So Excited!!!

Hadley1

White_Sapphire wrote: »

Oh, we're pretty sure it'll be The Mansion House! :j Although it will work out more expensive, it's still a very reasonable hire cost, especially compared to some we've seen...:eek:
We should still be able to keep everything else within budget anyway, as long as we're careful. It just means that we need to sort out whether we can afford to lay on transport for the guests between the two venues (which are fairly close together), or ask people to make their own way. If we provide transport then we have to think about people having to leave their cars at the first venue, or whether we lay on transport from, say the train station so guests can leave their cars where there is plenty of space (but must consider parking costs!), or use public transport. If we don't, there may not be enough parking for everyone at each venue, and it's very easy for people to get lost in that area of Bristol - in fact, we lost our bearings a bit going to visit the Mansion House and we've lived in the area for about 3 years!! :rotfl:

None of the concerns we have are really deal-breakers though; we're just both quite cautious by nature so don't want to say 'yes, we're definitely doing this' until we have a better idea of the logistics.

The other thing we have to consider is whether we have a Friday or Saturday ceremony - Friday would be cheaper, certainly for the Mansion House, possibly also for the evening venue, but H2B is very anxious about inconveniencing people by asking them to take a day off work. I don't think most people would mind at all - everyone we're inviting to the whole do is fairly close family or close friend so they're not going to mind, and the people we're inviting to the evening do only don't have to take time off anyway. So at the moment I'm fairly sure it'll be either Friday 31st August or Saturday 1st September :T

Hey

All so exciting!! Again you sound organised.

Sad to say I am just not practical at all. I think with my heart, good thing OH is teh opposite. Though it does mean I moan about his lack of emotion on things and he just goes on about my lack of practicality. But they say opposites attract

I don't think anyone would mind about a Friday wedding - nobody I know would. So think thats up to. If you go for the Friday (we can still talk on this thread- he he).

Hadley1

Hadley1 wrote: »

Hey

All so exciting!! Again you sound organised.

Sad to say I am just not practical at all. I think with my heart, good thing OH is teh opposite. Though it does mean I moan about his lack of emotion on things and he just goes on about my lack of practicality. But they say opposites attract

I don't think anyone would mind about a Friday wedding - nobody I know would. So think thats up to. If you go for the Friday (we can still talk on this thread- he he).

Oh - ignore me.... I thought I was on the August 2012 thread!!!! See told you I think with my head and tend to rush in.

Rahven

Hadley1 wrote: »

Hi

Very organised well done - so impressed. In terms of organisation all I have is a pile (and I mean a pile) of wedding mags and not much else!!

In terms of looking at venues - we did both. I.e. went to some as an ordinary customer for a meal or whatever - after all its all about the service.

One piece of advice - always check both lots of toilets. this certainly gives an idea of the standards of the place. again you might want to do this whilst a normal customer i.e. where there is no special function on.

That's a really good point, thank you I would have totally not thought to do that at all! :T

And don't worry, wedding magazines are a good place to start Have you thought about scrapbooking? That way you could go through one at a time and pull out & keep what's good. That's kinda what we did when we ended up with piles of stuff after a wedding fayre.

White_Sapphire

Rahven wrote: »

Aye, see we don't have it quite the same cause we're getting married about 200 miles away so we can't just pop in to places, which is what I'd rather do! We're doing an internet trawl, and shortlisting places we want to see.

I've been incredibly geeky and set up a wedding forum for us using one of those free forum sites. I've got the Mums and the bridesmaids (as they are all really spread out around the country too) to register on it and we've got different sections for each bit. In the venue section we've got a thread on each potential venue. When we decide it's a no we update the title to read (name of venue) - No. My thinking is that it'll mean everyone's on the same page and knows what the focus and most importantly can help out without duplicating work. In theory

Can I ask a quick question? When you've gone to see venues do you ever go for a meal there incognito before you tell them or do you show up to be shown round? We're looking at a pub venue but I'm thinking it might be a good idea to go undercover and see what it's like before they know it's us so we get a better idea of what it's usually like (when they aren't trying to get business!)

I'm seriously impressed by your levels of organisation! :T We searched for venues within a certain radius, then looked at things like max capacity, hire cost, exclusivity (ie will there be loads of other people milling about?), flexibility (do they insist on using their inhouse florist, dj, etc? Their own caterers we can understand, as that's to do with insurance and being familiar with the kitchens etc). The only ones we have visited are ones that met that criteria. A lot of venues that we looked at were quite difficult to get appointments to visit outside office hours, so we didn't want to waste any annual leave on unsuitable venues!
Makes us sound more organised than we are tbh, as we didn't necessarily keep track of what had been written off and why, and our criteria did change slightly over time.

We have actually only been to see four venues, and only one of those was open to the public for meals etc, but we didn't pose as ordinary customers as it was a bit too far away. I did look at some reviews to check it out that way though. Another was a private house which has its gardens open to the public, and they serve light meals and things but not with the same caterers they use for weddings. If we had been looking at hotels and places like that then we might have done an incognito visit first, but it's not always relevant to the venue. Definitely a good idea to do that if you can - you could even enquire about it after your meal, and if you're very lucky there might be someone available to show you round straight away so you don't have to do a second visit.

White_Sapphire

Hadley1 wrote: »

Oh - ignore me.... I thought I was on the August 2012 thread!!!! See told you I think with my head and tend to rush in.

LOL! I know what you meant I will definitely officially join the August 2012 thread if we go for the Friday, but would love to be able to start the September 2012 thread - how sad is that??

Hadley1

White_Sapphire wrote: »

LOL! I know what you meant I will definitely officially join the August 2012 thread if we go for the Friday, but would love to be able to start the September 2012 thread - how sad is that??

Not sad at all - it would be great to be a founder member.:rotfl:

Hadley1

Rahven wrote: »

That's a really good point, thank you I would have totally not thought to do that at all! :T

And don't worry, wedding magazines are a good place to start Have you thought about scrapbooking? That way you could go through one at a time and pull out & keep what's good. That's kinda what we did when we ended up with piles of stuff after a wedding fayre.

Thanks - thats a great idea !! I will give it ago when I can actually get a minute to sit down.

Can I ask how you decided on bits and bots to keep. And also did you do different sections - i.e. dress, cake, flowers etc. Or perhaps by colour/theme. God I am so indecisive... I can't even decide how to put things together. (would also like to say as this is a money saving web site - that I didn't buy all the mags myself (though must confess to buying some), lots were given to me by other recent brides so we are doing our own recycling green bit).

Rahven

We have totally done it by section. So we've got a few pages for flowers we liked, a few for dresses, hair, caterers etc. It just made it easier and a bit more organised than having stacks of thick magazines - paring it down to the parts that might be relevant if you like. Certainly made it easier to deal with the mass pushed onto us at the fayres

And White - those are some really good tips, I'm gonna sneakily steal some if you don't mind

Hadley1

Rahven wrote: »

We have totally done it by section. So we've got a few pages for flowers we liked, a few for dresses, hair, caterers etc. It just made it easier and a bit more organised than having stacks of thick magazines - paring it down to the parts that might be relevant if you like. Certainly made it easier to deal with the mass pushed onto us at the fayres

And White - those are some really good tips, I'm gonna sneakily steal some if you don't mind

Thanks so much Rahaven. Thats great advice..will definately give it a go. Though will have to wait as am going to carry on/begin the major sorting of stuff from my house so I can actually move in officially with OH. Really not looking forward to it - still might be a way to make some money selling bits on ebay. And need all the money we can save for the wedding.

Rahven

Ooh crikey, good luck with the move! I'm sure it'll be the start of something very special And like you say, you can raise some money! When we moved last time I had a big box into which I put the stuff (as I was sorting thro it) that we didn't want but might be able to sell. We then put it on ebay a few a week so as not to cause too much work for ourselves! Made £150