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Diary - 34 weeks to go!
Wine from the vineyard, anyone?
Date: 14-09-02
Viewing number two - this place. It has its
own vineyard (the produce of which is on the wine list) and two sets of different size
rooms. The first set has a converted barn feel to it - really nice on the inside, and the
way they were setting it up for a wedding that day was quite nice. It has an adjoining
room which is used as the reception room, bar and dancefloor. These rooms can be set up
to seat a maximum of 60 people. Not quite enough - we might have to be brutal with
the guest list with this room.
The second set of rooms is massive. A little too big, we feel....we'd just get lost in
that sort of room. For this one, it's a minimum of 110 people. A few too many for
us.
So, although it's nice enough, it just isn't right for us. The rooms are the wrong
size, and, while walking around the grounds, we found there weren't that many photographic
opportunities (there's a rather horrible 60's looking monstrousity dominating a lot of the
nicer looking buildings). Even less if it rains.
We bought a bottle of the wine to sample, too. I wasn't that fussed, myself. Very "Germanic"
apparently. Whatever that means.
Drove past Quy Mill (they don't have a page themselves, but details can be found
here and
here. The pictures don't do them justice at all) to check it out in the daylight - we're
seeing it on Monday. The place looks brilliant! The info pack they sent us looks good, too.
I think we're setting our hopes on this place before we've even been inside!
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The first viewing
Date: 13-09-02
Went to see this place about having the
reception there. Not bad, not bad. Although it didn't really jump out at us
as if it was *the* place. The whole thing would have to take place in a marquee,
which isn't too bad, but it bumps the cost up - £1200 just for the hire of the marquee,
and for an additional £800, you get sole use of the whole hotel, which is what we'd
prefer.
So that's £2000 before you even start thinking about food and drink. It's getting a bit
pricey if we're going to go with the 80-odd for a sit-down meal. Maybe we'll leave this
one for now. I did take some pictures, which I might get round to uploading at some point.
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Which date
Date: 12-09-02
We've decided to look at having the wedding earlier on in the year. It's just getting
a bit too hard to organise it in September because: (1) nowhere seems to have anything
available, and (2) I don't know exactly when my three month uni course starts in
September.
So when are we going to have it?
April/May. Yikes. That's only 7 or 8 months compared to a year it was going to be!
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Venue shopping
Date: 11-09-02
We made up a list of posible venues last night, and split the list in two. We'd already
worked out a series of questions to ask the venues, so it was just a case of rattling
through the numbers to see what they could do for us.
My first one was the first disappointment of many - the place (very close to our house
- a very nice converted water mill) wanted a minimum of £8000 spent between the
whole wedding party! Er....we'll think about it, shall we?
Some of them look absolutely brilliant but the most disappointing part about it (other
than the obvious cost thing with the one before) was the lack of dates. I knew we'd be
pushing it trying to look in September (or August at a push), but there just doesn't
seem to be anything available. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board.
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