It’s that time again, to get the juicy info from Marry Me Ink reader and bride-to-be Swamps! 

February’s installment was all about feeling like a princess when choosing her wedding dress, today it’s all about..

VENTURES OF THE VENUE HUNT

Hello lovely people, so glad that it’s blog time again. I hope you have all had a super romantic February. I spent my Valentines Day with Mr Bee (of course). We filled our faces with LOTS of Italian food, which is my absolute fave. There was a set menu with inclusive cocktails, and as Matt Bee doesn’t drink I drank them alllllllssss, which in my books is only ever going to be a good thing.

So onto this months feature..

I changed my mind a couple of times as to what I wanted this months post to be about, so after much deliberation I fell back on the order that I started to plan my wedding in.

If there’s one thing I can assure you it is that I have been the least stressed person that ever existed when it came to planning the wedding. There hasn’t really been any stressful elements so far, bar one, but that’s a story for next months issue. I know, I know, the suspense must be killing you! But seriously, I have no idea whether it is something to do with me specifically and my temperament but everything was done in double quick time and with no mither at all.

Sooo, if you want my advice – the order I did everything in appears to have worked the bestest!

So onto this Venue lark; I did find locating the perfect venue REALLY difficult. It seems that I was super fussy! My main issue I had, and I cannot be alone in thinking this, but seriously what is with the carpets in most wedding venues?!? The carpet can fully make or break a venue for me. It doesn’t matter how much dressing up you do with your venue if it has a horrible floral monstrosity it is just going to look gross! We live in Stoke on Trent which is pretty limited in its choice of wedding venues too so it made this search the hardest of all the wedding planning ones.

The one thing that we were absolutely certain about is that we didn’t want to get married in a church. We aren’t religious at all, and last time we went to church they talked about politics, and I was the most confused human evs! So that was a definite NO NO.

Because I was so confused about what it was that I wanted, I started my search on the World Wide Web. I decided to just forget about my restrictions on location and just get an idea for what I loved and what I didn’t. 

One of the venues I found that was actually super close to us was at Alton Towers. We are privileged enough to live super close to an epic theme park. The idea of even considering getting married there never even crossed my mind though. I am an absolute sucker for an aquarium though so when I found out you could get married in the middle of the Shark enclosure I was LOVING this idea! 

Can you imagine how interesting your meal would be!! I adore looking at big sharks when they’re in a huge tank but weirdly enough they are one of my greatest fears. I am absolutely convinced that I am going to get eaten by a Shark. It is a completely irrational fear I know, and I have to fully psych myself up to paddle in the sea in Cornwall! So, with this in mind, along with the fact that being in single file tables could be a little anti-social and have issues with practicality I reluctantly crossed this one of my list.

Next I found an amazing place called MC Motors, it is in London and it is the cutest little warehouse..

This is the sort of place I would like to live myself. It is full of old un-matched furniture, along with lots of beautiful old film props. It is the perfect haven to jazz up and you could literally make it look amazing if you just added a couple of your own touches.

You could REALLY wow your guests with this place. You can almost certainly guarantee that there won’t be many of your guests who’ve been to a wedding in a venue like this!!! Can you imagine what a badass party you could have here too? The only downside and it is a BIG downside is that they don’t have a marriage license. This means you could only have your reception here. This made me really Sadface. One thing we had decided on is that we definitely wanted to get married, and have our wedding breakfast in the same venue, so this one unfortunately had to be a no too. If any of you lovely lot do fancy getting married here PLEEEEEAAAASSSE send me the pictures of what you did with the place, I would be super excited to see it all wedding-i-fied. 

The final, and possibly my favourite of all of the wedding venues I found was this little beauty..

It is an actual Tree House. It is located about an hours drive from Glasgow and was originally built in 1864. Imagine the things the 4 inner walls of this little lodge have seen. It is the MOST beautiful, and cutest wedding venue I have ever laid my eyes on. If you wanted a lovely little intimate affair it is perfect! It seats just 24 people and I imagine you could have the most magical day. There is something total childish and fun about it too. It really would bring the focus onto what a wedding is all about…bringing your absolute closest friends and family together to watch you commit yourself to the man or woman of your dreams. This venue literally makes my heart flutter, and I am so sad that we can’t just cram another 50 guests in. Alas, I fear it would be less of a breath taking day and more of a squidge if I did, so I (very reluctantly) had to forget that this place existed.

So, after I had spent many an hour trawling the web for wedding venues I finally had an idea of exactly what I wanted. My beautiful Cousin, Nina was getting married and I was excited to see her wedding venue too in light of all of my recent searching.

It was the hardest to find place as it’s in the middle of a little cobbled high street in Knutsford. Both I and my Cousin Lauren were totally lost so we wandered up and down the street. There are so many cute little boutique shops and bunting all the way down. Eventually we finally gave up and decided to bob into a little and perfectly presented perfume shop. There was nobody in there at all, and then out of no where the most flamboyant gentleman in his early 50s or so appeared from the back of the shop “Oh darlings, you pair look simply fabulous”. I knew at this moment that I LOVED this place, and all of the people in it. 

We finally found the venue and I knew immediately that this was the one. Named Belle Époque, by day is it usually an a’la Carte restaurant and a super lovely one at that. 

Everything about it is perfect for us, even the bar is beautiful. You can have your entire day here, there is a small intimate room you have your ceremony in, a teeny little flower filled garden, with a little dance floor where we can bust our all important moves. Here are some pictures of the place we plan to sign our lives away to each other (very willingly) I am so excited for you all to see it.

I literally cannot wait for September 15^th to come. It seems super far away, but every month seems to be going super quick so I bet it will be here in no time. I am the most excited person ever!

Also, we managed to get a really good deal on our wedding day here. They do a package deal where you can have 70 guests, including all of your food and a few cheeky drinks for your guests too for £4,495. What a bargain! 

One of the things I did find when searching through all of the different venues is how outrageous some of the things the stick on top is. So the best advice I could give you is to question everything. There are a lot of venues where you have to pay extra to use their linen and china, not to mention the additional charges for the clean up of confetti. It is somewhat ridiculous. So just make sure you know exactly what is included in the overall cost of your big day!

I hope all of you Bride and Grooms to be find your perfect venue. It isn’t easy and you will have to view some of THE most horrendous carpets your eyes have ever looked at but when you find the right one I can assure you, if you could you would go there for your lunch every single day up until the wedding.

It is going to be super special and we have some really nice ideas of what to do with the place. I cant wait to show you how it turns out but you might have to wait until the wedding is done before you get to see those pictures.

I look forward to talking to you all at the beginning of April. I’m hoping to bring you the wonderful tales of accessories next month. I have some right treats to share with you.

Have a fabulous March Ladies and Gents,

Peace out, Swamps <3