Wedding Tips start here...

bigzippy

haydnsarah wrote: »

hello all, this thread is super thanks to everyone! ive just started to arrange our wedding for sometime next summer and we've fallen in love with a venue for the reception which is perfect, affordable and lets us decorate and cater as we want (as well as letting us get in there for the three days before so no rushing!) however we're struggling to find somewhere affordable for the actual ceremony, none of the registry offices have a large enough capacity (we want all 80 of our guests to be able to attend both parts as it'll be a longish journey for all of them) and the churches we fell in love with require you to be part of their parish and we arent (our 'parish' is too far away), otherwise we dont seem to be able to find anywhere that doesnt expect you to also hold your reception there and to charge a huge amount. Does anybody have any ideas of how we can get around this or venue ideas? i'd be so grateful! the reception venue is near farnham in surrey so anywhere in that sort of area would be brilliant! thank you!

Have you tried a church that isn't Church of England or Catholic? They don't have the traditional parish boundarys and aren't bound by the same kind of restrictions. Any methodist, pentecostal, baptist, evangelical, or independant church would consider it in terms of location. Whether or not they want you to attend the church for a period of time etc is church/reverend dependant.

Hope it helps! And well done on finding a venue you can afford etc :T - that is the bit I'm REALLY struggling with!!

jelataxi

I am in the same position, I am helping to organise my sisters wedding at the moment. She is getting married on 18th July and I have the job of the chair cover hire and helping with the flower order - does anyone know any chair cover hire companies based in Birmingham / Redditch / Bromsgrove? In searching on-line I have found a free prize draw to win a wedding bouquet. The florist is based in Birmingham and the wedding flower pics look really good. The link for the prize draw is:

http://www.urbandesignflowers.co.uk/weddingprizedraw/

haydnsarah

thanks zippy i'll look into that, the other option we're looking at is doing the registry the day before with close family and having somebody come out to perform a 'wedding celebration ceremony' at the venue (found the website somewhere on here- thanks for that!) so we'd have our vows and rings exchanged in front of everybody and just do the legal bit elsewhere, also means we save on only decorating one venue and we dont have to worry about shipping people around!
Good luck with the venue hunt, we found ours in the end by just googling phrases without any 'wedding words' i wanted something pretty with outside area and googled 'barn for hire surrey', ended up with a lovely medieval barn with self catering facilities, bbq area, gorgeous views, access from weds to sunday etc. and for only three hundred pounds i guess because its just a family run business rather than a corperate one, hope that helps...

natalie7302

my partner and i are planning a wedding at the mo for next year. We are using a family friend who is semi proffesional photographer and is just charging us for the photos not the work. one of the bridesmaids mother in law to do the cake. A friend for the DJ. And we have asked to borrow a nice normal car for the day. We have saved a lot of money and dont feel like we are comprimising at all. The day is about us joining together not big expensive things that we will have for one day!

Wobbledoos

bigzippy wrote: »

:T
The only flowers I plan on getting "done for me" will be the bouquet - which will be tulips (in season) and white roses.

* Shoes may be a problem as I want approx 2" wedges cos I want them to be comfortable - not get stuck in any potentially soggy ground, or in the hemline of the dress! Any ideas?

hiya big zippy!

just a point for you to bear in mind - Tulips apparently "wont go" with other flowers in a bouquet as they contain a chemical which makes other flowers go funny... yes i know that's very vague, but my mum (who used to be a florist) told me that it's like bananas in a fruit bowl - they give off a gas or something....

also, let me know if you find any wedge shoes, i want some, but am not at all a shoe-ey kinda gal, so don't have the foggiest where to look!!

wobbles
x

bigzippy

We were originally going to get married in March/April 2010 but after some discussion we've decided to bring it forward to September next year! :eek:

Obviously tulips won't be in season then, but apparently they are available year round, but the next choice will be gerberas (I have fake gerberas in our colours for the bridesmaids from ikea anyway). Thanks for the tip Wobbledoos - I'll have a chat with our florist about it and see what the conclusion is

As for venues, I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that we'll be booking our venue on Tuesday - we're going looking round the inside then. We love the outside and the photos we've seen of the inside. My tip for venues is: check the "Leisure" section of the local council websites for "Venues for hire" - they often have local stately homes etc that the council now owns and will hire them out for a reasonable rate (eg. £200 for the evening). They usually have Citywide caterers as the recommended caterers who are also very affordable (buffets start from £5.80 a head). This may be the saviour of my sanity!! :j

bigzippy

Wobbledoos wrote: »

also, let me know if you find any wedge shoes, i want some, but am not at all a shoe-ey kinda gal, so don't have the foggiest where to look!!

wobbles
x

I will indeed let you know... if my search ever proves to be more fruitful! I know that Rainbow have one design, might be called Cherry (memory may be failing me though!) but it wasn't what I was looking for - esp at the price they charge... So still looking

maccaandclaire

hi bigzippy i bought my wedding shoes from bhs online. Cant remember if there were any wedged ones but they are all reduced. I bought mine for £15 with £3.50 delivery and found a free delivery promotional code so Im well happy! :-)

bigzippy

Thanks maccaandclaire. I had another look but alas, no wedges... :rolleyes: I might end up with white trainers at this rate!!

On the up side - I now have a date and a (lovely AND affordable) venue!! :T A nice tudor building in a quaint canal side village nearby :beer:

bigzippy

Wobbledoos wrote: »

also, let me know if you find any wedge shoes, i want some, but am not at all a shoe-ey kinda gal, so don't have the foggiest where to look!!

wobbles
x

Wobbles, try this http://www.vivaladiva.com/productcache/VLD/BO6694/LA173NB.html.gz not found exactly what I'm looking for yet but maybe it's more what you're after?

Zippy x