Found another venue to add to the list of possibilities. I’m have slight trouble finding venue options at the moment really. We’re looking at about 40 guests for the wedding – and the sorts of places that are really nice but moderately priced in terms of the venue and cost per person are wanting minumums of 60 or 90 people. Boooooo!!
A week and a half ago Graham and I visited a wedding fair which was exciting stuff. SOOOOOO many adverts came our way lol. We also got some little freebies while we were there – like food samples and fancy toiletries which was nice. It was at the Botleigh Grange hotel which is VERY pretty. The outside has a lovely paved area with seating and then a huge grassy area with steps leading down to a large pond. It’s very picturesque. Graham and I have put it on our venue list and while it would make for great wedding photos – it wasn’t such a great deal with the kids that will be attending the wedding or with the drinks for the adults, so while it’s a possible venue, I’m not sure so far that it’ll win on the venue front.
Very good wedding fair though it has to be said – they had a bag-piper at the gates AND a horse and carriage that was giving rides (we didn’t go on one cos it was busy though). Inside there were loads of stalls with loads of ideas and now we have ideas for the sort of photography we’d like to have which is good. While we’re probably not looking to get things like ‘a formal toastmaster’ it’s great to see the options. We also found a couple of custom ring makers too…but we’ll see where that goes.
From all the reading we’ve done we’ve found the best place to start is planning a budget – after playing around with numbers we’ve just about got that on track which is good.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking at the pretty aspects(vs the practicalities!) of the wedding, in magazines and on the web, such as the invites and dresses and shoes etc (well I’m a chick what the heck else you expect!) – not looking at buying quite yet of course! But I’ve been checking out if our budget plans are realistic…hopefully they are.
We’ve decided to use a budget planner that the ‘You and Your Wedding’ website supplies (which Graham found) – it’s really good!!! It’ll help us to keep track on the spending.
I’m determined to not turn into ‘Bridezilla’, it’ll be a very lovely wedding but not ‘over the top’. While it is a very important day, there’s the rest of our lives yet – therefore NO getting into debt for this thing, unlike what a lot of people probably do!
Me and my other half Graham recently got engaged, we went away to a seriously swish hotel and had the most fantastic time!
The ring is gorgeous – it’s 18 ct white gold with a round shape third ct diamond. Graham picked it himself and it’s beautiful – it’s the exact type of thing I would pick!!! After the weekend, I got into work on Monday and all my female friends at work went crazy!! I’ve managed to get some volunteers for attending wedding fairs etc with me which is fantastic!!
Graham and I bought a couple of books on the subject – including a wedding etiquette book!! I have no idea about planning weddings at all and while most girls probably think (before ANY proposal) in their lives “I’d do {this} for my wedding”, it’s not something I’ve ever done so I’m starting at scratch really…but it seems I will have all the help I need which is cool.
The ring had to be sent back a couple of time to get the correct size for me unfortunately – the first one was too big and the second was tiny!!! The jeweller measured my size with freezing cold hands and my fingers had shrunk…no good. Anyway, when the correct size came and it fitted I went in to work to show it off and cue a second round of my female friends going crazy hehe.
The first week of engaged life has brought a number of wedding books, magazines and adverts into our humble abode. Most of it is good but some of the adverts are for dresses that are double our entire wedding budget.
Amy still doesn’t actually have a ring that fits on her finger, but she hasn’t quite turned into ‘Bridezilla’, as she calls it.
This Sunday we went to a beautiful hotel called the Legacy Botleigh for a wedding show. Everyone asked when the wedding was and the answer was ‘we’ve only been engaged a week’. Ah well, they won’t be getting money out of us just yet.
The hotel has a lovely garden that would look fantastic in photographs (hence why they let the shows happen there) and we’ve been trying to do some sums about it all. They certainly don’t have the most included in their wedding packages but the album would look very nice.
Another hotel we are looking at has a lot in the price, strangely enough including centrepieces, which I thought were too expensive to include free. We aren’t sure if it really has an outside though. Hard choices, if a little premature at this stage.
We’ve also been trying to blast through a few numbers. Fortunatly both our families aren’t exactly big and although we have a few friends there aren’t many that I’d feel close enough to bring to the actual ceremony. Money wise we’re looking at self funding it, anything else we come across might be a bonus, but we aren’t expecting it.
Is it really that modern to feel like we shouldn’t be asking parents for piles of cash to pay for these things? I’m not even sure whether or not we want a guest list! We’re toying the idea of just telling people to spend the money staying in the hotel and enjoying themselves. We have no room in our kitchen as it is; imagine if we got a new dinner set and another toaster. Hell, we’ve just got an Ikea within walking distance, I could have 5 toasters here in a couple of hours.
So I’m sure this will all be interesting. I’ll have to make an effort to blog how things are going. I know no-one reads this, but I’m sure it will be interesting to look back on once the day has gone by and see how we have paniced / lost hope / given up / decided on flowers with a spin-the-bottle game over the months.
p.s. How can I find a wedding photographer that costs £500 for two hours that supplies negatives (well a DVD seeing as they don’t use film anymore), yet the ones that cost £1750 don’t?
What a great weekend!
We’ve spent Friday to Sunday at a lovely Hotel just outside Southampton. It was a very fancy hotel with a gorgeous restaurant and a spa (we looked at the member price of the spa and it was 4 figures per year!). We went on a Valentines day package with two days bed, breakfast and dinner, which was… mmmmmmmmm. The steak just fell apart and… mmmmmm.
Part of the package included a bottle of champers, rose and chocolates on the pillow and we even both had a full body massage on Saturday.
Of course, the best part of the break came on Saturday morning. We’d come back up from Breakfast at about 10:30 to open presents. I opened Amy’s present to me then went to my bag to get mine. Hiding it behind my back I said that I hoped she liked ‘it’. I took a few steps closer before falling on one knee and pulling the box out. I then opened it and said that I loved her and would she marry me.
Poor Amy has had a trying week (she’s been fast-tracked onto a ship later this month, has had dental checkups, medicals, survival courses and even some fillings this week) so I got the benifit of surprising her. So much nicer when it is a surprise. She said ‘yes’, the rest is history!
