Welcome, @queentim, and thanks for sharing your news. I've heard that spending time around toddlers is an effective form of contraception, so I'm not surprised that it has moved your needle away from having your own. It does get easier as they get older.
bizzey, wedding venues in this area do get booked way in advance. There were few weddings during covid, then a rush of them after the lockdown rules were lifted. The situation has now stabilized. We are fortunate in that there are quite a few nice venues in our area, but we have to move quickly and put down a deposit somewhere.
Silkie, Floof looks regal as usual. An 18-pound cat must be quite a sight in person. It was cheeky of the groom's parents to expect to invite hordes of people and not offer to contribute. DH told me he was tempted to say on the call that if they didn't like the limit the kids gave them, they could always pay for any additional places they wanted. But he didn't because surely they must have realized that too. The other odd moment was when we told them that our wedding planner would help them make the arrangements for the rehearsal dinner, which is clearly their responsibility, they said nothing. Perhaps they already know what they want to do, or perhaps they don't plan on organizing the rehearsal dinner at all.
His parents are evangelical Christians, and it seemed a bit like the fact that we are not made them uncomfortable. We're Episcopalians, which is the American successor to the Church of England, so it's pretty progressive. I wonder how they would have been about it all if we were Jewish or atheist.