Wedding Wednesday: Our Perfect Venue.

I've never done a Wedding Wednesday post before, and it's not because I don't want to but simply because I've just had so much on my mind with University and parenting that the blog has had to take a total back seat. Ironic, really, considering how I'm meant to be blogging about how stressful it all is.

Anyway, I'm here now, and I am so ready to talk about our venue. First, a back story.

Long before we got engaged we talked about how formal weddings were just completely not right for us. The long white gown would make me feel like a fraud, we felt like wedding venues and caterers were just such a waste of money and honestly we'd be too stressed to even enjoy our special day if it was meant to be 'perfect'. We talked about just wanting to get our favourite people together, lighting a BBQ, having some games out so the kids could blow off steam, and ending the night with our nearest and dearest huddled around a fire pit. We thought if we could find somewhere that was basically a holiday house with a nice garden we'd just invite people round for a garden party and we'd have a little break with our kids at the same time. No need to get portaloos. No need for caterers. No need for a generator for our electricals. Perfect idea, right?

So pretty much the day we got engaged I was straight on TripAdvisor, local cottage rental websites, any holiday website I could find. I

was met with brick walls all along the way. I found *the one*, a quaint rose garden with a converted barn as accommodation after about a month of looking and got to the stage of paying a deposit, 

but JUST as I was about to send it off I clarified that there would be a nearby power source so that I could play music and the woman sent me back a really shitty email about how she hadn't realised we would want music (at a wedding, hello) and that she had no intention of getting the appropriate license (at our expense) in order to have permission to play music because 'our garden is just that. A garden.' and I could take it or leave it. I left it. Very very reluctantly, I left it.

I've always believed in fate. I've always needed to believe that everything happens for a reason. And the reason that woman flipped and got shitty was so that I had time to find our perfect venue. I broadened our search to the other side of Northamptonshire (we live in Buckinghamshire) and I ended up finding a working farm about 45 minutes away which has two cottages and a coach house. We booked one cottage, my Mum booked the second and a load of my family clubbed together to get the four bedroom house together, meaning that we had all of the space on the farm without worrying about any other guests. We are so lucky that my family booked those properties - we had intended to have the reception in the garden at our cottage at first so would have been fine either way, but now we have access to an even bigger space and it is absolutely beautiful. 

Described by the owners as 'what was originally a bit of a secret garden', the area we are using was left overgrown and abandoned until the owners bought the property, dug it all up and found this amazing space underneath. There is a huge vegetable patch (patch is an understatement!) with criss-crossing paths, quaint trees, benches (we're putting picnic benches out too), two lawns and several arches. We are getting married under a tree at the head of the vegetable patch as our guests sit at their picnic benches and watch - our wedding is so casual that we've told people to just wear whatever they want. We just want a happy day for everybody. It's a great excuse to get all of our favourite people together. The small lawn will have games and toys for the children. A friend of ours has a sound system and the tack house with the arched windows in the background of the lawn space has been fitted with electricity so all we need is an extension cord. It's like the place was made for us because everything has just fallen into place perfectly. We were told yesterday that it will be harvest season and as it is a working farm there may be tractors coming in and out of the property, would that be okay? Uh, yes! For some reason that sweetened the deal for both of us, probably because once again the 'pristine' nature of a wedding is forgotten and our wedding is nitty gritty, not polished but a hell of a lot of fun.

A bit like us really.