wedding: the venue
Bearing in mind I got engaged last December, I think it�s clear to say, I haven�t rushed to blog my way through the planning.
However, I really wanted to, but just never really got round to sitting down and doing it, until today.
I have always loved reading wedding blogs, yes, even before I had the ring on my finger, but that doesn�t mean I was sitting with my scrapbook and my wedding fully planned before the boy proposed. In fact, I had no ideas at all about what I wanted, I just loved reading about others weddings. I love looking at the beautiful dresses, the flowers, the colours palettes, even the men�s suits, but rarely actually considered my own. And then the boy got down on one knee (you can read about that here) and all of a sudden, I was allowed to outwardly profess my reading habits, wedding websites could be added to my favourites, without that being weird!
I started reading Rock My Wedding years ago, and loved all the posts relating to Charlotte�s big day, I really wanted to do the same with mine, thinking it would be a lovely way to diarise my planning...it just never happened. But today, I just decided to sit down and do it. I�m thoroughly enjoying the planning process, Pinterest�s stats have probably trebled since I got engaged, and I�m fairly sure there isn�t a bridal blog out there I don�t know about.
So where do I start? Luckily, we�ve been fairly relaxed about the whole wedding planning, and so I shouldn�t need to bombard you with an influx of posts just to play catch up, because so far we�ve taken it slowly. We have just hit the 6 months-to-go mark, so that may will change.
Well let�s go right back to the beginning. After the proposal, we spent hours (and hours) googling venues. I knew we�d need to get moving with a venue, because to get married when we wanted (Spring/Summer 14) we�d need to get going to secure a date.
We knew we wanted to get married in Cumbria, we live (and both grew up) in the Lake District so it would be foolish to dismiss such beautiful surroundings. We also knew we didn�t want a �wedding package B�, we wanted to be able to customise our day to make it our own. I didn�t want a Roast Beef dinner, and we didn�t want a corporate hotel room.
Ahh, it would seem, despite Cumbria having hundreds of beautiful venues, there wasn�t an endless list of places we really wanted to see. In the end we saw only two. The first, I fell in love with over the internet. It was a real blank canvas, a barn set in the middle of the countryside, which every couple made their own. So off we headed, I was super excited and sure I was going to come away, having signed, sealed and deposited (the money, obvs!). But, 10 minutes in, I was bitten by a dog (yep, really), which wasn�t a great start to planning your perfect day. Feeling rather flustered we continued to look round, but as the price shot up, so did the list of things we needed to do. A blank canvas, yes. But, a whole design job from start to finish I was not expecting, hiring everything from carpet to crockery to caterers was not quite what I was ready for. Plus, this was all money on top of the initial costs.
So feeling a little disheartened, we headed home.
And hit up google once again.
Then I discovered Askham Hall, a venue that had only been hosting weddings since the previous October (only three months at this point) and so had only had a handful of weddings, which meant there was very little information online to find out more about it (and even fewer photos of other couples big days for me to stalk). But what we could see, it was certainly ticking the right boxes, a beautiful barn which would give us that perfect slightly rustic and informal feel, a stunning 13thcentury stately home with impressive gardens, the perfect backdrop for those all-important photos, AND a heated outdoor swimming pool? Ok, so that wasn�t a necessity for our wedding, but it was certainly a nice additional touch.
I rang immediately, and made an appointment to visit. From the second we arrived, despite it being a gloomy January day, we felt welcomed and totally in awe of the whole venue. Even on a rainy day, we could tell it was the place for us. The barn was exactly what we wanted, and we didn�t have to hire any of the basics, HURRAH, chairs and tables and glasses and staff and food, it all came in as part of the cost!
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Where do we sign?
Oh, you already have 47 weddings booked in for 2013, and 2014 is starting to fill up. Sooo, what days do you have available? There was a couple of dates that would work for us, May bank holiday looked even more promising, but my mum and dad really wanted to see it. A quick phone call later, an exclamation of how much I loved it, meant that yes, we would book that date, and sorry mum, but I�ll bring you back for lunch another day.
Unfortunately, it wasn�t QUITE as smooth as this, we needed to confirm figures and numbers and all the finer details, but we headed home (feeling rather elated) and got out the calculator.. and OUCH, really, weddings ARE expensive. We then spent a week deliberating, setting up an extensive spreadsheet, sat with heads in our hands, and wondered if really, maybe �Wedding Package B� and �Roast Beef Dinner� wasn�t sooo bad. But in our hearts, it wasn�t what we wanted, it didn�t make me excited, and it is what is supposed to be our �perfect day�. Knowing we could make cuts elsewhere, and knowing that the venue really is one of the most important parts of the day, we rang and proclaimed:
�yes, we would like to confirm 23rd May 2015�
