Ok so it's started, OH has decided what to do with his job (staying where he is plus they've offered him more ££'s) so it's wedding planning time!!!  Going to look at 4 different venues on Monday in West Yorkshire, they are:

1. Wentbridge House (this is my fave) - http://www.wentbridgehouse.co.uk/
2. Waterton Park & Walton Hall - http://www.watertonparkhotel.co.uk/
3. Hotel St Pierre - http://www.hotelstpierre.co.uk/
4. Nostell Priory - http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-nostellpriory/

What do you reckon?

Oh! Just noticed I've got 3 stars now!! Must have been doing a lot of posting!!

Or option 5 a bliddy great world cruise :-)

I'm strongly of the opinion that your family just want to be with you on your special day and for you not to struggle finacially after the wedding and in your new life together.

Sorry but I'm just a practical old Bah Humbug who worries that you might need that money somewhere down the line.

> bliddy great world cruise

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean?  Both sets of parents are contributing to our wedding & we have savings ourselves to put towards it.  We won't be spending a huge amount of money as we are well aware it's just one day but I want the day to be special & for all our friends & family to share in celebrating our marriage.  We own our own home & have a resonably small mortgage & we would never put ourselves in any financial difficulty by getting married, we have a set budget & we will not exceed it, if anything I@m hoping to come well under budget!!

Hey Gembo, congrats on your great news. I got married last month and really enjoyed the planning of it.

It's hard to say which place is the nicest but from the websites I would say it was between Wentbridge House & Waterton Park.  They both have lovely romantic settings with a great backdrop for the photo's.

I chose my venue because it was scenic, easy to get to and had an informal feel to it.  I really wanted to relax on my big day so didn't want anywhere too posh and formal.  I would recommend having lunch at each place to see what the food is like and also to feel the vibe from the place and the staff.  One popular place I viewed the staff were quite cold so that crossed them off my list.

I'm excited for you!! :)

I've given up on wedding venues in this country.  They expect to be able to charge you an absolute fortune (£100 per head is not uncommon when you factor in alcohol) and to impose all kinds of restrictions (eg. you have to book all the rooms in the hotel if you want things to go on beyond 5.00pm; you can't offer your guests a choice of meals, even if they were to choose preferences in advance; your dog, of course, is not allowed in most hotels, to mention just a few of the obstructions we came across).  In the end we decided to get married on safari in Tanzania, and combine the wedding and honeymoon.

I agree with you Rosemarie as usual we get ripped off in Britain, however I would never go abroad & do it.  Our wedding day for me is about celebrating our love & happiness together with all our friends & family, it's about declaring our commitment to each other for the rest of our lives & I know it wouldn't be the same if all the people important to me weren't there.  Whilst getting married abroad might well be cheaper for you, it's generally a lot more expensive for your friends & family to come along & share it with you & tends to mean they can't join you, which for me would defeat the main purpose of the day. 

We have chosen to avoid a lot of beautiful venues because of the restrictions they impose & we've changed the time of year we were planning to get wed in to Autumn when weddings aren't so popular.  I know a wedding will be the most expensive day in your entire life but for me it will also be the most special day & I wouldn't want to do anything to change it that I might regret if years to come.  We have been very lucky to have parents who are willing to help us out, but we are being sensible about it.  They haven't but even if they offered us £40k to spend on the day I wouldn't accept, if you're clever & budget you can get married for a quarter of that, maybe even less if you don't have a sit down meal.  Obviously as it's such a personal day everyone has their own tastes & opinions.

My personal fave venues are the first 2 but I want to look round first & speak to the staff etc just to make sure they are going to do a good job & find out about all the little things you tend to forget at the start e.g can they accomodate gluten free diets, do you get a reduction of room hire for your guests, do they have a back up plan for photos if the weathers rubbish - this list goes on & on.  But I'm very excited about, even if it is 2 years away but I'm a very organised person & want to start it straight away!!

I've no doubt I'll be asking your opinions on many, many things, I won't take offence if some of you get sick of it & choose to ignore me but any recent brides please please give me any advice you have or make any recommendations on good shops/websites!!

Wow, if it was me i'd go for Nostell Priory :-)
Hotel St Pierre was my least fave - didnt have as much character.

You'll have to let us know how you get on
x

they all look lovely gemma! :-) do you watch that program on bbc three called dont tell the bride? one of the people on that either wanted or did get married at nostell priory,i cant remember???

In normal family circumstances, I can see your point gembo.  But my parents have shown no interest in the wedding (other than worrying that their friends / family will "talk behind their backs" if the venue isn't posh enough - they wanted us to have the wedding in a posh cotswolds country house hotel though they made it quite clear it was up to us to foot the bill) and my fiance's parents both have dementia and think we are married and have children already!  We're a bit older, and my fiance has been married before, so we were quite keen to avoid all the fuss.  I was starting to get so stressed out about the cost and the family politics - and I've never envisaged the white dress and traditional ceremony anyway - so we just opted to avoid all that. 

Ah! No I didn't see that, damn!  I'll see if it's on I Player 2nite!  Nostell Priory is lovely but I have a sneeky feeling it will take us way way over budget!

Weddings are so personal aren't they?  One brides heaven is anothers hell but thank goodness for that as we'd all be wanting to go to the same places!

I loved my wedding day but can't really remember the details - not just because it was 22 years ago, or because of champagne either - both my husband and I agree that it was a bit of a blur.  We spent rather a lot of it grinning at each other and if it wasn't for the photographs I think we'd both struggle to remember who was there...

One of my favourite weddings was that of some friends who had almost no money to spare.  They got married in her village church and we all walked over to the village hall for a lunchtime reception that was catered by her mum and her mums Womens Institute friends.  It was quite small and felt incredibly friendly and lots of us stayed to help wash up at the end!!  The whole thing was quite old fashioned with her mum, the WI ladies and friends in the village making the dress, the wedding cake, donating flowers from their gardens, decorating the church and husbands helping with parking.  It was all a bit of a contrast to everything else that 1980's had to offer!!

Good luck with yours :)

ohhh... the priory or waterton park i think. lovely settings though.

dress plans? hair? how hideously are you dressing your bridesmaids??

> Wow, if it was me i'd go for Nostell Priory :-)
> Hotel St Pierre was my least fave - didnt have as much character.
>
> You'll have to let us know how you get on
>

ditto, looked rather bland in comparison to the other three that were anything but lol

Whohoo!! Calm down you'll get me way too excited!!! Not thought about those too much other than the bridesmaid dresses, I'm having a teal & silver colour scheme & they have the most amazing dresses in Coast which I'm hoping to get them.  This is it http://www.coast-stores.com/pws/ProductDetails.ice?ProductID=2143383112&colour=Teal

Going to have a ribbon theme - does that make sense? Ribbons on invites, place cards etc etc!

> because of champagne either

he he, that made me laugh!!!  Your friends wedding sounds so kitsch, I love it!!

I bought my bridesmaid dresses ( for my daughters) in Coast too! As they both said - Lovely fashionable stylish silk and most important for young women of today....modern :-D

Not at all hideous :-D  :-D

Sorry Gembo,
I just thought that you were like many young couples who start out life on a shoe string -yet still spend oodles on a big swish wedding.

Not knowing you and your circumstances, I replied in general. that'll teach me :-)
It's your money and quite rightly you'll do what you want with it.
I'm sure, with family and friends around, your day will be special wherever you have it.

nostall priory looks fabulous. your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life have no regrets and follow your heart, im sure you will make the right choice in the end and keep us informed,

I'm with you on Wentbridge House, love it, the wedding photographs would be amazing in those grounds.

Enjoy looking around them all, you'll know immediately when you pull up outside, let us know which you go for. :-)

Oh, I love a wedding. :-)

oooh..nice... so not dressing them hideously lol.

go on...get a teensy bit excited...

I love the look of the top 2. Wasn't so keen on the 3rd but that is just because I like places with character and it didn't look like it has much. And liked the last one too. We haven't even set a date yet so I'm very jealous!!:-D

Nostell Priory looks lush.

The grounds of Wentbridge look georgous too.

I agree with you Paula, the only reason we're looking at Hotel St Pierre is because it's quite new & reaonably priced, it's situated next to Newmiller dam & there are some great spots round there for photos.  Nostell Prioy would be ideal if they had a hotel, I like the idea of being able to stay there the night before & the wedding night & my guests having somewhere to stay too.  Wentbridge is lovely & the grounds are very well maintained for photos, they have 44 rooms plus 5 mins walk up the road there are 2 very reasonably priced B&B's in the hotel is a bit too expensive!! All sounds too good to be true - watch them be booked up!!!

Hi. Me and OH got married in April, 1st time for him, 2nd for me. We did it on a fairly tight budget and paid ourselves. At the beginning we had a long chat about what we each wanted on the day, and then asked the kids, then looked at how to achieve what we wanted without going mad. I hired a ballgown rather than buying a dress and we had a weekend away on our own rather than a honeymoon. We had our reception at the local golf club who were amazingly helpful with timings and menus, especially as we had 10 kids for the meal and nearly 40 in the evening, loads of places were really unhelpfol when I told them about the kids!! We added personal touches such as old fashioned sweets on the tables and my brother did the photography, even though he's just a keen amateur, and pics were fantastic. We had a great, fun day that everyone enjoyed and it was much better than my first formal wedding. Just go with what the two of you want, and make sure you get it. If you enjoy it, everyone else will. Good luck and have fun with the planning. Also meant to say, involve as manny family and friends as pooss in the planning, then they all have an investment in the day. Sam.

I need help, I've just spent 2 hours, yes that's 2 hours googling teal wedding & printing off lots of ideas!! Teal & chocolate brown seem to go well together so I might do that with a hint of silver - what do you think?  I'm thinking of fishbowls with calla lillies as centrepieces - what do you think? I can hire the bowls for £1.50 for the day instead of buying them at £8ish each!!  I'm getting really excited, looking forward to sharing my ideas & hearing yours!!!

I love Teal and Brown together, it is one of my favourite colour combinations of the moment!! With a hint of silver I think it would be lovely for a wedding. The centrepieces sound lovely and will save you a bomob hiring them for the day instead of buying them. My aunty had balloons as the centrepieces of the tables in the colour theme she was using which was also lovely. Was Winterton that had rooms and cheaper hotels down the road? That sounds ideal as there are bound to be people on a cheaper budget than others and if their hotel is within walking distance it will make life so much easier. Didn't realise you were in West Yorkshire, that is where my Mum is originally from all her side of the family are still there!!!

Glad you like the colours Paula, there's lots of ideas on the internet with that colour scheme which is where I got the idea & I think the silver will break it up nicely, add a bit of shimmer!  Wentbridge is where the other B&B's are, the more I think about it the more I like this place the most especially with the cheaper rooms up the road, I don't want to put people off if they can't afford to stay at Wentbridge.  I'm originally from West Yorkshire, Pontefract is you know where that is.  All our family & majority of our friends still live in the surrounding areas so we thought it would make more sense to get hitched up there so so many people don't have to travel! So many things to think about....I was showing OH all the stuff I'd printed out last night & he seemed genuinely interested esp in the cakes!!! Can't wait for Monday now, I'll keep you updated!!!

Ooooh what sort of cake are you having?!! I want loads of little cup cakes rather than a traditional wedding cake when I finally get around to getting married!! I love the idea of having the B+B's down the road as it gives people the choice without being a hassle.

Nearly forgot yes I know Pontefract!!

> Ooooh what sort of cake are you having?!!

I love the idea of little cup cakes decorated in teal & silver with a standard white fruit cake decorated on top, however OH is not so keen.  His aunt & uncle have offered to pay for our cake so we're all going to go cake tasting closer to the time @ http://www.slattery.co.uk/wedding_cakes.cfm - they made Colleen & Wayne Rooney's cake apparently!!

We went to view the venues yesterday & it's a choice between Wentbridge (although they are forcing us to have 80 people day & 100 evening) & Nostell Priory (which is gorgeous but £1400 more expensive than Wentbridge!!).  We have provisionally booked both for Sept 25th 2010 & we have a week to make our mind up!!

You'll be happy bilbobaggins then, we've just booked Nostell Priory for Sept 25th 2010!!!  The place is jaw droppingly gorgeous & as a real wow factor about it!  The room for the ceremony stands in the old house & had beautiful chandliers, solid oak floors & a grand piano - you have to walk up the sweeping stairs at the front of the house to get in.  We are having a wedding breakfast & evening reception in the old coach house which is loacted in the rose gardens which we will have exclsuive access to all day! All sounds fantastic, I can't wait!! :) :) :) There is a downside though & it's cost, it's about £1400 more expensive than Wentbridge so the budget has taken a bit of a hammering!:(  What do you all think?

Can I come?  :)  :)  :)

Gembo.

That sounds absolutley fantastic.  Is there someone who can play the piano for you? That would be lovely.
You lucky people, you will have an amazing day to remember.
It is amazing how much money you can save when you have a GOOD reason LOL

> Can I come

yeah me too! :-D

thats really good gemma! it looked amazing when i seen it on tv.you'll have an amazing day! :-)