Asking the right questions

452 days to go and we're off to look at venues on Friday. Venues will often indicate the big things (If accommodation is included, if they allow you to bring your own alcohol, if use of chapels are an additional cost etc) but can ignore the smaller details, especially in a country location not used to dealing with city brides. Being a type A (often told this stands for anal) I have created a list of questions for us to ask each of our venues.

These include:

When can we get access to the venue?
When do we have to vacate?
Will cleaning and setup be handled by the venue?
If we go over time, what is the additional cost?
What tables and chairs are available?
What table/chair covers, runners and linens are available?
What does your crockery and cutlery look like?
What is the wine list and what if there is a particular alcohol we want that they don't offer?
If it rains is there an alternative for an outdoor ceremony?
Is there an on the day co-ordinator available to make sure set up and time lines run smoothly?
Is it possible to have a 'shuttle' service for guest staying in other guest houses?
Will you have food available for guests getting ready at the venue?
How many staff members will be needed?

Then for determining what tables and formations you want

Where in the room will the bar be situated?
Where are the entrances and exits?
What are the dimensions of the room?
How large is the dance floor?
Will we need to hire a dance floor?
Where are the power outlets? (especially important for lighting and music)

After our venue viewings we will be enjoying the Clarens Christmas in July festival for the rest of the weekend and although I'm told its highly unlikely I'm holding thumbs for some snow.

Snow in Clarens, South Africa

Lost in a multi-billion dollar industry

After an extended work trip overseas I returned home to the most wonderful proposal from my boyfriend. In my absence he has built a rose garden in one section of the garden and planned a picnic for us in the late afternoon. After some oysters (my favourite) and nibbles he popped open a bottle of Tattinger and poured us both a glass. I remember thinking to myself how wonderful and romantic this was and how he should have saved it for the proposal, not suspected anything in my pink fleecey pj's and bed hair. After my first sip of champagne I thought I saw a ring in the bottom but when holding the glass up (it was an inhereted old school crystal glass) I couldn't see anything. My second sip confirmed something was definitely in the bottom and as I spotted it he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him........ a truely romantic moment! Followed by him telling me to down my vintage champagne so we could get to the ring ;)

Chris and I have been living together for almost 2.5 years and bought our first house together earlier in the year. Marriage isn't going to change the dynamics of our relationship but I am none the less, extremely excited to plan a day for us to celebrate our love with our family and friends.

We've been engaged for 5 weeks and 3 days and I'm just starting to understand how daunting and expensive this process will be! After reading various bridal blogs and magazines it was clear we needed to make quick decisions about:

1. Wedding date - this was a fairly easy decision. We knew we wanted to get married in spring, love the colours and smells of spring and its warm enough without having the males guest pass out from heat stroke. This was also influenced by the one thing I knew prior to the wedding - that we were going to the Maldives on honeymoon! I have dreamed of going to the Maldives since I was 5 and all those brochures came out with people floating in the shallow, clear water of the lagoons. September/October (spring in South Africa) is off-peak season in the Maldives and will mean quieter resorts with better prices.
2. Wedding budget - a tricky thing to determine. How to you get a rough estimate of what the wedding you've envisioned will cost and how much money you can save over 15 months? We thought about what we could reasonably save up over the time and included expected bonuses over the period and came to a number we believe can cover the bulk of the costs.
3. Wedding numbers - again, a fairly easy answer for us. We are inviting immediate family (first cousins only) and friends we see on a regular basis. Even with that narrowed group were are still looking at almost 80 invites and an expectation of around 70 guests.
4. Wedding Venue - although we haven't yet decided on this, we do think we want to get married in a little town in the Eastern Free State called Clarens. There aren't very many venues out there and the majority are barns, so a barn wedding it is for us :) Some interesting options are Andes guest house; Linwood guest farm; St Fort Wedding Venue and Oranje Gasteplaas. We have set up appointments to view Andes and Linwood and disregarded the other two because Oranje Gasteplaas is just to big for us and St Fort have never come back to me with quotes or more information despite numerous phonecalls and emails.
5. Wedding photographer - wedding blogs and magazines will drum into you that photo's are the one part of the wedding you shouldn't skimp on and that good photographers are booked well in advance. So with an unsecured venue (and therefore date) we have already booked our wedding photographer. We have gone for Adam Hilton because we loved his style and he felt like a good fit for us as a couple. Good thing we did get in early because before we had confirmed another bride was asking for his services on the same day as us.

The rest we will get to in time. I have briefly looked at wedding dresses and discovered some have a 10 month lead time, so that decision needs to be made in the next few months. But navigating dress styles and designers is not for the faint hearted and will require a different entry.

For now I'm just excited to be a B2B (wedding blog slang :) ) and starting this journey with the hopes of not becoming a bride-zilla along the way......