Norwich/Norfolk wedding help!!!!!!

How many people are you looking at? i am from Norfolk originally and my dad still lives in Norwich so we looked around there at venues first before deciding it would be easier to get married closer to our home in London. Cley windmill holds 20 and is licensed for weddings if required and is beautiful. I think from memory they can do a drinks reception afterwards - we seriously thought about here because it would be very small, not religious but not registry office and would allow us to have a few drinks with family, go for dinner somewhere else and then have a party with our friends. The only thing that stopped us was that none of our friends live in Norfolk so we would have been dragging them all the way up there for a party and no wedding which didn't feel right. In Norwich there is a lovely venue down past the Waterrats (think that's what it's called - music venue down near riverside, bit of an indie place) that has a traditional beamed room upstairs then downstairs is a barn like room (again not big) that you can have music in. for the party there is a venue in one of the city education centre buildings that is in a wine cellar (think curved ceilings, long rooms) which was a fun place for a party.

As you are potentially looking for last minute deals I would suggest calling anywhere you like the look of and asking for their best price - they won't have anything else booked at that time of year. I found if I searched Norfolk weddings a ot of venues were listed.

Let me know more details about numbers and I can have more of a think

KK

Thanks for your reply

If we do it seperately, we're looking at between 20 & 30 guests for the wedding (family and a couple of close friends). If we did it all at the same venue we would probably just invite everyone to both parts and there would be around 150-200 people!

I did have a look at Cley Windmill, and it looks gorgeous, but it's a big chunk of our budget just for the ceremony hire and not including any food. I think it was about £600? We'd obviously save on the catering that way as we would do it a day or two before then have the party on the saturday and set up ourselves, but i'm not sure whether the amount we'd save would warrant what they charge if you get me?! I think I probably need to work out costs or paying for catering and costs of catering ourselves to see what money we have left to play with maybe?

x

If you are looking at using a registrar in any licensed venue you're probably looking at a minimum of about £450 anyway.

The cheapest way is a simple registry office ceremony which is the 'legal' marriage, then you can have a party anywhere you like - non wedding licensed venues will often be considerably cheaper and a lot more flexible.

You could have the 'legal' bit any time you like, then as part of a weekend celebration you can have a blessing of some sort (sounds like you're looking at a humanist kind of ceremony) wherever you like.

Unless it has a registrar present, it is not a legal marriage, so even if you went for the humanist ceremony you'd still have to go through the routine of a registrar, even if that was only "for the bit of paper", but make more of it in whatever way you wanted to at the weekend celebrations.

I had a look at venues in Norfolk, but more KL way. Problem is that most nice places have minimum numbers of 70 at least (which luckily is our original guess)

What I found is that room hire prices are usually £450-500, which is obviously on top of registrar prices. Maybe you could do what AJ suggested and have a registery office ceremony (in jeans and tshirt and just with you and maybe two other people) as the legal bit and then get someone to conduct a blessing/ceremony as you'd like it at the venue?

Hello fellow nearly Norfolk bride!

I would push Cley on the price because if you're going mid week in November they aren't going to have much business - TBH it will be FREEZING up there with the wind but I love the scenery so would put up with it! It might also be worth having a look at the pubs in Holkam/Holt because some of them are huge and might have a big function room that you could have your party in that isn't too far away.

Any function room on a Friday or Saturday though is going to get pricey as is the band because that is their peak evening particularly if you get too close to Christmas and you may find things are already getting booked up for such a big group. So even if you do your humanist ceremony it might not work out massivley cheaper because it is a Saturday if you choose a proper venue. The original idea of a chuch hall would be your cheapest bet and skip the humanist person - you are essentially paying for the same thing twice which would be nice but as you are on such a tight budget - is it really essential?

Sorry - very quick post as I'm on my way out the door but hopefully it makes sense!

K