factor for them, we can hand deliver to our immediate family but will need to post some, and some need to go abroad.

Clothes – Dress no more than £1000 (hoping a lot less but it depends on sale prices, I have a whole year to stalk the sales!), and accessories, hair and makeup less than £500. Suit for Tom – Not sure yet depends if we buy or rent but less than £500 hopefully.

Flowers and Décor - Hoping to DIY a lot of the décor and centrepieces so the budget for that is as low as possible but around £500, the only flowers we will get from a florist will be 4 bouquets and the buttonholes so hopefully less than £200 – depends on what flowers we have, not decided yet.

Cake – Around £100 for a shop bought cake...unless we have another option - more on that soon!

There are also the additional and miscellaneous expenses, which we won’t know the amount for yet but it will probably be for things like travel, last minute disasters (replacement shoes or adjustments to dresses etc) or just stuff we add on as we go.

Those are mostly our highest estimates, some will be less, some will be more, we will have unexpected expenses, and I may look back at this and laugh at my naiveté after the cake costs £800…

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Photographer

I said in last weeks post that we had already booked the photographer. We were planning to book the photographer early next year after looking around and meeting with a few different ones, however on the August bank holiday I saw one I liked the look of on an offer on Facebook. Her style of photos were exactly what we were looking for, plus she had a bank holiday offer running of £100 deposit and 20% off, but this offer was to expire that day.

I've looked around and this price seems pretty good, most other good photographers who’s work I liked the look of were at least double that, although many did include printing. However if we get the photos printed somewhere else I'm sure the total cost will be less. I really like her style also, not too formal and very natural, she does do some of the traditional family line up shoots and bridal party etc but prefers more candid and natural shots – exactly my preference! A lot of the photos on her website are of couples smiling, laughing, playing around, not all serious and posed or ‘moody’, which is just what we want.

We just went for it and booked. It might seem like jumping the gun a bit but we liked the style of her photos, she seems very nice, and the price and what we get for that price are great so I'm not too nervous about it! Also it’s only a £100 deposit, so if we end up cancelling we've not lost a massive amount – although I doubt this will happen.

For the price (Just over £1000) we get an engagement shoot (and all the photos from that shoot – maybe for use in the invitations), the photographer all day at the wedding from getting ready in the morning to the first dance, a photo booth setup, use of a Polaroid camera and of course her editing afterwards. The price doesn't include printing, although she can offer this in various forms, but we will get all the edited photos on a memory stick and in an online album and are free to print them elsewhere if we don’t like her prices or options. Her printing options start from £400 for a wedding album, but to be honest we’ll probably look into getting them done somewhere else. I like this freedom as we have heard of people not getting their photos after the wedding and them being the property of the photographer so you can only buy prints and albums from them and don’t get the photos electronically…not what we want.

So all in all we've taken a gamble booking someone so quickly, and without really looking at others (I've browsed websites etc but not met or spoken with any other photographers) but I think it will pay off as we seem to have found the style of photographer we wanted for less than we would have paid elsewhere. So far she's is getting great feedback in the 'brides group' she has set up on Facebook. We'll see how it goes at the engagement shoot!

What Next?

OK so we have the venue booked, what now?

Well we have to pay for it first which we will hopefully do by the end of this year, but I thought I’d get our rough plan after this in writing. We actually booked the photographer already, we were planning to look around a bit and book one early next year but we found one sooner than we thought we would.

This will probably change over the course of the year but this is the rough order we’re planning to do everything in:

Early 2014

Firstly we will sort catering – Start of 2014 we want to be going around the 4 caterers tasting food (looking forward to that!) and hopefully choosing one and getting a menu put together. We’ll look at adding a drinks package as well with the venue.

Spring 2014

Then we get onto the official ins and outs of the day, like paying the registrar and declaring our ‘intention to marry’ with our local council. In England you book the registrar in the area you are getting married to actually do the ceremony and you sign the register of that area, but you must also inform your local registrar where you live of your wedding date and the registrar who will be marrying you so they can record it there, you cannot do this longer than one year before your wedding date so we’ll do that spring next year.

Music and entertainment. We want music in the evening (undecided still on band or DJ but leaning toward DJ) and something for the ceremony, the venue also has an iPod system so between the ceremony and meal and also after hours (the amplified music has to stop at midnight) we can have background music, so we’ll need to get going on some playlists and get someone booked. We also like the idea of some entertainment in the day like games (We loved the duck race idea back here) so will be trying to come up with something and looking into options with the venue.

Summer 2014

We will get our invites printed and sent out around this point as I want to get the invites out with plenty of notice as we have to allocate the bedrooms ourselves before the venue will start taking payments from our guests for their rooms, so we need plenty of time to sort that out! We also won't be bothering with save the date cards or anything so we'll just get the invites out early. 

I’ll start shopping around for my dress, and dependent on the state of my bridesmaids (there are possible baby plans) we will start looking for dresses for them and the flower girls. I might choose the dresses so we can start planning flowers, accessories etc but have them on standby so we can get them nearer the time dependent on everyone’s size! We will start looking for suits for Tom and his best men (he has 2) and the ushers. I'm not overly keen on the rented morning suits, mostly because everyone around here gets them from the same place and they’re really old fashioned with cravats and cummerbunds etc so we might look into a nice tuxedo or suit but will shop around and see what Tom likes. We said he wants a cape, top hat and cane last time we discussed it so you can see how serious he is about it. This could all run on into autumn as there isn't any rush to get all this done in summer, I’d just like to make a start on it.

We will be getting to less than a year before the wedding so once we have the colour scheme and the dresses we'll look for the cake (more tasting – yay!). 

Autumn 2014

I’ll want to start looking at flowers, decorations, table settings and favours (He’s currently really into all the planning but I think Tom may lose interest once we start talking flowers and napkins so I’ll draft in the bridesmaids and mothers to help) and will hopefully be getting some RSVP’s from the invites so can start allocating the rooms out (I might give this to Tom to do if he’s not helping with the rest).

Winter 2014/15

In winter next year and over into 2015 we should be working on the extras and finishing touches, I want to have a dress either bought and having alterations or on order and be shopping for shoes, underwear, accessories, makeup etc. We will buy Toms ring (My Nanny left me her wedding ring when she died, so I won’t need to buy one), and book any hairdressers or beauticians. We should probably start looking at the order of the day and the details like the first dance song (seriously the hardest part to decide?!), who will do readings (so we can ask them and give them time to practice), the layout of the tables for the meal and the chairs for the ceremony, any extras we want to add like photo montages, canapés or activities for the guests.

Hopefully at this point our wedding party will also be working away on the hen and stag do’s :)

2015

Once we get into the start of 2015 we’ll be on the home stretch, we can then start on the seating chart, last minute logistics for people coming from further away and last dress and suit fittings for everyone. We’ll also have meetings with the venue, photographer, hairdressers, caterers etc to get everything finalised with them. We’ll also be doing any DIY stuff like centrepieces and decorations in the run up to the day. Luckily the venue has large tables and we only have 60 planned for the meal so we won’t need loads of table decorations.

I'm sure there are millions more things to add to this list, but that’s the kind of general idea of how we’ll progress. Really the gist is that we want to get the big and expensive stuff booked and paid for first before we start on all the little things. I want to try and DIY as much of the decoration as possible, like the centrepieces and table settings, because I enjoy that kind of thing and to save a bit of money, so the longer we have for this the better. We are hoping to have a beautiful day but not planning to go to over the top on having loads of extras and make more work for ourselves. Although there is still so much to do, and looking at this list I'm actually starting to appreciate having it booked in 2015 even though it wasn't our first choice!

We’re trying to keep the budget as low as possible, we've already allocated a huge chunk of it (more than half) for the venue and catering which is why we want to get that booked first so we can pay it off before we start on the rest. I’ll do a post on our budget at some point. We do have the offer of help from family, which we are immensely grateful for and will add to our initial budget. We are trying to allocate the money that we have from other people to specific things as it makes it easier to work out the budget. I really want to have as much paid off at the time of booking as possible as I'm such a credit phobic, so through autumn and winter this year we will be paying off the venue and saving up the catering money and hopefully can start next year with a good chunk of it paid. After this we will just keep saving throughout next year and be able to pay things off as we go.

Phew it's a lot to do but looking forward to getting my teeth into it, the hardest part at the moment is keeping myself reigned in as I keep trying to get ahead of myself and have been looking online for dresses already!

How did we choose?

In the last 3 posts you can see the 3 different venues we looks around, how did we decide which one was for us? 

The venue is such a massive part of the wedding day and it's also the first thing that a lot of people book, therefore setting the tone for your whole day. It's big decision! All 3 venues that we saw were very similar in price so cost was not really part of our decision making between them. They were all also within our requirements for size, amount of rooms, style and location. This is really what made the decision hard as on paper we could have chosen any of them and it was really down to which one we just liked best.

It seems pretty obvious now which is the best venue, but we were really torn between the private house and the small hotel. So how did we decide in the end?

We viewed all the venues then went off for a few days to Cornwall for a beach break as we had the rest of the week off, so we had time away from work etc to really relax and talk through all our options at length. I would definitely recommend doing this, taking a few days after viewing to really think about it, don't feel pressured to book there and then. 

What we found was that we had disregarded the large hotel, and on an emotional basis we loved both the private house and small hotel but when we weighed up the pros and cons there were some concerns with the hotel that we didn't have with the private house. Mostly that all the parts we loved were outside and if it rained we wouldn't get to use them, and as we’re looking at Spring so March/April/May there is a good chance it might rain. Well actually in Britain there’s always a good chance it might rain! Also if the small hotel had just been in a quieter area it might have won, but the crowds and very public nature really couldn't compete with having our own manor house for the day tucked away in a few acres of land. The house has also been converted with events, especially weddings, in mind, so is really well suited to a wedding and has plenty of space, rooms, toilets etc and the décor is all pretty and compliments the house but is very neutral to allow you any colour scheme for your day.

So we mainly chose the private house for the size and the fact we get the whole place to ourselves, other than that the bridal suite and gardens/location also were quite persuasive. The only downside was the shared bathrooms in some rooms, other than that we really couldn't think of any drawbacks! The rooms are a reasonable price for the venue (more than a cheap hotel or B&B but not expensive) and there is a cheaper Holiday Inn/Travelodge type hotel about a 2 minute drive or a few minutes’ walk if people did want to stay there instead or if we filled all the rooms at the house. The catering is all done externally and we have caterers to chose from (we will be arranging menu tasting as soon as we've paid a bit of the venue off) and most seem to be reasonable prices and have nice looking menus.

Also we could just see our wedding there. Tom said he could actually almost hear my sisters, mum and bridesmaids all chatting and running between the bridal suite’s dressing room and its interlinking rooms with rollers in their hair carrying hairbrushes and bouquets etc. I really liked the suite and like the idea of getting ready there, neither us, my mum or dad have huge houses so everyone getting ready there would probably be a lot easier and it would save us hiring a wedding car for me to arrive in (Tom is rather gutted about not having a cool car though so we might have to arrange something for him!). It might also make the morning a little more chilled as no worries about getting to the venue on time if we’re already there!

We could also just visualise the ceremony and meal there in a way we couldn't at the other 3 places, I think because it is such a personal venue and we can really do whatever we want with it that just made it so much easier to picture. It means we can have a completely bespoke day, and the house is pretty as it is so I'm not planning to go too OTT on the decorations but we can have anything we want and put decorations in every area of the venue if we wanted to not just a function room.

I just can’t wait to start on the rest of it! We are looking at spring 2015 so have a while to arrange and pay for stuff, they didn't have any availability for later next year (and I could organise it by then but spring 2014 is too close to get it all paid for!) so we had to go to the year after which I was a bit disappointed by but Tom has the outlook that it’s longer to organise and means we can afford to have some nicer things. We’re aiming to pay off the venue hire quite quickly (by the end of this year hopefully) as we have the catering to arrange, so rather than if we had gone for a hotel and had it all in one go it’s split in half to pay for the venue hire then the catering separately. This kind of works for us as we can pay off the venue part then save up for the catering, rather than paying one massive chunk of it at the start.

My advice if you're torn between 2 venues would be to weigh up the pro's and con's and look at all the details, also as I said in this post don't be afraid to go away and think about it, or take someone for a second opinion.

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 :)

Venue 2 - The Small Hotel

This was a boutique hotel in a beautiful village. It’s a typical Cotswolds village (similar to Bourton on the Water or Broadway) and very picturesque. Think Cotswold stone, winding lanes, doorways with roses growing around them and a small river running through the centre with stone bridges crisscrossing it. It was a sunny day in July so there was quite a lot of tourist traffic, a coach full of Japanese tourists was arriving as we got there.

This had been our third choice venue, neither of us had been there before but we liked the look of it on the website and people had told us it was nice, however we really didn’t have any preconceptions and were completely blown away by the beauty of the village and the hotel from the outside. It was an old hotel on the side of the river, built in Cotswold stone and covered in ivy. As we drove into the village and it came in to view we both went quiet and I think I might have whispered something like ‘oooh it’s pretty’.

The hotel was decorated nicely inside, quite dark blues and greens and with fireplaces, eclectic furniture and overstuffed armchairs etc (Think stereotypical English countryside hotel). The function room was being redecorated, but would eventually be dark blue walls with white panelling on the bottom half, and a blue and green tartan style carpet. The carpet wasn’t laid yet but it was throughout the hotel in other rooms, and one wall was painted, so we could get a vague idea of what it would look like. The blue was a pretty overpowering colour to be honest it wouldn’t leave much choice of colour scheme. They would have been happy to hold a date for us until the work was completed a few weeks later and we could look around again before making any financial commitment.

We would have had use of the main function room and also the adjoining library exclusively and then could also use the bar and communal areas of the hotel. The restaurant and bar had a nice terrace area and were decorated in a modern but comfortable theme. The bedrooms were nice, although expensive, and all had gorgeous big bathrooms and huge beds.  However, the ‘Bridal Suite’ was really just a standard room with a few added extras, and while most rooms had nice views over the village it looked out into the back of the hotel. It had a 4 poster bed and a nice bathroom but in reality it was the same as the other (expensive) rooms and would have cost even more. 

The real reason we liked this place so much was the village it was in and the garden of the hotel, it was on the other side of the road from the hotel and not massive (about the size of 2 tennis courts maybe). There were 2 streams/rivers running the length of the garden on either side and the landscaping was well done, with paths, trellis (trellis’? trelli?), nice garden furniture and deck chairs, level grassy areas and flowers and shrubs in beds at either end. You could have the ceremony outside, and although the village does get busy the hotel gardens are for guests only, and we had them to ourselves that morning. The hotel and gardens were on the main road through the village though, literally right on it there wasn’t even a pavement, so they weren’t actually that quiet or secluded and I would maybe feel a little on show having the ceremony outside.

The events planner also said that the village hosts a yearly duck race, and a popular thing to do is to have a mini duck race in the river running through the garden. We thought this was such a lovely idea, you could give the rubber ducks as favours and let people decorate them  then have the race after the meal while the room is being changed around for the evening. The river ran through a paved channel in the garden and ended at a grate on the wall which would catch the ducks at the end of the race, it was quite shallow and even so would be easy to drop ducks into and everyone could take part.

So, what was right?

• The location. The surrounding area, the village and countryside were gorgeous. The backdrop for photos would have been great.
• The gardens and the duck race, I was so in love with this idea that it really was the main plus point of the venue for me, and we’re trying to think of something similar at the place we actually booked (any ideas please let me know!).
•  The hotel looked very well run and the events co-ordinator was very organised, it felt like the event would be well handled.
• The hotel itself was also pretty as well as the area around it, the inside was nicely decorated and everything felt quite luxurious and well done.
• The menu in the restaurant looked good, and it was the kind of place where we could adapt the menu to fit.
• The bedrooms were nice, spacious and beautifully decorated.

What was wrong?

• In this post I explained that we didn’t want to book somewhere just on the strength of the outside as the British weather may let us down on the day. We were there on a glorious day in the middle of the July heat wave, but we tried to imagine it on a wet day. If we were confined to inside, the hotel actually was not very large so we would be in 2 rooms which although they were nice were just function rooms at the end of the day and would maybe feel a bit cramped.
• The tourists. While we were in the gardens people were all milling around outside and taking photos of the hotel and gardens (and us in the gardens). It kind of spoiled the vibe of a nice country hotel tucked away in a little village having it surrounded by crowds of people. The road was right outside the hotel and it was pretty busy with cars going over the bridge to get in and out of the village. This was midweek, on a sunny Saturday it would be even busier.
• The bedrooms were very expensive although they were the nicest ones out of the 3 venues, but the bridal suite was disappointing.
•  The popularity of the area with tourists also meant that hotel rooms are booked up far in advance, so we would need to reserve a lot of rooms. We would have had the cost of the rooms taken off our final payment, and our guests would just pay for their rooms at reception on check out as normal but it was an initial outlay we wouldn’t have elsewhere.

All in all we loved it, and agreed we would stay there sometime for a nice romantic break. It only just lost out to the other venue that we had seen. Although we really went back and forth for a few days and had to do a list of pros and cons for both before we really were sure. More on the one we booked soon!

Venue 3 - The Large Hotel

I’ll do these in order of choice from last to first, as I want to end on the one we chose! Also I’ve decided not to tell all about our wedding on here, as I want to keep some things private or a surprise before the day. So I’m not actually going to tell you the names and locations of these places, although if you want more info for your own wedding or event on any of the venues or suppliers I talk about here please contact me.

 

We viewed this venue second, after viewing another nearby venue in the morning we went there after lunch. On arrival I think my words were something like ‘Wow, it’s big’, it was a pretty impressive looking old gothic style hotel, it almost looked like a castle from the car park! Tom had been here before on a course with work and this was his favourite, the one he had suggested we go and see. The reception was huge and the massive stairwell wound up through about 4-5 floors, all in all it was pretty big and pretty impressive. We looked at the orangery first, the bit I was most excited to see as on the website it looked lovely. It looked like a massive conservatory out in the grounds, which was self contained with its own toilets, bar etc so you could have your whole day there and not intermingle with other guests or weddings. It would also be the best of both worlds between inside and outside, on the website it looked like the orangery was in a garden so you could all be outside if it was nice or inside if not and at night it would look great all lit up.

 

We got there and the orangery bordered the car park. As soon as I saw it all my notions of a romantic, small, secluded and pretty orangery went out the window. It did have some bushes and trees around it which in the pictures gave the illusion of a garden but it was paved all around.  The inside wasn’t as nice as I’d thought it would be either, the website actually didn’t have any photos but I’d hoped for tiled or wooden floors and nice lighting etc. It was red patterned ‘hotel’ carpet, red velvet conference chairs and painted inside in a yellowy cream colour. We moved on pretty quickly as the events co-ordinator must have seen our disappointment. This really shows the benefit of looking around places in person!

 

We continued the tour through some beautiful gardens with stunning views, and on round to the marquee and large function room. While both were very nice they really didn’t have anything a function room in a Holiday Inn wouldn’t have (nothing wrong with a Holiday Inn of course, but it would be a hell of a lot cheaper!). The one plus point of the function room was it had a soundproof wall at one end that folded back, so the DJ or band could be setting up behind it while you ate to minimise changeover time from eating to dancing.

 

The rest of the inside of the hotel was nice, with wood beams and cosy seating areas mixed in with glass walls and modern touches. It also had a pool and a spa which would be lovely the day after or the day before the wedding.

 

We carried on the tour round to the atrium, an area recently licensed for ceremonies, currently being used as a café/bar it was a room about 3 stories high with a glass ceiling and stone walls. It was stunning. They really should start the tour there instead of end it as the orangery being such a disappointment really let it down right at the start. It would be a lovely room for the ceremony, it was oblong shaped so a long aisle with 5-6 chairs either side could be made, the bar would be screened off and then once the ceremony was over opened for guests to have a drink before the meal. We kind of looked at each other like ‘there might be hope for this place yet’ but after going through all of the packages and options with the events co-ordinator and looking around the grounds a bit more we just weren’t feeling it.

 

So, what was right?

·         Stunning gardens and a beautiful view over countryside

·         Impressive hotel and architecture

·         Plenty of room for people to stay over, the place has hundreds of rooms

·         The Atrium was lovely and we could visualise the ceremony being held there

·         Experienced wedding and events team, this hotel has hundreds of events and weddings per year

·         Multiple options of rooms for the ceremony/reception.

·         Flexible catering, the kitchens can cater for any diet and have loads to choose from

·         Size – The hotel itself is huge so no way we would feel cramped, it also meant plenty of space for parking, extra guests and plus ones, space for the wedding party to spread out into the bar etc if needed.

 

What wasn’t right?

·        It was almost too big, it felt quite impersonal and like our smallish wedding would get a bit lost in this massive hotel, and there may have been 2 or 3 weddings there that day if they were at full capacity. I really didn’t like the idea of this.

·        The décor was not as good as the other 2 places, not bad but pretty generic. The gothic style reception, atrium and entrance were grand and impressive but also some areas were quite dark, due to the style of the building and the period it was built in but dark carpets and furnishings didn’t help. The outside and gardens were beautiful, but other places we had seen also had good gardens and as I said in the last post because we can’t rely on the weather we didn’t want to book somewhere just because of the outside.

·        Really we just didn’t like it as much as the place we had viewed that morning, and after seeing the 3^rd one the next day it was completely out of the running. It just didn’t feel right, neither of us were very excited about it and while the atrium was lovely and we kind of considered that for a few minutes the rest of the hotel really didn’t match up to it for the evening and the meal.

·         We never saw the bedrooms but looking on the website and in the brochure the rooms look pretty standard (It is a chain hotel) and we noted that they do not have a bridal suite, the other places did and one even had the bridal suite complimentary on the wedding night.

 

All in all we felt we should like it but it just wasn’t us, we wanted somewhere nice but personal and more fitting to our style. The next few posts will be on the venues we were really torn between, and how we managed to choose in the end.

Viewing Venues

After getting a shortlist of a few venues you really like, now it’s time to go and look around them.

We booked to go and see 3 venues which were pretty different to each other (A private house, a large hotel and a small boutique hotel) and I’ll write about our thoughts on each type, but some general tips we found along the way which I thought would be useful to remember were

1. Try not to be biased before you go. We both had different favourites before we went to see them and then we had a third choice which we just booked because it looked pretty on the website. After viewing we were actually really taken with our ‘third choice’ and one of our favourites was completely disregarded!
2. Make a list of requirements (on paper or just mental points) and ask the events person if it’s not obvious they have them. Good events co-ordinators will hopefully answer most of your questions before you need to ask if they give you a thorough tour, but sometimes if a venue is lacking something they may gloss over it and you may need to ask outright.
3. Ask to see the bedrooms if your venue has them, 2 out of 3 venues showed us the bridal suite, a suite and a standard room. One venue didn't show us any rooms but it wasn't until we left that we realised, and as we had pretty much already disregarded it didn't bother going back to ask. It’s really helpful to see the rooms and actually helped us to decide on our venue as we were torn between 2 places and one place the rooms were very expensive and the bridal suite was actually not much different to a normal room, and another place had less expensive rooms and the bridal suite and other suites were much nicer. The bridal suite accommodation was also included in one but not in the others, so it’s worth asking what accommodation is included or discounted.
4. Ask if there will be any changes/renovations to the venue before your wedding. You may be booking quite far in advance, and if you love a particular room, colour or style of furniture make sure it will still be the same on the day. One venue we went to was having the room we would hire redecorated, she showed us the paint colour (one wall was painted) and carpet (in another room) but also said we were welcome to come back at the end of the month once the work was completed, and would be happy to hold a date for us without us making any financial commitment until we saw the completed room.
5. Weather. Being in Britain we can’t guarantee to have nice weather even if we booked the height of summer. We therefore didn't want to book somewhere just on the strength of the gardens and outside areas as we might not see much of them on the day! All the venues had nice gardens but we also wanted plenty of room inside and nice areas inside in case we end up spending the whole day indoors. Think about when your wedding will be and the weather where you live. We decided to book in spring to save a bit of money (Usually March, April or May is cheaper than summer) as we are still as likely to get a sunny day but it’s not classed as ‘high season’ in some places.
6. Some venues (especially here in the UK) can give you 2 options, so you can plan to have drinks or even the ceremony outdoors and if the weather is bad on the day they can move it inside. It’s worth asking as I really love the idea of an outdoor ceremony but was always worried about the weather. Both venues that could offer this said they’d need our decision by mid morning on the day so they could set up in the appropriate place, it might mean being flexible in your decorations by choosing stuff that would work inside or out but could be worth it if you've always wanted an outdoor wedding.
7. We booked all our venue viewings over 2 days so we had them all fresh in our minds to compare, but don’t be afraid to take photos or ask to go back for second or third or fourth viewings to make sure you are completely clear on what each place offers before booking. Also don’t be afraid to get a second opinion, take family, friends or someone who’s taste and opinion you trust for a look around, they may well see things from a different perspective.
8. Pros and Cons. It’s likely you will ‘just know’ after you've been to see all the places which one is ‘the one’, but what if you don’t? If like us you’re torn then making a list of pros and cons might help you see which one has the advantage. If you really love 2 places and cannot decide on an emotional basis then getting down to the facts of it really helped us to pick the winner. If you have only one place you really have your heart set on (maybe it has special memories or a family tradition) then it’s still a good idea to go and look around it, even if you've been there before, as it’s good to meet the events person and discuss your requirements. One of our venues Tom had been to before for a work course, but when looking at it for a wedding your priorities are different and you have different things to ask.
9. Price, and what you get for that price. You will likely have been given a general idea of how much the place costs on enquiring, but when you meet with the events person at the venue is when you can get into specifics. A lot of hotels have packages, but remember to ask how much things cost per person as well in case you want to add to a package, or in case it’s cheaper to just book per person rather than a package. Some venues will not do the catering in house and will have recommended caterers, the private house we viewed had 4 caterers that they use but we needed to contact them separately for prices and this was not included in the quote they gave us. Also remember to ask if little things are included like cake stands, table cloths, chair and table hire, seating chart stands, accommodation, parking etc. You’ll be surprised how much all the little stuff adds up to if it’s not included! All 3 venues took all our information and requirements and emailed us a quote after our visit, so make sure to tell them every detail of what you will need to get an accurate quote.
10. The feel of a place is really important, if it ticks all of your boxes on paper but in person you just can’t see yourself getting married there then chances are you can do better. One place as soon as we walked in I could see our wedding, but another more grand and impressive place which on paper was better we just didn't seem to be able to get excited about. Don’t worry about what other people would chose or where’s more impressive, go for the one you like the most.

I’ll share a bit more on each venue and our experiences soon, but most of all remember to have fun looking around, it’s the first step most people take to actually planning their wedding and it’s fun to see all the places you might get married. Also even if a venue is a complete bust and not suitable at all you usually at least get a few free drinks and a nose around a nice hotel or house :)

New Page

I wanted a place to share wedding oriented stuff away from the 'main' blog, as I know not everyone wants to read about it, but some people are interested! So welcome to the wedding page of tenantchic...updates to come soon as we are going to look at venues in 2 weeks :)