UK Weddings

My husband Alex brought this to my attention (he likes Wychwood Brewery's beers).

http://www.wychwood.co.uk/#/mischi… to enter (you may need to enter your date of birth to access the site)



The official 'wedding of the year' will be taking place on April 29th when Prince William marries
Kate Middleton, however...

The unofficial, alternative 'wedding of the year' will be taking place on the same day a few miles from the Wychwood brewery in Witney, Oxfordshire.

To celebrate Hobgoblin's status as the Unofficial Beer of Weddings we are offering one lucky couple the opportunity to win the 'alternative' wedding of the year to take place on April 29th.

The prize is worth over £20,000 and the lucky couple will be
officially married in a Wychwood themed wedding with the Hobgoblin himself as the master of ceremonies!
Other highlights of the day will include:

A blessing of the wedding beer at the Wychwood brewery attended by the bride & groom.

A wedding procession from the brewery in Witney to the nearby village of Old Minster.

The ceremony and reception for 30 guests will be held in an inn (where else!) but not just any old inn! The Old Swan is a 15th century coaching inn and part of the Old Swan & Minster Mill boutique hotel, set in 65 acres of magical wild flower meadows & woodland. www.oldswanandminstermill.com

A blessing in the woodland temple.

The wedding breakfast will include a hog roast and the toast will feature the specially blessed brew of the legendary Hobgoblin Ruby Ale.

Medieval Wychwood characters will also be in attendance to ensure a little fun & mischief are included in proceedings.


Couples have until midnight, March 17th to send us their applications.

We will then shortlist three couples to go head to head and compete for the most votes from March 21st to 27th to win the alternative wedding of the year.

The winning couple will be announced & interviewed live on Kerrang radio during the Kate Lawler drive time show on March 28th.

They will then have 5 weeks to prepare for the day itself.

Highlights and pictures from the day will broadcast online.

The couple must both be aged 18 years or over and be [b]legal citizens & residents of the UK[/b] to take part in
the competition.

The couple must be available to be officially married on April 29th 2011 at the Old Swan & Minster Mill
at 2.30pm.

The couple will each need to give a Notice of marriage in the district in which they reside. This needs to be done by April 8th 2011 to allow for an Authorities of Marriage form to be issued. The registrars will need the Authorities for the marriage to go ahead. If the couple live in different registration districts they must each give their Notice of Marriage in their own districts. Help and advice will be provided.

The couple must both be legal citizens and residents of the UK to take part in the competiton.

The couple will be required to submit identification and verification documentation to the registrars prior to
the ceremony:

For couples born before 1st January 1983:-

* Current passport or birth certificate and photo id or naturalisation certificate and photo ID.
* Recent proof of address eg utility bill.
* If previously married a Decree Absolute or death certificate if appropriate.

For couples born after 1st January 1983:-

* Current passport or Naturalisation certificate and photo ID.
* Full Birth Certificate confirming you were born in UK showing your parents'details and photo ID together with evidence of your parents' nationalitity(passport of birth certificate).
* Recent proof of address eg utility bill.
* If previously married a Decree Absolute or death certificate if appropriate.

If shortlisted, you will be required to record a video appeal on Friday March 18th which will be broadcast online for a public vote to determine the winning couple.

Where possible you should be available for potential PR interviews and appearances during the voting stage of the competition from March 21st to 27th to maximise your opportunities of gaining coverage and votes. You will also be required to be available for live interview on Kerrang radio during the afternoon drive time show from 3pm to 6pm on Monday March 28th 2011.

The winning couple will be expected to participate in potential PR related activity to promote the wedding event from March 29th to April 29th 2011.

The wedding day itself will have a Wychwood medieval theme in terms of room dressing, participation & inclusion of Wychwood characters in the proceedings and the inclusion of a pagan blessing in a woodland
temple. By their participation in the competition, the couple will be accepting the theme and format of the wedding day as outlined.

Pictures and video from the wedding day including guests will be used for publicity purposes.

IKEA has lots of lovely bits for reception decor. Almost makes me want to renew our vows... but methinks with baby due a week after our five year anniversary it won't be happening, LOL.

Anyone else seen anything lately?

Per the community profile this community is for wedding planning only, specifically wedding planning related to the UK. Wedding vendors in non-UK countries or videos of a personal/adult nature will be deleted and reported to LiveJournal.

http://community.livejournal.com/u…

If we persist in getting people spamming the community I will have to change it to moderated membership.

I'm going to post a big ol' photo post here and over at weddingplans once I have some more photos back, but for now I thought I'd do a vendor review since I think they can be very helpful and there aren't enough UK ones! My wedding was in and around the Salisbury area, with vendors mostly in the Salisbury, Bournemouth and Southampton region.

Cloud Nine Bridal - A+
These guys were GREAT. They were the cheapest place I could find my Alfred Angelo dress (about £70 cheaper than a Salisbury shop I first saw the dress in!) but the service was fantastic. A huge range of dresses, a lovely shop, attentive assistants, good value for money. I just wish they'd been a bit closer to home, but it was worth the longish car journey for my fittings.

Moss Bros hire - C
I wish I could say the same for the mens suits. We wanted a national company since we had best men and dads coming from Cardiff, Gloucester, London and Southampton and fittings needed to be done locally. There were several hiccups along the way, from the wrong colour cravats, the groom having NO cravat (he only found out on the morning of the wedding!), to one of the dads having thw wrong jacket altogether! The service was variable - some members of staff (usually those of the older, female variety) were great; others (*coughteenageboyscough*) seemed hopeless. All was well on the day but I wasn't confident in them at all.

Larmer Tree Gardens - A++
Our evening reception venue. BRILLIANT. Above and beyond. It wasn't a cheap venue by any means, but we saved by having a Friday wedding and compared to many hotels and stately homes it was a lot less costly. It came with a wedding coordinator who was just fantastic! She smoothed everything out, offered suggestions without taking away the fun of planning, and made the evening just magical. Completely, totally, without question the right decision to have our evening do there.

Cred Jewllery - A
Our wedding rings suppliers, dealing in fair trade ethical gold and diamonds. They made us beautiful rings at prices remarkably competitive compared to 'standard' goldsmiths.

The Wedding Bug (car hire) - A+
Our VW Beetle and Camper van were a huge hit, tremendous fun, beautiful and full of character! Plus they turned up at out hotel an hour early which was great because it was one less thing to worry about!

David Bampton (photographer) - A
I haven't had the images back yet, but I've seen his galleries and he did an engagement shoot for us so I have no worries. He was very professional and had lots of tricks to make people laugh in photos. He didn't seem to stop running round catching shots of the little details.

My Little Devils (bouncy castle) - A
What more can I say other than they turned up on time with a clean, fully working boucny castle that proved a huge hit with the adults as much as the kids. :)

All The Kit (disco lighting hire) - A
Again, nice friendly company who were very helpful and reasonably priced. No problems!

Hope that's helpful to someone! :D

A friend of mine posted about these on Twitter, and I instantly thought what beautiful guestbooks they'd make! It's a company in the UK that sell hand-made and hand-carved leather-bound journals.

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/EART…

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X-posted to weddingplans

According to The Knot and various other wedding planning websites, I should be taking out insurance right about now.  What do you guys think?  Did you take out insurance, and if so which company did you go with and how much did you pay?  I've been looking for comparison type websites but they don't seem to exist for wedding insurance.  Also any recommendations or never-go-with-X type feedback?

Btw if it makes a difference our wedding is costing about £12k overall with half of that going on our venue and catering.

Thanks in advance!

Your name: beautifvl_flaw/ Rebeccah
Bride/groom/other (please state): Bride XD
Wedding date: We're hoping for October next year.
Religious/Civil ceremony: Civil ceremony.
Theme: Nothing decided yet.
Picture of yourself (behind an lj cut): Just got a new PC, so I don't have one uploadable yet. I'll post one up when I have one XD

Some of you may remember my home-made invites that I posted over at weddingplans. (Here's a picture if you're not a community member).

I posted them a few days back, and people have started receiving them. Only so far about half of my guests have had to pay extra to collect my invites! I'm highly annoyed by this, as I checked the weight (waaay below the cut-off for standard 1st class letters) and in the Post Office checked a few of them through the little letter box slot thing to check they weren't too thick (they weren't, really, just a little thicker than a normal letter). The half-dozen overseas letters didn't incur extra cost either.

So far only a couple of people have actually had to pay (6p plus £1 handling charge) but four people have had stickers on their invites to say 'extra postage to pay' but the letter was delivered anyway! I'm quite annoyed by this situation because the first official point of contact people have with my wedding is now slightly sullied by the extra postage charge. I also have a few lazy cousins and other relatives who probably wouldn't bother to collect a letter that they had to pay a charge for, so I'm having to let them know about this via email.

So I guess a word of warning for UK brides - Check, check and double-check postage costs for invites that might be even slightly thicker of heavier than usual! Don't fall into this trap!

My fiance and I have a meeting tomorrow with the wedding co-ordinator at the hotel where we want to hold our reception.

My mind has gone completely blank and I dont know what kind of questions to ask!!!

HELP?!!!

Has anyone hired on? I've come across it quite frequently on weddingplans but never a UK bride! I adore the idea but have been struggling to find a local company, or one that is on the less-expensive side.

The companies I've found so far are:

Boothnation
Boothbox
Rentabooth
Party Photobooths
Groovybooth
The Photobooth Co.
Snappabox

I've managed to find a local photographer, Amy Wass, who will do a booth for a very reasonable £295 which includes a coffee-table photo guestbook, but she sets up a mini-studio rather than a booth. It still sounds fun but it does take up more space at the venue and I really liked the idea of black-and-white strip photos stuck in a hand-written book. I think the anonymity of a proper booth would lead to sillier, more fun photos from my guests.

Does anyone have any companies to add to this list?