We've booked the venue, 6th August 2016

[CakeCottage]

Marriage is something that myself and my OH have talked about for a very long time. We aren't 'officially' engaged per say (he hasn't done the whole buying a ring, getting down on one knee and proposed properly.) We haven't been able to afford it to be honest as we bought our first house together at the end of 2011 and have been skint since haha!!
Anyhow, we got to talking and decided that ultimately we want to get married and my mum has told us she and her partner are giving us £x-amount so we decided to start having a little look at options (what we want in our big day.) We looked at the traditional church then reception, we're both Catholics but since neither of us are really practicing or really religious we decided it would be a bit hypocritical. We then looked at going abroad but since we both have large families and friends we'd like to share our day with and that many of them may not be able to go away with us that was vetoed. We pretty much had the same opinion with Gretna Green.
A registry office ceremony wasn't an option for us, not that I have got a problem with them and for some people its perfect, but for us we wanted something that bit more special.
We want to get married outdoors and then have a historic building to hold our reception in and we found it... A venue quite local to us that has been recently restored held the key, it has an outdoor bandstand that has been licenced to hold ceremonies and a Glass conservatory that was built in 1870.
So we called to see what their availability was like for early August 2016 (OH is a teacher and gets the summer off so we wanted early August so we can have a honeymoon) they already had the 6th on hold for another couple and they had the 13th available. OH wasn't keen on the 13th as he's a bit OCD and find odd numbers well a bit odd plus our anniversary would have fell on Friday the 13th too.
So I booked with the co-ordinator to go and view the venue on Friday (7th) and on the Wednesday before (5th) she called me to say the 6th had become available so I asked her to put it on hold...
So I went up on Friday with my mum to look around and fell in love, mum loved it too and put the £1000 deposit straight down.
I know its over 2 years away but I'm so excited!!!

 

[Camlet]

Congratulations on finding & booking your venue it looks beautiful xx

 

[CakeCottage]

Thank you hun, I'm so excited, wish it was sooner!! Got my little planning head on now, there are so many things I want to do! X

 

[CakeCottage]

Been a bit on the quiet side in my wedding journal, but I have been busy with wedding planning...
So far we've booked the venue, cars, I have the dress, we've found a photographer we love so we're putting the deposit down for him at the end of this month, I've also found the stationary I love too so we will be ordering that when we can! It's all coming together nicely!! X

 

[CakeCottage]

Loving all this planning, I totally enjoy organising stuff!!!
We booked our photographer (https://www.andrewjohnphoto.com/) his work is fab so we definitely wanted to get him booked before somebody else snapped (excuse the pun there - not intended) up!
We've also booked these as our cars https://www.barringtonscars.co.uk/images/badsworth/badsworth-8.jpg and we've chosen our colour scheme (Dusky pink), I'm a bit of a pain though as I'm totally matchy matchy and it annoys me if I can't get the shades of pink to match!!

 

[kittiecat]

Stalking! Your colour scheme sounds similar to mine! I started off saying dusky pink but then found it hard to find. So I'm going with a sort of blush pink theme with ivory .

And yay for booking the photographer!

 

[CakeCottage]

Isn't dusky pink a nightmare to find!! We've gone for shade 60 on the colour chart below, luckily I'm doing a lot of the decorations etc myself so it won't be too hard to match those up, just need to find bridesmaids dresses to match x

 

[kittiecat]

That's a lovely shade! Tbh I'm not 100% what shade I'm having till we've chosen the bridesmaids dresses. I haven't bought many pink decorations only one flower garland and some ribbon for my candles but I don't mind if things aren't TOO matchy matchy. My tables are going to be mainly ivory themed anyway as it was doing my head in trying to match pinks . And chair bows for the ceremony will be ivory too. My theme kind of evolved to mix of pink and ivory that way

Fx'd for you that you get bridesmaid dresses to match! Are you buying them online or in store? I am hoping to look at alfred angelo ones as he does about 60 different colour shades so way easier to try and match a colour

 

[Snow Owl]

Random but are you near Liverpool?

 

[CakeCottage]

My wedding dress is Alfred Angelo Kittiecat 😊 I'm far too matchy matchy, it's the OCD in me ha! I'm going to buy them online I think, I've seen a couple I like, as long as they're a similar shade and all match each other I'll be happy!

Hi Snow Owl, yeah I am, are you? 😊x

 

[Snow Owl]

No I'm right down south but I think your venue was on don't tell the bride this week and it looked amazing!!

 

[CakeCottage]

Yeah it's been on there once before hun, was it the Irish girl and the scouse lad? X

 

[Snow Owl]

It was!! I commented to OH how gorgeous it was!!

 

[smileyfaces]

you sound so organised and your venue looks lovely!

 

[CakeCottage]

It was!! I commented to OH how gorgeous it was!!

It is a beautiful building, it only got restored in 2007, before that it'd not been used for over 80 years (it was built in 1870)

I can't wait, I'm loving organising!

Hi Smileyfaces

Xx

 

[CakeCottage]

So it was payday for me today and I've had a bit of a spending spree haha! I've bought the favour boxes, my veil, the ribbons and lace that are to decorate our favour boxes/post box etc and another one of our centre pieces (I'm buying one a month!)

Loving wedding planning!!! X

 

[CakeCottage]

you sound so organised and your venue looks lovely!

Hi hun, thanks... I'm loving organizing wish it was sooner haha!!!

 

[CakeCottage]

So I thought I'd share my dress and tiara and the little bits and bobs I've made so far...

My dress is an Alfred Angelo Disney collection dress (Aurora), I put my deposit down on it in 2011 (we had talked about marriage before that, I knew myself and OH would be getting married to each other and I knew that was THE dress.)

The tiara was handmade, I wanted a pearl wishbone shaped one and couldn't find one anywhere so when I seen this one I knew I had to order it there and then!

I've made wine glass charms as my place settings, wanted something a little different to the bog standard place cards, they're all done now and only need to add ones on if my brother gets a girlfriend before the big day.

I bought the cake serving set from Home and Bargain (Home Bargains to anybody who isn't from Liverpool ha) and customised them with the bows... Its amazing what you can do with a glue gun, needle and thread and some ribbon.

The hanger I bought for the wedding dress hanging up picture opportunity on the morning of the wedding.

Lastly (for this post ha) I'm having the pink cake stands as my centrepieces, I'm going to get the florist to decorate them with my chosen flowers!!

xx

 

[CakeCottage]

for some reason it wont let me upload my cake knives grrr!!

 

[CakeCottage]

Finally it has let me upload my cake knives haha!!