Choosing the venue was by far the most difficult decision about planning our wedding; perhaps because there were some things that we knew we wanted from the outset, either from personal preference or because of things we had thought were particularly good at other weddings we’d been to.

Our Wedding Venue Requirements

• We both knew we didn’t want to get married in a church, but wanted something more than an impersonal registery office
• Once we’d counted family and very close friends, we reckoned we’d need the venue to comfortably hold 60 people for the ceremony, and maybe a few more (possibly 120) in the evening
• We wanted everything in one place so people didn’t have to drive between venues – meaning people could relax, and have a glass of wine.
• One glass of wine sometimes leads to another, so we wanted everyone to be able to stay at the venue. We needed a hotel that could accommodate 60+ people at a reasonable price (we’d already be asking our guests to take time off work for a Thursday wedding, so we didn’t want them to have to spend heavily on a hotel too).
• We wanted an early wedding to make the most of the day, because every other bride and groom we knew told us how the day goes by too quickly.
• We wanted to ply our guests with lots of drinks without breaking the bank!

There were also some things that we realised we liked the idea of as we went along and discussed ideas …

• mulled wine before the ceremony
• a jazz band after the ceremony
• a space for people to sit and talk away from the noise of the evening reception without being isolated from it
• a flexible menu and someone who would have some ideas about the food

These are all fairly straightforward requirements, but when combined they made the decision more difficult as we were looking at the whole package in one go: A venue that could host the ceremony, the wedding breakfast and the evening reception, as well as providing food and drinks packages, and accommodation.

Wedding Venue Brochures

We did look at some cool locations that didn’t offer the whole package; places that could do “just the ceremony” or “just the reception”. These served to consolidate our thoughts that we wanted everything in one place, avoiding the hassle of guests having to drive anywhere once they had arrived for the ceremony, and also, avoiding the problem of guests having to arrange taxis back to their hotels.

So we went to loads of websites and ordered loads of brochures from hotels. We also drove round areas that we thought might make nice locations and dropped-in to several hotels unannounced. This soon gave us an idea about the amount of money we could expect to pay for a venue and meal, and a good idea of what we’d get for the money.

Once we had this basic local knowledge it became quite easy to go through the brochures and make ruthless decisions based on simple criteria, such as:

• It doesn’t look like a place we’d want to get married in – often a decision made as soon as we looked at the brouchure.
• Not enough ceremony capacity.
• Too expensive – particularly related to corkage or drinks package charges.
• No accommodation, not enough accommodation or outrageously expensive accommodation.
• It’s in the wrong general location – with guests coming from all over the UK we were concerned about their travel time.

Hampshire Wedding Venue Shortlist

We had narrowed it down to 3 although we weren’t convinced straight away by any of them.

• Carey’s Manor in Brockenhurst.

  This hotel was quite magnificent, with log fires and fantastic spa facilities. The ceremony room was lovely but the wedding breakfast room felt quite confined, probably because there was little garden to look out onto. Here the accommodation rates were reasonable and they would have done us a great deal – the event organiser was very professional and very pleasant too and did her utmost to make us feel welcome. However, the evening reception room let them down as it was very modern and quite some way from anywhere that would have been comfortable for people to just sit and chat away from the noise. So we were doubtful about this one.

• The Montagu arms in Beaulieu.

  This was a small but beautiful hotel and the sister hotel to Carey’s. The woman that originally showed us round was incredibly friendly and helpful even though it wasn’t her job. The various ceremony rooms were cosy and romantic with open fires. The reception room was large. Every bedroom was decorated in a different style. In fact everything about the place was fantastic. However, on a second viewing the ‘proper’ event coordinator showed us round and she was definitely more official and didn’t really give us the warm and fuzzy feeling we’d hoped considering we were talking about one of the most important day of our lives. I mean, she would be there on the day, and would we want someone we didn’t really click with to be part of it? (I’m sure she is perfect for some people but this is something that definitely needs to be considered for any venue). Also, and this was the clincher, the price of the rooms was waaaaay over £100 per night and they wouldn’t budge on this even though they knew they’d have a full house mid week in February. Crazy. So we decided we couldn’t possibly ask our friends and family to pay that much, especially since they’d really be needing to stay two nights not one.

• Marwell Hotel in Colden Common.

  This is a modern hotel set next to Marwell Zoo. Dahlia, the event organiser there, was absolutely lovely and so very personable. The hotel itself is just fabulous. It has a real family feel yet also is reminiscent of a game reserve somewhere in Africa. All the rooms are modern yet comfortable and with the splashes of animal print this place doesn’t take itself too seriously without losing any of its professionalism. The room where we would have our reception was lovely. Really spacious and looking out into the forest, with it’s own bar, yet right next to the public bar so people could escape if they wanted to just talk without feeling they were out of the general atmosphere. Dahlia had already showed her worth by suggesting a few things they could do, which not only demonstrated the hotels flexibility but also an option that was extremely tempting …a hog roast for the evening reception! After all this good stuff, when we were shown the various ceremony rooms they were quite business-like and not really what we wanted. We mentioned this to Dahlia and she suggested we look at Marwell Hall for the ceremony – it was only in the Zoo next door, so really close.

Well by this time we had ruled out the Montagu, but Carey’s was still a possibility. On Dahlia’s advice we went up to Marwell Hall. We were greeted by Katie who showed us round this lovely listed building in the middle of a conservation zoological park. Like Dahlia, Katie was great fun and we immediately had a rapport with her. She explained what they do to the place for a wedding (all the little things like take vistors signs down, unprice the local artist’s pictures, etc).

We were quite taken by the place, and the staff, but it would mean that our ceremony and reception would be in different places, however, Katie mentioned that there was a road train that would pick up people from the hotel so they wouldn’t have to walk. We thought this small eccentric touch would add to the charm and individuality of our day and we were sold. This would of course give people a change of scenery without them having to do anything (and I would get to arrive in a nice car!). The Hall was quite expensive to hire, but as it is a chartiy, we felt happy to pay, rather than lining an over-priced hotel’s pockets. Also they didn’t stiff us for corkage, so we could buy our own champagne and they would charge us the same corkage as if it were a normal bottle of wine!

So, we decided on a ceremony at Marwell Hall, preceded and succeeded by drinks, and wedding breakfast and evening reception in Marwell hotel, a short train ride away.

Rich & I had been together for over 9 years. We knew we were going to be together but we just hadn’t got round to doing the whole marriage thing. We’d owned our own house for nearly 6 years and things were just ticking along nicely. On my birthday last year we went out for a meal and talked about the future and stuff and after a few glasses of wine and a lot of talking round the subject Rich asked me to marry him – YAY! – apparently for the third time!?! I just hadn’t noticed his previous proposals (doh!) which made for a good Grooms speech!

Setting the date

Although deciding to get married is a personal choice, choosing the date of a wedding may have implications. In our case we were about 6 months from the 10th anniversary of our meeting when we decided to get married. This date was always very special to us, so it made sense that it should be the date of our wedding – any other date would seem so arbitrary. However, with Rich doing his PhD we were concerned that the organisation required to get married might cause problems for his studies. We were also a little worried about finding venues (and everything else) at such short notice; although as the date fell on a Thursday in February, it turned out to be an advantageous time because everywhere was available). Another concern was that our guests would need to take time off work (the Thursday and the Friday), and if they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) arrange this, then we’d be left with no guests.

Wedding Guests

You want people to be there, but in order to know whether they will be you need to send out invitations with details, so it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Fortunately this wasn’t a problem as very few people could not get time off, and one couple even said they wished they had decided to get married on a Thursday as it meant they still had their weekend once the festivities were over – which was welcomed with travel time and hangovers.

Something we decided to do was to not tell anyone about our decision to get married until we had formulated a few opinions of our own. This was simply because neither of us had a clue about what we really wanted from the day and we wanted to get an idea about what eachother wanted first before other people made “of course you have to…” suggestions. This was actually a really cool decision as it meant it was our secret for a couple of months and we got to really get to know what type of things we both wanted from the day.