Where to get married? Struggling

[DippyEggNSolders]

We've booked a village hall for the main bit. They're not registered to marry at premises though.

Nearest registry office is 10 mile away, bastard to park as in a city centre and it's opposite a Mecca bingo hall and wilkinsons

Other registry office is 12 mile away but only holds 45. It's lovely. Whole point of village hall was so we had no limit on numbers.

All other places to legally get married charge as if it's all day, so around £2k

I've found a town hall which is cheap for a day hire, but it's decorating the hall as well as village hall. Double the work or doable?

Both not religious, and so rules out churches.

Any other ideas? We could marry in South Cheshire or North/mid Staffordshire.

If you went for the town hall how much decorating would it need? A few flowers and candles wouldn't be too difficult I wouldn't have thought but I do see what you mean about doing up 2 venues in a short space of time.

What would your thoughts be on doing the official bit the day before and having a blessing on the day. It's what people often do if they want the ceremony outdoors or the venue isn't licenced but they want a ceremony there. Or having 45 people at the ceremony and inviting everyone else to come to the village hall to celebrate straight after.

Are you definately fixed on the village hall or would you consider changing the venue entirely? I was looking at venues slightly further north in the most part but you could look at Wilderhope Manor in Shropshire, It's a hostel and I'm sure they have a rate for day ceremony only but not sure if they would have restrictions depending on the time of year. Probably a bit far north but Trafford Hall just outside Chester is also nice and a lot less than 2K. When I was looking it was for somewhere we could have the whole thing, not too expensive and where guests could stay over cheaply.

The fee's for the registrar are much higher outside a registry office too (not sure about town halls) so that's also worth bearing in mind, it doesn't feel quite as bad when you're using a venue for the whole day.

Thanks for replying LittleBigCat

Quite fixed on the village hall now, although we've only put £30 deposit down. It's nice and I like the idea of it not being a wedding venue IYSWIM?

Town hall is looking more likely. Not keen on the idea of getting married the day before, I think just reading your suggestions has made my mind up that I do want people to see us get married, say our words out loud to each other

I just want to go to sleep and wake up and someone arrange it for me

I would love to wake up and find someone had arranged ours too . It's next year but I'm stressing about decorations already.

Go for the town hall and just keep the decoration simple so you're not stressing the day before. I assume you'd want your main efforts to go on the village hall as everyone will be there for longer. It's good that you have a clear idea about what's important to you.

The village hall sounds lovely btw. I think know what you mean about wedding venues, a lot of them are very samey, charge a lot of money and don't look as though they let you do much yourself.

I think the getting married the day before mostly works if you have a proper (but not legal) out door ceremony with everyone there. I wouldn't dare in this country but I do love the idea.

my fiancee and I are doing the registry office part in the morning, really quietly - just our parents and witnesses, and we're saying the most basic legal words, and not even exchanging rings.

We've then got a gorgeous village hall for the rest of the day, where we are having our own ceremony, 'officiated' by friends (granted he happens to be a vicar but that's neither here nor there), where we make longer promises to each other and exchange our rings - so the only thing guests won't see is the signing of the register, which IMO is pretty dull anyway!

I wanted to do registry on the same day, because I wanted the certificate to say the same date as the celebration.

It might be worth having a think about, then your ceremony can be anything you want it to be.

Ooh I like that idea Reveal will you do the whole walking down the pretend aisle on your own / with DF, in the village hall or would you walk down together?

I've just put your idea to DP and he liked it too

We went to see the town hall and it is grand! It has huge high ceilings, very "wow". It's about £400 to hire for wedding but that could be knocked down as that's for all day, and we only need it for an hour.

I was looking at prices of the registrar coming out and it's another £350, just for them to come to your venue. Why is it so expensive to get married?!

Sorry Dippy, just seen this - yeup, i'm still walking down my (pretend) aisle with my dad, and we're doing minimal pomp in the registry - we'll probably all wander in together!

the whole paying-for-an-external-registrar thing knocked me sideways at the cost tbh, and I'm happy with our compromise!