Keep lucking out with venue

Hmmm could you do it a bit backwards if it means having your dream venue...

Why dont you have the meal first, the 'final supper' and then at 7 tie the knot, then get straight down to the party!

Or is that daft?

That's not daft at all I have considered that but it means more to my oh that he doesn't see my dress before the ceremony than having the gardens as our venue.
I am glad I'm not the only one who thought of this though as my oh looked at me as if I was crazy.

Unless...

You wear a different dress for the meal, you could have loads of fun with this, it can be glam and elegant, it doesn't even have to be white!! Or it could be a playful tea length dress, then you change into the actual wedding dress just before the ceremony, so he still gets that suprise!!

Or, would the strict garden people allow you to have a little Humanist ceremony (it would still involve the public milling around in the background), so there are no legalities if that is the issue? Then at 7pm, you cold sign the papers after dinner?

I don't see why it MUST be closed for you to have a small ceremony outside? Obviously you would have to deal with the onlookers, but you would only be there for about half hour, surely?

Our ceremony venue is a public place, and they cannot close it at all while we are getting hitched (it is a court & castle). They can close off the ceremony room for half hour, but when it comes to drinks in the gardens, there will be the general public about. That was a sacrifice we were more than willing to make as the venue is absolutely stunning. Thankfully, it is never heaving there, as far as I know. There were only 2 other people there on a scorching Sunday in May!

Aww I hope you manage to sort something out, as it is lovely. On the bright side, at least it is still nice and light in August at 7pm And the sunset photos would be stunning!!

The whole thing is going to be humanist as we want to get legally married on our anniversary which happens to also ne the date we got engaged but as that is during the week we figured a humanist ceremony at the weekend was the way to go as most of our guests will be coming from Scotland and some from down south so they would need to take a few days for a weekday wedding.

It needs to be closed as they think it would be too much work trying to set up with the gardens still open, it's the main pathway into the gardens.
It's normally fairly busy at that time of the year, they where fairly un keen on the outdoor idea to start with and told us it would be up to the registrar if they would allow it but we got round it with the face we are having a humanistic ceremony.

I hadn't even thought about sunset photos they will look amazing. Going to have to make sure what ever we do we get some sunset photos.

I'm sure we will work out a solution or find a suitable venue I'm a little bit more worried about date availability as we are now at the one year mark for August!

Thanks heavy Metal Maiden your suggestions and support mean a lot ?

It's OK Can't you do the ceremony in a room? Do they have rooms? I just picture a building on site, or is it literally a garden....

If they have a beautiful room with a view, then I guess the compromise is to get married in there, and then have the meal etc. But you can still have loads of lovely photos and drinks outside by the cascade?

It really is lovely inside but unfortunately just not what I want as the idea of marrying outside in front of the fountain is what I had in mind. We are going up there next week to see how busy it is in the evening our self and if it's not too busy then I don't see why they can't accommodate it and we will be re talking to them to see what we can do.