My new wedding planning thread - 20th July 2013 here we come

Hi everyone

I'm Emily and am engaged to my wonderful fiance Chris. We got engaged in 2009 on christmas day. I have to say it wasn't the most romantic of proposals as he just threw the ring box at me and said "oh well I suppose I'd better give you this"

When we got engaged, we'd been together almost 3 years. We met on a training course and all of our friends could see we liked each other, but we couldn't. It actually took a friend threatening to bang our heads together on a night out before we would admit to each other that we liked each other

I have to say, Chris is my rock, he's been there for me through some pretty tough times (my dad dying amongst other things) and is now a full time carer for my disabled mum.

I can't wait to be Mrs Wright

If any of you saw my last wedding planning thread, you will have noticed that I kept changing the theme, first we were on daisies, then pink and silver butterflies, then back to daisies, and now we've settled on yellow and blue with a rockabilly / vintage feel to it.

We decided on this because neither of us are very formal people and we didn't want our wedding to be the same. We both love the fact that with choosing this theme we could be as relaxed and informal as we wanted to

This constant theme change is what made me want to restart a new thread, kind of like a fresh start without all of the indecision

When looking for a venue, one thing that was incredibly important to us was that there was sufficient disabled access for my mum and our elderly relatives. And our search brought us to a little country hotel called Plas Dolguog

Plas Dolguog - Our Wedding Venue

So we arranged a viewing and the day was nice and sunny so I was really excited about seeing the place in all its glory. Going up towards the hotel we had to turn off onto a little lane, that is about 1/2 - 1 mile long, and can really only fit one car down it at a time

But at the end of that lane was our hotel, and as we drove up the drive, we just instantly knew that this is the place where we were going to be getting married.

One the first visit, we were shown the disabled access, the room where the ceremony would be held and were shown where we would be saying our vows. I completely forgot to take pictures of the place as I was so amazed with it

We had a look around the gardens and went back up to the hotel and arranged to go back to pay a deposit in a few weeks time

So a few weeks later we went back to the hotel with the deposit in hand ready to choose a date and this time I was ready with my phone to take pictures (although again I didn't manage to get any of the inside of the venue)

Once we'd paid the deposit the owner said we could have another wander around the grounds as it was such a lovely day.

I stood in front of the window where we will be saying our vows and took this picture

So off we went, back down through the gardens where we had already walked through the previous time we were there

This picture I was looking at the other day and noticed that there's another path that leads up the side of the seat where Chris is sitting, so that's another new place to explore next time

Then we discovered a little path that led down to this ....

And I was even more sure that this was the place for us as I could picture us standing there, fairy lights / tea lights on in the background, just taking a moment to take in the day

So we followed the path around through the woods, alongside the river ...

And we found this amazing little bridge that crossed the river and led to a beautiful little shingle beach

It's just completely perfect and I'm keeping everything crossed that we have gorgeous weather for the day

Hello Can I stalk? I'm also getting married next year, but we're hoping for September!

Your venue looks absolutely gorgeous, I especially love the view you have from your ceremony room, so beautiful!

of course you can stalk

The more the merrier

I have 6 wonderful bridesmaids and 4 beautiful flower girls

Bridesmaids

Nikki - my brother's gf
Vici - my good friend from here
Toria - Chris' brother's gf's daughter (I class her as my niece)
Yasmin - Toria's sister
Sophie - Chris' cousin
Donna - my cousin

I chose these girls because they are absolutely wonderful and I know that they'd do anything they can to help me on the day and in the run up to the wedding

Dress wise I have found this and completely fallen in love

I want them to have the beautiful white underskirts too as I think they look amazing

Flower Girls

Tammy - Donna's eldest girl
Lexi - Donna's youngest girl
Lilliana - my cousin Lola's eldest girl
Eliza - my cousin Lola's youngest girl

Dresses

I love that these have the big fluffy skirts like the adult bridesmaid dresses, can't wait to order them next year

*stalks*

Decorations

This is the room that we will be getting married in and then having the reception in too

I love the beams and was thinking of hanging yellow polka dot and blue polka dot bunting, intertwined with fairy lights from the beams.

Centrepieces

I love these old fashioned milk / juice bottles

I was thinking of putting blue glass pebbles in the bottom and then having a couple of sunflowers in each bottle?

Favours

At the moment, this is proving really troublesome.

For the ladies, I was thinking a couple of pieces of wedding rock in a yellow organza bag, with their bubbles (that each guest will be having) and a mix cd of popular 50s songs and a few mixed in from Dirty Dancing

For the men, they'll be having the rock and bubbles (but in a blue organza bag), but for the moment, I'm not too sure on what else to put in there for them

I loveloveLOVE yellow and blue together! Are you thinking pale blue? So nice. It was a close contender for our colours but I couldn't decide if I preferred yellow and blue or yellow and grey so we went for red and blue :P

Your venue is pretty breath taking! And your bridesmaids dress is gorgeous. I think one of mine is going for something like that in a pale blue! And that flower girl dress is just perfect! Where is it from and does it come in other colours? The polka dot overlay looks to be similar to the one in my own dress which would be amazing!

Your super lucky your venue has beams. Before finding our venue, we were set on lots of hanging pom poms and bunting. Now we have our venue, there's no where to hang anything from! But I have something up my sleeves to work around that

And your centrepiece idea is fab. How about oversized daisies? I don't mean gerberas! You were thinking of daisies as your theme before right? Perfect!