First of all, hello! I've been reading for a little while, but not really been commenting as I feel so all over the place at the moment. I'm going to start with a bit of an 'about' before I get to my wobble!
I got engaged at the end of May, and started looking straight away as I coincidentally had a couple of weeks off. I originally thought I would have small budget and leant towards a diy village hall style as I didn't want to compromise on guest numbers (I've found it really touching watching my friends actually get married and didn't want to have a small family 'do for that bit.) and liked the look of them.
My OH is an athiest and so a church was always a categorical no from him, so it was always going to a be a civil ceremony.
I became a massive stresshead, worrying and getting upset about everything money, guests, looking horrible in dresses, picking bridesmaids, finding bridesmaid dresses, but most of all the venue. I thought I loved somewhere, but when I visited I didn't like it so much, another place I went to see I thought were liscensed for civil ceremonies but they let it lapse this year as they weren't getting enough people, I didn't love love it, but could see the potential the more I thought about it, I started imaging my wedding there. Then I took my dad to see it and he hated hated hated it, we visited a hotel that I hadn't really liked that much and he liked it loads. I got dejected and didn't know what to do. My OH said I'd been nothing but miserable since we got engaged. I think I find it a lot of pressure on one day and one set of decisions, and even for a not very expensive wedding, a massive amount to spend on one day.
People gave me advise, telling my family we would do what we wanted, but most of all to have a chat with them. I arranged to get them together, my (divorced) parents and my OH and I sat down and had a (mostly) civil conversation, with only a couple of explosions from my dadzilla, and managed to agree the diy nature and the (largish) guest list. It was hairy in places, but got to a good resolution, no venue in place, but some agreement on way forward.
I'd e-mailed a hotel venue earlier in the week and they mentioned an open day (that day), after my dad left we ended up going with my mum to see it, despite myself, I ended up really liking it, they were so lovely and flexible and the price seemed like it would end up being similar to diy, and they gave enough flexibility to make it my own. My OH had been to a wedding there, so already liked it and my mum liked it too. We could have everything there which would make it easier. They had our proposed date available, and it just seemed like it would fit everything (apart from it being the opposite of what I'd been looking for).
With some to-ing and frowing we arranged to see it with my dad about a week later. In the meantime I read tripadvisor reviews and wobbled, as some were not so favourable. But, the (newish) manager replied to every one and some of the things people complained about (it is being refurbished) shouldn't have been too much of a problem. I'm also not so fussy about some of the things people care about, so came to the conclusion that it would be ok. My OH had had a good experience at the wedding he'd gone to, and they seemed like they were trying to sort things out. We called the registrar and they had one timeslot available for our day, so we took a punt and paid the £15 to reserve it, in the hope my dad would like it too.
My dad went to see it, he liked it, he wanted me to think about changing my date (argh!) but generally was positive and so I asked about 1 alternative date (that was not available) and then booked it and paid a deposit. Then I went on tripadvisor again and there was a new (negative) review, and I just have gone into major wobble mode. Combined with having major decision paralysis about wedding insurance (my oh is epileptic and it is currently not completely controlled, his dad recently had a heart attack, and my nan is not in the best of health so I don't know which to pick to make me feel covered). I wobbled all day at work yesterday and struggled to be at all productive, had a massive cry last night and I just feel awful. I thought I'd feel better having picked and booked a venue, but now I am having major venue wobbles and so it isn't any better than it was.
If you managed to read all that, well done, sorry for such a ramble. the tl:dr is, I'm stressing majorly, I didn't want to be this way, how do I deal with my tripadvisor negative review dread and bleh, help!
Thank you if you read that.
