We recently visited my parents in Derby and Cat went to have another dress fitting. We also went to see the registrar to go over the ceremony and some questions we had. We saw the senior registrar who promised us that we were paying good money to them to make sure everything went without a hitch. On second thoughts, maybe that’s a bad thing. The good news is that he said we can sue him if it all goes wrong!

After that we went back to Mickleover Court to meet up with Tracey to finalise the plans. I think it is fair to say that we were both really impressed with her, she answered all of our questions and was very competent and came up with some great ideas. We have all but put into place the venue side of things – we just have to pay for it!! We also met up with the chair covers woman, and we have some ribbon to practise tying our bows!!

My outfit and Adam’s are now complete, the cravats having been the last item to get. We’ve not had our final fitting as it were, but I’m confident that everything will fit.

We’ve been in touch with our photographer who shall shortly be scouting out the venue. We’re going to try and meet with her when we are next in Derby to discuss the exact photos we want, and to ask her any final questions.

The only other progress has been my speech. I managed to start and pretty much finish it in about an hour, although I haven’t looked at it since. My fear is that everything I wrote and found funny, was down to tiredness or my appaling sense of humour!

Within the next few days, we will be running through every aspect of the day on paper to fill in all the gaps we might have missed. Things like the guestbook, which my mum has very kindly offered to look for. But I’m pretty confident that all the major things are sorted.

Besides which we have plenty of time to sort things out – looks at calendar – or maybe not…

Last weekend Cat and I travelled up to Derby to try and find a venue to host our wedding. We plan to have the ceremony, breakfast and evening reception all under one roof, but there are a limited number of places registered to hold marriages.

So armed with a list of a dozen or so, we filtered out about 5 or 6 we really liked the look of (they looked nice and were reasonably priced!) and phoned up to book appointments to go and see them. In no particular order they were:

Derbyshire County Cricket Club – The England vs South Africa cricket teams were playing so it was a hive of activity. My dad would happily have stayed! The venue was very nice, and fairly modern. We’d have been happy there. The prices were quite low too.

The Stuart Hotel – A shambles. The guy showing us round couldn’t care less, and by the time the girl our appointment should have been with turned up, we were already mentally out of the door.

Derby Conference Centre – An ex-British Rail building, it is quite nice on the outside, but inside it was still too much like a conference centre to be a strong candidate for a wedding venue.

Coopers Arms – Very nice, I’ve been to a wedding there before. Just a bit too expensive, but a nice old house feel to it.

Pride Park – One of Cat’s favourites, more so that us so called Derby fans! Mark who showed us round was a star and couldn’t have been more helpful. We got a free tour of the stadium, I got to go out to the pitch, and we saw the changing rooms too. Would have been great to get married with the view of the pitch in front of us!

The International Hotel – The cheapest of them all, and you can see why. If money had been very tight, it would have been ok, but as it stands, we saw better for not a fortune more. Needs quite a bit of updating.

Mickleover Court Hotel – Perfect. Absolutely stunning hotel. Fantastic quality feel to it. And strangely, very reasonably priced. A winner all round. It had everything. Great looks, swimming pool and gym, free room for the bride and groom, and a lovely manor to take photos just around the corner. We knew immediately that this was the one, and it would have taken something incredible to dislodge it from our hearts!

We are just in the final stages of booking the venue and registrar for the day. Of all the venues we saw, money aside, the Mickleover Court Hotel really was the one that stood out for us. You can see more of it here – Menzies Mickleover Court Hotel. A perfect venue for the perfect marriage!!