civil ceremony and reception Surrey/Berkshire

houndour

If you read my almond post then you know I'm getting married in September. Well mums been on at me about a venue...as that is quite important to get booked.

I'm not really sure what my budget is (need to get the parents together), but I think it's going to be around the £6000 mark. I thought this would be quite do-able.

I'm guessing that £3000 to £4000 will be spent on the civil ceremony, reception, sit down meal, disco etc.

I'd like to have the ceremony in the same place as the reception and I'd like to have it somewhere where people can stay over the night.

Admittedly most of the places don't display their prices, so I am waiting on brochures/pricelists. But the ones I have found out so far seem to be really expensive.

e.g. £3000 for exclusive hire (does that mean it'll be lots cheaper to have non-exclusive hire?)
plus £62.50 per head for drink on arrival, 1/2 bottle wine, sparkling for toast, 3 course meal.

This does not include evening buffet or disco!!

We're having to keep seated guests at a maximum of 50 people. Which isnt really many (parents are already arguing over who should come)...and then invite the rest (a further 50 I guess) for evening buffet/disco.

Another place was £135 per head which included evening hire and food but thats £6750.

Is what I want possible?

heather38

yes yes yes!! i got married in september this year and had a civil ceremony we had a sit down meal for 70 and a disco for 150 in the evening, my whole wedding cost £6000, you just have to barter with your venue say such and such are offering this can you beat it, or get married on a weekday they are much cheaper than saturadays
we paid £28 per head for the meal and £9 per head for the buffet and i refused to pay for alcoholic drinks we served fruit punch and only served alcohol for the toasts. let your guests buy their own drinks

houndour

Hi Heather,

Thanks for your quick reply. You've given me hope May I ask what part of the country your wedding was held?

Sam

jobbingmusician

Thinking it through, if you (2) want people to be able to stay at the same place as (3) your reception (and (1) you want to get married there), this means you're at the mercy of places which are set up for this sort of thing and can charge top dollar. Suggest you just keep looking - there won't be THAT many places which are set up for all 3, so you can make a list and have a happy (but expensive) time choosing between them.

Separating the issues out....

If you are happy to get married at a registry office, and do 2 and 3 together, this will broaden your horizons quite a bit but is still likely to leave you at the mercy of hotels. But they prob won't be as expensive as hotels set up with a licence to marry people.

There will be some beautiful places locally where you can get married and have your reception, but which aren't set up for people to stay, and tbh I think this is probably your best bet (by which I mean I think it will be cheaper, although I could be proved wrong, and is likely to be more beautiful as you will have your pick of beautiful places which have a licence to marry people, rather than places where people can stay).

The really really best bet is to do what we did....

A friend lent us their gorgeous spacious place, (you could do this anywhere beautiful you can hire) and we exchanged vows there before the wedding, had the reception there, told people not to dress too smartly (which increased the contrast between them and me in my gorg dress :snow_laug ) got them to do their own washing up and clearing up (which was fun, honest!) and invited them to stay over in tents or on floors. We actually got legally married 6 days later (would prob have sneaked away for an hour and done it on the day if it had been possible, but it wasn't important.) We made it very clear to all our friends that it was the exchange of vows in front of them that we considered was the real marriage, not the small civil ceremony which took place later in the week (and which was a lot nicer than we expected - quite moving in fact).

OK, so our wedding was a bit unconventional - but hope this gives you some more ideas! :rudolf:

alanalea

I got married in October this year in a civil ceremony in a beautiful mansion type of thing called Easthampstead Park. It's in Wokingham Berkshire. They do all wedding packages etc, we went just for the ceremony which cost us £95 for the room and 2 Registrars and an usher.

There's loads more information about the parkHERE

Wedding Menu's

Tariffs

I Can thoroughly recommend it, The grounds are beautiful and the photo locations are stunning.

Good luck with everything

purplepurple

Civil Wedding Venues - Berkshire (70 listed)

Civil wedding venues - surrey (75 listed)

oooh some of these look lovely!

or you could go to Pinewood Studios and have a James Bond wedding! :snow_laug

code-a-holic

Another thing to think about is what time to get married to help with costs. We got married at 3pm in a hotel followed by photos then to the hotel bar which we hired exclusivly for us - at 6 the buffet was opened, disco started at 8. It went really well and the venue including ceremony, hire of bar and buffet and bridal suite came to £300. By marrying in the afternoon you dont need to provide a sit down meal and you dont need to stump the cost of looking after your guests all day.

purplepurple

Good idea code-a-holic... I must say we had our reception in my school hall! We had a week to decorate it and it was free!

heather38

houndour wrote:

Hi Heather,

Thanks for your quick reply. You've given me hope May I ask what part of the country your wedding was held?

Sam

manchester/bolton we had our wedding at the bolton moat house (now known as bolton holiday inn) in the beautiful cloisters suite

houndour

Thanks for the advice.

I've done nothing for the past week except look for venues.

I have also looked into some venues that do not do civil ceremonies. On the surface it seemed cheap but there were hidden costs such as 10% service charge on all food and drink. It soon added up to be not much cheaper than a ceremony/reception combined. I guess half the problem is the area I live in. I live near Guildford and have had to cross all the venues around here off the list. They are extortionate. So I'm going back to my roots in Slough/Windsor. I would have thought Windsor would be expensive but it's not too bad considering.

The good news is now that my parents have realised the cost of wedding/reception they have upped the budget. They are going to pay for the ceremony and reception. My fiances parents are helping out a little and any extra we can contribute for

So far I have found one that will work out at £4200 for 60 guests and a further 40 in evening. This does not include disco. And it's unclear if the hire of the room is included. But we think it is as they have specified the price of the room for the ceremony, so it seems odd that they wouldnt publish the price for the room for the reception. I'm going to see the place on Monday. Fingers crossed there are no hidden costs and they have my date available.

Thanks again.

Counting_Pennies_2

In terms of venues, there are a couple I liked. We ended up at Warbrook House in Eversley, just on the outskirts of Berkshire/Hampshire, it is an initial style venue and they have several locations around Berkshire, they do both civil and reception hire and many have good accommodation too.

On your budget Easthampstead Park might be better in Wokingham. The bedrooms are going through a slow refit, so accommodation isn't as grand as the other places about, but at least it is on site, and the grounds are spectacular. The food is more basic (you could try their buffet to cut costs). A friend got married there, civil and had her reception there and I know they had it on a lower budget.

In terms of reducing cost, you should aim to have less attendants (I had five, not needed it cost £1000 just to fit them out) ask ushers etc to wear their own suits, just buy them a tie so they all look part of the wedding party, try going to Monsoon, or a normal dress shop for bridesmaid dresses, or hire all dresses including your own (their is a good hire shop in Fleet, can't remember the name, but worth doing a search for it).

Have a cash bar, we just provided Pimms on arrival with nibbles, and the most limited amount of wine at the table and sparkling wine for the toasts.

We got a friend to do some sweet posies on the tables, and just had my bouquet professionally made. Get a mobile hairdresser to start coming to your house, they tend to be cheaper if you can get a relationship started with them now, and much easier than having to traipse to the shop on the morning.

Make your own wedding invites, much cheaper, go to Hobbycraft to get some ideas.

We asked friends to take their own videos and we are asking a relative to merge them all together.

Don't go for a really expensive wedding photographer, you only get the album out once a year at most, just go for a small professional album and get friends and family to send you their favourites to make your own album.

Confetti.co.uk have a good forum for wedding chat.

Hope this helps