Provisional booking for venue... what next?! A few wonderings...

Our venue has let us book without putting any money down until we have given notice (This friday) then we are going to arrange another meeting a pay a lump sum off.

I get married this year and haven't stepped foot in a bridal shop yet. The changing my mind thing worries me too.. But actual shopping for a dress worries me more lol, but personally if I was getting married next year I'd wait a bit longer, think most people wait until the 12 months to go mark.

BB what sort of dress are you looking at getting? Any ideas yet?

We were allowed to put a provisional deposit on the registrar to guarantee our date and time then confirmed it within the year of the wedding. I think we actually booked the venue first though, although didn't put down a full deposit until we knew the registrar was free.

I'm like you in that I want to know everything is done NOW! Most of our stuff is all booked now, so just sorting the details. When i bought my dress, I started worrying I would see things I liked more, but to be honest, before I got engaged, I hardly saw any dresses because I wasn't looking for them, so simply, I've just stopped looking!

Once I found mine, I have no need to go to any dress shops and apart from noseying at peoples on here (and yes getting dress envy!), I just don't go searching for them, much easier!

We have to put down £500 non-refundable

The Staffordshire website says the earliest we can give notice is 12 months - does that mean we cannot arrange a registrar before giving notice? I find this time limitation very frustrating!

All great ideas thanks Kat! I will get in touch with the offices and see what options they offer.

Pandorasbox, I think you should book it. I doubt there will be a problem. The venue might have a few registrars on their books ?

Pandorasbox - Some districts allow you to provisionally book the registrar before the 12 months mark, mine wanted to charge me £50 (Not taken off the total) so I didn't book it until a bit later as I was only off the 12 month mark by 6 weeks. I'd call if I were you to see what your area allows. I'm not far from you, I had to book with Shropshire Registry so it may have a similar rule and in your case would be worth spending an extra £50.

I have absolutely no idea.. Although have seen a Maggie dress I like but I'm scared to go and try anything on! ?

I should pay your deposit. Phone the registrars now & explain the situation to them. They will undoubtably have come across this situation before & will know what you should do. You may find they let you 'reserve' a registrar for your date now without giving notice until you get to 12 months before the wedding.

We were allowed to provisionally book the registrar before the 12 month mark so we did that and then paid the deposit on our venue. That was the way the venue actually recommended doing it. Our booking was made official once we had given notice and the appropriate paperwork had been passed on. We have so far paid nothing for our registrar (only the fee for giving notice) and don't even know how much it is going to be until they review their charges sometime between now and april

Our venue and registrar let us provisionally book without paying any deposits until we had given our notice 12 months before, , , ,

We're getting married outside the area we live in, so it's a little different but I rang the N.Yorkshire registrar and checked that a registrar was available on the date we wanted. They offered us a choice of two times and I paid £25 to 'hold' the booking until we could give notice in our hometown (on or after 1st October 2010 in our case). We then booked our venue, knowing we had a registrar.

We've since given notice, recieved a pack from the Registrar and we're all sorted. Unfortunatly we have to wait until April to know what the Registrar fee will be.

Whhhhy? Just bite the bullet and do it......?