A nice reception venue, on a budget

Picking a wedding reception venue London has taken us the last couple of weeks, it wasn’t as easy as we thought it was going to be, there are so many options!

He Says

The reception venue is going to be the most costly part of our wedding, which also means it has the biggest room for savings. We spent weeks looking around at different reception venues, using both the Easy Weddings website and word of mouth to see what was available. The problems I found that a lot of places had (which I think Kate would agree to as well), are that they are either too expensive, don’t hold enough people or don’t provide catering.

We eventually chose our venue, because many people had said it was good to use, it provided catering and music and it was designed specifically for events such as weddings, so placement of tables was good and quality was high as they had a lot of experience. We were lucky with the place we got, it had two weekends available in February, and we picked the first weekend because that is the 4^th of February. On this date we will have been together as a couple for 4 years, 4 months and 4 days, and 4 is Kate’s favourite number. How can you not be a little superstitious about that, it sounds good to me!

We were originally looking at about 100 reception guests, running at about $100 a head, which adds up really quickly. We’ve since cut it down to 80 guests, and upped the price to about $120 a head, which allows for slightly more food options and what are called ‘deluxe’ centre pieces. Overall I’m really happy with the place we picked. The only restraint is that everyone has to be out by 11pm as it’s in a residential zone, but thinking about it, that’s 5 hours if we start the reception at about 6pm.

She Says

The venue was the very second thing we planned as after finding the dress really easily, I expected the venue to be just as easy. However I found looking for a venue surprisingly difficult and I ended up getting really stressed and frustrated, really quickly. We used the Easy Weddings website to look through different venues online and we narrowed it down to about five different venues.

Donald gave some of the places a call to get some more information on the place we chose now and liking the prices they had, I then gave them a call to arrange a time to have a look. On my next trip to get my hair done, my hairdresser told me that she had a friend who went to the venue we were looking at and they their wedding went really well, which made me really happy. After seeing the place in person, I liked it and the lady showing us around said that there was a wedding the following Saturday and that we could go in during the morning to see what the venue looked like done up.

I really liked the venue as it was done up for a wedding and we ended up booking for the 4^th of February 2012. The number four is my favourite number, and not only did we get together on the 4^th of November, but it will also be four years, four months since we got together.

Since making the booking, I have heard from three different people how have enjoyed weddings at the same venue which makes me feel good. Having the wedding dress, venue and just recently, the bridesmaids dresses ordered, we have decided upon an elegant theme.