Hmmm . . . we all seem to be very reasonable actually. I\'ve seen some bloody horendous figures for food per head, and people paying £1000+ just to hire venues. I obviously have the sensible bunch over here. ;)

Jess - I know your having the carvery buffet, but I\'ll presume you looked into the set meal for a bit - I was wondering if you knew if we could give our guests a choice - like on airplanes \"Are you having the chicken or lamb madam?\" ;) I\'m a bit confused at all this adulty stuff, not sure if that sort of thing is allowed. Got to get my veggie meals sorted too. :o I was so happy when Lisa emailed me the other day and told me it\'s a four course meal, how sad am I?

Hi Bev

Right, we did look into having the four course meal, but on Saturdays, it is much more expensive than £24.50, so we decided to go for the carvery thingy.

I think the way it works is, she supplies you with a list of choices, ie chicken, lamb, etc, and you then have to pick the menu that is going to be used, on behalf of your guests. You then specify the number of veggies coming along, et voila! I guess they need to know in advance whether to buy in a truckload of chickens or whatever! However, I don\'t really see why you couldn\'t ask your guests to name their choice and see if that can be done to order. Do you know what I mean? I am sure Lisa will be able to tell you whether it is possible.

By the way, did you get the details of the hairdressers & make-up people? I am still looking, but that is it so far. I mean, the Isle of Wight isn\'t exactly on the cutting edge when it comes to these things is it?? :)

Love Jxx

I feel your pain Jess. :( My prob is that although I\'ve found a load on Yell.com, there are no web sites - I could end up booking a blue rinse for the day. :o It\'s making it really hard to be honest. I normally have my hair cut at Tony and Guy in Croydon (not as posh as it sounds - they are a lot cheaper than the one\'s in the city!) and I noticed there is one in Portsmouth. But it would cost a fortune paying for her trip over etc. I\'m really fussy about my hair and I\'m scared about looking like a prissy madam with my hair perched on the top of my hair. I\'m not wearing a veil or tiara so the hair has to be carefully considered. I suppose I will just have to wait until we are back in the UK and visit a few when we go down to register with the registrar. :(

Yes, I must be stark raving mad, but we\'re paying £3,500 for the hire of our venue and £40 per head for the meal, wine is £16.25 a bottle and the evening buffet is £14.50 BUT we are only going to do this once.

We have been together 13 years and we both fell in love with the place (and I WANTED it).

Also, we were meant to be getting married this year on 1st December 2001, but our original reception venue burned down, so we decided to really push the boat out as we would have another year to save!

Jane
xxxx

P.S. We\'re paying for it ourselves!

Hows that for bad luck!!! :o

Where/what is your venue Jane?

Hi,
Our venue is £500 for ceremony and hire of the place itself from 12-5pm. We\'ll be having a buffet and our guests can just stroll around the mansion, sit down on the sofa in the library, explore the gardens and orchard (rose trellises galore), look at the views, feed the deer in their private deer park, or whatever they want. After splashing out on such an amzing place, we\'re booking a local village hall for a piss up in the evening - oh sorry, I mean reception! :lol:

Clay
x x x

We are in West Yorkshire, and having a buffet / carvery @ £15 a head, not including drinks, and another £5 per head for a top up for the evening guests. We chose this option to try and keep costs under control...!lol. The menu for the buffet has been dictated by us, and for pudding we are having \'posh\' jelly and ice cream (exact definition to be hammered out before the wedding !! )

Hi guys!

Our venue is charging £22.per person for a \"served buffet\", £10 per person for drinks package and £12 per person for evening buffet.

Its a bit of a sore point actually cos when we booked the prices were more than 10%less than this!!! :(

Hmmmm

Love Kerri XxXxX:P

P.s. Andy (H2B) insists I put this on to represent him: :cool:
Sorry girls!:rolleyes:

I have to say that :cool: looks very much like my other half - except mine has long hair! :D I\'m not sure if he\'s noticed the resemblance yet. ;)

We were getting married at the New World Hotel in Brentwood, Essex (and having a church) but now we\'re getting married at Leez Priory in Chelmsford, Essex and having a civil ceremony on 30th November 2002 (St. Andrew\'s Day).

We can\'t wait (and have made sure we\'ve got wedding insurance!).

Jane L

We only have to pay for meal and drinks, the meal is £17pp, not too sure about drinks yet as we havent decided what to have. We are getting married in the hotel too, but if the weather is nice, we might do it outside in the grounds. I (with my mum and bridesmaides) are staying in the hotel the evening before, so i will be there on the morning to decide where would be best.

All in all, i dont think its too bad as all we pay is the £17 pp +drinks, and for that we get the whole hotel, for ceremony, and evening reception and a free room for the bride and groom....oh and anyone else attending the wedding, gets a room for half price :tumble:

Hi

I\'m a stupid one i guess. We booked a venue originally including a civil ceremony since our local church wouldn\'t marry us..

So we wanted something really special.

I managed to knock the price down though by opting for a friday would be okay and that we could only do it at that rate.

We\'re having to pay to hire the whole place and extra for the hire. But we get 20 hotel rooms in with the price, which guests will pay for themselves.

Since then, we found a church near the venue that will marry us, so after all that we didn\'t really need to book this venue, but we have and we\'re happy about it.

My parents and Ben\'s are contributing equally, and ben and I are putting in equal amounts - more that the families though.

Yes it costs a fair bit, but it is what we want.. and we\'re lucky to be able to do it..

I guess each to their own on how much they spend on things..

Mel
xxx

[Edited on 14/12/01 by mella]

Hi,

Well we are totally blowing our budget on everything, both my parents and htb\'s parents are being extremely generous - so looks like we are paying around £4500 for venue (both for civil service and reception) which includes a marquee in the grounds.... then there is food and drink on top - think we are looking to spend about £40/person for a sit down meal... then I guess there is reception drinks and canapes, wine, beer and champagne....

Think we are probably going a little bit OTT - but hey you only do this once!

Emx

Lucky you em! I\'d like to be able to blow everything on flowers for our do, but hey, I\'m sure foliage will be very now next summer!! And fruit apparent;y, as it has no VAT:?:

Roz.

I know I\'m being totally spoilt - however do remember Posh and Becks they used fruit and foliage!!! So must be very in!!!

I\'m sure whatever you do will be absolutely beautiful.

Emx

Hi, new to site but thought I\'d chip in on this one - think we must be getting totally ripped off !!:no: We are being charged £99 / person plus £650 for the ceremony room hire plus evening buffet. And I thought I\'d got a bargain as I managed to get them down from £125 / person !! This does include quite abit (flowers etc)but not the evening bar or entertainment. we are having about £80 people - oh and my Dad is paying !!:D

It does sound like quite a lot, but look at the venue you\'re having!!!

As an aside, I think you - and anyone else who is vaguely new to these boards, should go through and reply to some of the information type topics - who you are, who you\'re marrying, where, what you do etc etc....
I\'m nosey and :tumble: get over excited about these things!!