Mark it in your calendars!

Finally, after the contract was perfect, signed and sent, we provisionally booked the date at the Derby registrar and we booked an appointment to give notice of our wedding at the Milton Keynes registrar.

The cheque for the venue was also sent and the wedding insurance was bought.

It’s all on the way now and if all goes according to the plan, we will get married on Sunday, 28th June 2009 at 3 pm

Still lot’s to do though, and the bugetting has been adapted. Oh dear wedding are expensive!

Picking our venue was only half the battle. Once we’d decided where to hold our wedding, the next step was to let them know, so they could send us out a contract. We got in touch, and after lots of questions, emails bounced forwards and backwards, we got a copy of the contract in the post.

Apart from Cat’s name being completely wrong (mine was perfect which was unusual), there were still a few other things not on the contract that worried me (no drinks package, no sign of a discount for having a Sunday wedding etc).

More to-ing and fro-ing ensued, but I’m glad to say we’ve managed to get a contract we are happy to put our names on. We just need to know who exactly to pay, and where to send it to. Please, we want to give you money!!

My next tasks are phoning the registrar in Derby to make sure we have someone to perform the ceremony, as well as call the Milton Keynes office so we can give notice of marriage. Also I have to find wedding insurance. So it’s getting busier, and it will only get worse from here!

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!!

There is only one problem: Just close family from Russ’s side there are about 80 of them. Adding friends and my family there are close to 120 guest! Our budget is so small, especially considering that I might not even have a job at the time, that it is almost certain we won’t be able to have a proper sit down reception.

We already started asking for prices and our fears are confirmed. In order to have so many guest, the only possibility might be having a cerimony and a party with no food or maybe just a simple small buffet

We will go up to Derby in a couple of weeks and look at venues – we are shortlisting them already – and we hope we can keep the plan as it is and invite everyone.

Sophie and Russ’s mum are compiling a list of family – names, contacts and birthday, which is a big help!I already had Bridezilla moments but to be perfectly honest, so far I’m really having a good time ;-). I like organising