Hello! Nervous newbie

Hi there Congratulations!! I'm relatively new myself and have found this site to be brilliant for ideas and especially planning. The first thing I would suggest is to sort out your guest list and have an affirmative on numbers and then do your searching for a venue. There are so many different rates for wedding packages that you need to have an idea of numbers for the daytime and then the evening.

Plus lots of places get booked up very quickly so once you decide your venue, make sure they have availability and secure it with a deposit then you can relax a bit more and move on to the fun things. As far as deciding a venue goes, if your stuck then make appointments to go and see the venues you like and sure enough after a good luck around you should start to get an idea of what you want. Plus talking to the wedding coordinators can give you a lot of food for thought.

Also try and get in to a wedding fayre if you can for ideas too.

It would be an idea to go through and make a list of all the things you need for your big day and the wedding planning section on here under budget is good and start to get an idea of your budget for each thing you need. Flowers, transport, venue, dress, groomsmen etc.

Ooooo theres so much )

Hiya, Welcome to hitched!!! I'm getting married on the 28th June 2013 so quite close to you.

So far we have (in this order)

Got a rough idea of numbers for day and evening guests,

Put together a estimated budget,

chose a venue and paid a deposit,

chose a church and confirmed that the vicar will marry us.

and chose a colour scheme.

Hello ? Welcome to Hitched!

To whittle venues down, you need to see what is best for your budget, you then need to phone them make an appointment to veiw the venue and see if it 'feels' right.

I booked my photographer, DJ, and florist as soon as I had my date confirmed as the highly reccomended ones tend to get booked up fast.

Hi!

Congrats on your engagement!! I've only been on hitched for about 2 months and haven't done much planning, but like 'lady_chilli' I have come across a lot of advice.

First of all...the guest list. This is crucial to knowing how big your venue needs to be. If you know how many people you have, or even roughly, you can begin to look for venues. That is one of the first things venue owner will ask.

As soon as I became engaged, I was on the internet requesting brochures from hundreds of places!! I spent time looking over them, trying to understand all the different prices, wedding breakfast menus etc. It was all so confusing!! I had a chat with my dad and he said first thing to do is set a budget. Decide how you're gonna plan your wedding. You're either gonna do it a cheaply as possible (cheaply can still mean nice though! It just may include more DIY). Cheap may mean looking at village halls for receptions rather than hotels. (I've looked into this...for a weekend down south, I can hire a hall for £900, but a hotel for a day could be £5000.) Or you wanna save a bit of money but still have it be nice...so you may stick to barns (theres some beautiful ones out there and I'm very torn!!!) or you want to go all out and get a hotel! It's what you want the day to be like.

Have you spoken to your fiance about it? Has he got any input? What sort of wedding does he want?

Venues such as barns, hotels etc. something require you to only use their caterers (I've found this to be quite disappointing in the food they have on their menus), but other places can allow you to bring in caterers. That's one of the first questions you should ask venues: if you can use your own caterers.

Hope this helps and isn't too long an essay!!!

xxx

Hi there Nervous Newbie - welcome to the wonderful world of hitched.co.uk!

I've found this site fab for getting help on everything, so use all of us lovely ladies out there as much as you need!

It sounds to me as if you've made great progress already - having an idea about location, colour scheme etc is half the battle. As unromantic as it sounds, budget plays a role in the decision making process. If you have a guest list, then you can at least get a rough idea how much each of the venues will cost you.

My wedding is in 7 weeks, and so I'm pretty much sorted out, but there have been some wobbles along the way, so I will share some of my wisdom with you!

1. Think about whether you are happy to share your wedding with non-wedding guests - a lot of places, such as hotels etc, will undoubtedly have their normal guests there on your Big Day - you need to decide whether or not you are happy with that. Some venues, such as the one that we are having our wedding at, will give you exclusive use of the venue, but some come at a price.

2. Think about what are the most important, must haves for your Big Day. Whether that is a beautiful venue, or great food and wine, or, of course, The Dress! It's quite easy to get swept away with wedding planning... everyone has their own views and ideas, which is lovely and helpful, but sometimes it can feel a bit like you are drowning... I once went to a wedding fayre and some dude there convinced me that I just HAD to have doves... ?!? Think about what you and H2B want. Be prepared for some battles too... family members can be quite outspoken!

3. Quite a lot of venues also have restrictions on what you can or can't have. Some insist on you only using their approved range of musicians for example, and others will not allow fireworks or even confetti.

4. It's also worth having a think about how many people you are going to have throughout the day and for how long. Our wedding is about 80 people who are there all day, and so we are feeding them twice (hog roast in the evening). If you are going to have a large number of people rock up in the evening, don;t forget to factor in whether you need to feed and water them too when they arrive.

I hope that that helps and that I don't sound horribly regimental and unromantic (am a litigation lawyer, so my work occasionally creeps into the tone of my emails!).

Kate xxx