Why did you pick your venue?

We nearly didn't go to even visit our venue as I assumed it was wayyy over budget, but in fact it is very cheap in comparison to other similar places.

It was chosen for its stunning Barn, for the wedding breakfast and evening, and its sweeping outside space (I love being outside) with seating and tables and just how truly beautiful the place is.

We love the staff there too, instantly warmed to them better than we did at other venues.. and the menus all look really great!

We wanted a venue with a ceremony licence, otherwise we would have gone the tipi route I think.

We visited our venue, however, it had benefits we hadn't even considered: plumbing, a catering standard kitchen, indoor and outdoor space. the ability to completely DIY or use their recommended suppliers, contacts of suppliers who had been there previously, a wedding coordinator and bar staff so room changes etc get done for us.

Added to which our venue is run by and for a charity so the money isn't swallowed by some corporate machine and it's inexpensive compared to similar venues in the area.

Ok, I found my dream venue. I was in love. I wanted it so much. But they wanted £9k venue hire alone on a saturday. i was heartbroken. how in the hell could we justify £9k for the use of two rooms?????

mr winter shut me down. so i began looking again. i liked another one a lot. a lot, a lot, but my cousin had married there so it wouldn't be a new venue to my family and i hated the room the used for the disco. they were within budget but i needed to look at other options because i just wasn't sure yet. so i found another (our first night hotel now incidentally!) and it was nice.....but it wasn't it. it was also £3k more than venue 2 (cousin venue).

so i was now 3 fave's in with no decision. we went to see a local purpose built wedding venue. it was LOVELY but £4k venue hire and very, VERY modern- still wasn't it. mr winter liked it more than me but in the week we viewed it, 8 people posted wedding photo's from this venue on facebook and each was as samey as the last. we decided if we were paying that much for a building, we wanted it to scream us and this didn't.

we had two left on the list. easthampstead park and loseley park. neither set me on fire looking online but both were suitable and within budget.

i poured over the websites for weeks but eventually we decided to view loseley because we both really wanted a barn.

i bawled like a baby the whole way around. it was PERFECT. it had EVERYTHING we wanted. EVERYTHING. it was a million times better than it looked online and we paid the venue hire in cash there and then!

i've been back 5 time since for wedding fairs and meetings and each time i've cried. we had a meeting there two weeks ago and as we were leaving wild deer ran across our path. we had another meeting last week and the whole time we were there i was breathless and my face ached from smiling.

i honestly thought after we lost venue 1 that whatever i ended up with would never be as good but genuinely, our venue is better than anything i'd seen before. it is just everything we both could ever have wanted. even writing this i cannot stop beaming!

so that's how and why we picked ours!

Top 3 reasons:

1. Food

2. We could get married there and have the reception in the same place

3. It wouldn't swamp our small party

Bonuses:

It's very pretty, and we have exclusive use.

We knew it was for us before we went to view it, and loved it. We looked at one other place which was mostly aesthetics, but it didn't tick the top 3 boxes.

We picked one we could afford in the right location.

when that went bust (which they knew was going to happen when they took our booking!) we started the search again. Our new venue is one i discounted for being too expensive in the first round of searching. As our first venue breached our contract (thank you law degree!) we chose our new venue because its beautiful and just what we always wanted and the first venue is paying the difference :-)

I really wanted a barn and had always pictured that sort of wedding. We fell in love with one barn and it made me emotional walking along the imaginary aisle in it but were just slightly concerned about lack of space if the weather was bad as the only other room to go to whilst the tables were being set up was the bar area which would have maybe fit about 50 people, we're inviting 90! On a whim i'd found another venue that i just booked a random appointment for, another barn. We walked in and were wowed! I also got emotional again walking down the aisle!

Apart from that 'feeling' it also had the extra space and accommodation on site. Plus the package they offered was cheaper and a really good deal!

I think it's a case of you just know, you get that feeling! We certainly did ... i'm hoping other aspects of the wedding hunt will be like this and i just know lol

We wrote our guest list and realised we needed a venue for 150+ and that ruled out some of our local approved venues so we viewed the rest. There were only two venues where we could actually could afford to cater for that many people. One of them was far more attractive and had outside space so we picked that. Sorted.

The first thing that made me want to go and look around it was the fact it was about a two minute drive from our house! Then the more research I did into it I found it was fantastic value compared to similar venues nearby, the reviews for food and customer service are brilliant and it looked really striking in the photos. When we visited me and OH loved it straight away and felt so comfortable there. Definitely the right choice for us!

I was watching Sarah Beanie Property Ladder back in 2006 and there was a barn with the most beautiful lake and grounds that a couple purchased and converted to a wedding venue. I thought at the time that when I get married, I'd like it to be a venue like that.

Fast forward to 2008, whilst browsing on Facebook, I stumbled upon pictures of my ex colleague's wedding. Lakes, 18th century barns, beautiful grounds... I stopped at my track... that's my dream venue! Then I forgot about it.

2012. Time to plan my wedding. I immediately remembered my ex colleagues venue so booked an appointment to see it. As soon as we drove up the drive, we knew it was it was it. We booked it simply because it was 'the one'.

Full of rustic charm, feels very comfortable being there, staff are fab and i absolutely love it! ?

There were a whole load of reasons, but the main reason was the location - the views from the back are absolutely stunning!