Have you ever been thrilled and terrified at the same time!? Well that’s how I’m feeling right now! We’ve gone and booked our Wedding venue – and we’re planning a Wedding in 4 months! The venue was a planned accident really as we booked a cancellation. We went along to a wedding fayre in a hotel by the river where my Fiancé’s family’s boat is moored. We met some lovely local Wedding professionals and suppliers and found out that the venue had a cancellation and it was the only date free for the next 18 months… so we booked it!
I mean, look at how stunning this place is – this is just a snap I took on my iPhone during a slack tide and the river was like glass…
I know we’re probably nuts to try and attempt this – my fiance works full time as an architect, I work part-time and have a 3.5 hour commute on my working days, I also spend 20 hours a week running this blog… oh and we have a 4 year old too! But I honestly believe a lot of this Wedding stuff is over-hyped. Yes there’s a load to plan and sort out – but if we don’t procrastinate then I think we can get there! Luckily we have a clear vision of what we want – we’re both creatves and can visualise what we’re looking for. Having fantastic tools like Pinterest can really help with your wedding concept and communicate it to others too.
So planning a Wedding in 4 months can be done – it has to be otherwise we’re screwed! We’re 3 weeks in and here’s where we are already….
Planning a Wedding in 4 months
Book the registrar – straight away. You can’t have a Wedding without one (unless you’re having a religious ceremony and the celebrant is also a registrar). Once you’ve booked the registrar, you’ll have a time and once you have the time you can sort out the invitations!
I you don’t yet have an overall concept for the Wedding then keep the invitations as simple as possible. If you’re keeping a tight budget, then keeping everything simple will look more elegant too. We decided to use my Fiance’s hand-drawing skills and he sketched the landscape of the place where we’re getting married and finished it off on the computer. We printed 120 invitations and they cost us £29 for the paper, £5 for envelopes and £45 for the stamps!
We wanted to keep things simple and took out a lot of the detail in the drawing and what was great about these invitations were that they were personal to us. So if you know anyone creative – get them involved as it’s a great way to cut costs!
At the Wedding fayre we also met a fabulous florist – Jo Hicks and booked her right away when we met with her again this weekend to go through everything. She did the floral arrangements you can see on the table above and knew exactly what we were after for the Wedding. She also gave us loads of other great tips – it’s good to ask for recommendations for other suppliers as these professionals are in the know!
We’re also in the process of booking a photographer and videographer who we came across via social media! Several photographers were already booked up and after a desperate plea on twitter – Wedding planner extraordinaire Marie Haverly came to the rescue with some fab recommendations. So don’t be afraid to ask for advice and delegate Wedding tasks to friends and family.
My Fiancé has spent the last 20 years down on the Beaulieu River and so this place means a lot to him and booking this cancellation just felt right. With the average UK couple spending 14-18 months planning their Wedding with a budget of £20,000 – we’re going to do our bit to lower these averages by planning a Wedding in 4 months! I’ll update you on my progress once a month in the run-up, but there will be plenty of interior design blog posts in between : )
Check out how I’m getting Wedding Dress ready too!
Natalia xo
