Hey everyone, just wondering if anyone else is having a DIY wedding ? as in your hiring the venue and everything else you hire to do is up to you to do as you please ? If so please let me know, would love to speak to others as I have lots of questions and so far every thread I see/read is from people who having a package with a hotel (so it seems anyway) . Im hiring a country house for 4 days to have a 3 day wedding weekender with a ceremony in the woods conducted by my friend, the house sleeps 50 and I have booked caterers , so I don't mean that I'm doing MOST of wedding bits myself, Im calling it DIY as we don't have a hotel involved saying what choice we have.. Thanx :)
Soooooo excited to be marrying my Best Friend !!
Life is Wild, Love it Live it !
CommentAuthorCoralLeigh2016
Did they not offer you a wedding planner? Most of the country houses I originally looked at did? My only advice would be to go to a lot of wedding fairs (if you have time) and see if anyone there does the décor and all the fluffy bits (e.g. chair covers etc etc) xxx
CommentAuthorbarbie86
I don't know if this counts as we had a hotel wedding, but the only thing we used the hotel for was the venue, food, and drink; and when it came to food, they were excellent, just as good as going with a caterer in that we made big changes to the menu, we were able to offer choices, etc. Then everything else we did ourselves: we provided chair sashes for the ceremony, and all music, decor etc was sourced by use ie the hotel didn't do it, and we didn't go with their recommended suppliers.
I also helped organise my parents' 40th anniversary party and for that we brought in caterers (an Indian restaurant). I also have a lot of experience with 'house parties' as we usually have one big one (60ish people) every year, and we buy alcohol etc for those.
So, I don't know how much I can help, but if there's anything you think I might be able to help with, ask away! :-)
CommentAuthorEmmaG
hey Coraleigh and Barbie 86, the houses I looked at don't have wedding planners, the place we have hired is for people who don't want/need them, like me :) Obviously though they say but if you want any help/reccomendations e.t.c they will help if poss. I don't need any help with all the décor bits or anything like that e.t.c its easy to find places that can help with all that. I just need help with logistics, and boring things, like how many glasses to hire, do I hire a professional bar with barman , or do I hire a local barman from pub and have a makeshift bar..how many bottle of alcohol to get, do I hire a washer upper to wash the glasses , or do I just hire double glasses and everyone have a fresh glass each time they have a drink, wondering if others who are doing diy have someone to come in and help them decorate it or are they using there friends to help.. that sort of thing really.. all the fun stuff I can work out myself and find.. its the little behind the scenes bits I wondering about, :) Thanks for answers, :)
Soooooo excited to be marrying my Best Friend !!
Life is Wild, Love it Live it !
CommentAuthorMrsRobson2Be
Ours is pretty much diy, we're hiring a private school, the only time staff will be there is to serve at the bar from 7pm till closing. The only thing I've struggled with is the drink from our arrival at 5 ish until the bar opens, knowing how much to buy, how do we get the drinks from the fridge to the garden terrace drinks reception, etc?? We're thinking about paying a couple of our sons friends to bring the drinks outside & to take the empty bottles to the bin. I've been scouring the internet for other people that had there reception at our venue & have found a few, to ask them about the logistics but I thought it might be a bit stalkerish!!
haha.. that's so funny as I have found other people too who have had wedding at venue and thought was maybe a stalkerish to ask them too... ha.. yes its that in between bit isn't it, can you not ask them if barman can come earlier ? i have hired caterers who bringing waiting staff to serve my reception drinks and i think they are staying up until about 8pm once food has been done ( we having Sit down afternoon tea after reception drinks then A hog roast from 6pm) we supplying all our own drink and i don't know whats best to do. I know someone who had a very DIY wedding with a makeshift bar, the bride and groom ran the bar serving drinks for the first hour and then was a rota of different volunteers to do half hour slots.. She said it was great fun, everyone got to know each other and they had loads of volunteers. im toying with the idea.. I think that's a good idea about asking friends sons :)
Soooooo excited to be marrying my Best Friend !!
Life is Wild, Love it Live it !
CommentAuthorbarbie86
OK I have lots of experience with drinks lol so should be able to help!
Glasses: try to work out what your guests are likely to be drinking. You know your guests, so should have a good idea eg OH's male friends don't touch wine and stick almost exclusively to beer, so I wouldn't include them for wine glasses. Then, I would allow 3-4 glasses pp as while some people are good and hang on to them, many don't, and you don't want to run out. In terms of the type of glasses, get high ball tumblers, wine glasses, pint glasses, and champagne flutes if you plan on having a toast or are providing sparkling wine. If you get bottled beer/lager this will probably cut down on some of the glasses, depending on your crowd (eg I find younger people are fine drinking out of a bottle, but some older people prefer a glass). Also, don't put all the glasses out in one go, if people see loads they're more likely to be wasteful.
Bar set up/staff: IMO you don't need a proper bar; a couple of tables should suffice. Make sure you have facilities to keep drinks cold, be that bins/similar filled with ice (have towels near by so people can wipe the drinks down if you do this), or a large fridge. If you're not having mixed drinks I think it's fine for people to help themselves; just set out X amount of each drink and then top up as and when needed. If you plan on having mixed drinks though I would probably hire someone to deal with that.
In terms of quantity it again depends on your guests. IMO it is better to over cater, esp as you can always return unopened bottles/crates. So, I would probably allow something like 1.5 bottles of wine, or 8-10 beers pp. For spirits, I would say that 8 litres would be enough for 50 people. Also make sure you get plenty of soft drinks, and bottled water. If you're doing a toast, you can get 5-6 glasses of champagne per bottle.
Hope that helps!
CommentAuthorMrsRobson2Be
We have been given the option of the bar opening when we arrive but the bar is at the other end of the venue to where we plan on having the drinks reception. I do think it would be so much easier for us though to go with the bar option & stick some money behind the bar. I have already brought loads of magners as they were on an amazing offer, I'm sure H2B can make use of them though.
CommentAuthorEmmaG
hey Barbie, that's great. That is helpful, Thanks, I have actually just started thinking of buying a Keg of beer, it pours about 90 pints, so may get a couple . People can just pull own pints then and I thinking may just get plastic pint glasses to be used with Keg for the evening.. but Proper glasses for wine and flutes . I have 60 people coming to the day and then 40 more for eve, so 100 in total. Plus we don't have to stop partying, we can continue party until the next day if want to, so maybe i should buy 3 kegs..haha.. :)
Soooooo excited to be marrying my Best Friend !!
Life is Wild, Love it Live it !
CommentAuthorbarbie86
If you like, I can dig our bar tab out and tell you exactly what was consumed? Personally with 100 people I'd go with at least 3 kegs, assuming roughly 40 of those are beer drinkers, as that allows just under 7 pints pp. I'd also weigh the cost of a keg vs cans or bottles as you can get some really cheap deals on crates at the supermarket (eg 3 for £20) so make sure you're getting the best deal (no idea what kegs cost though so could be way out lol).
As I said it's always better to have too much than too little :-)
CommentAuthorEmmaG
really ? that would be fab.. only if its easy for you to do so ? don't want to put you out . yes i haven't added up how many keg to get yet or whichever we go with .. will do that this eve actually and have a look what prices for diff type beers are.. Thanks :) and yes deffo have more than less :) thanks x
Soooooo excited to be marrying my Best Friend !!
Life is Wild, Love it Live it !
CommentAuthor*KelBel*
Our venue had a wedding planner so we had full reign, no packages x
Velcro...my wedding day twinny! The Two Kel's!
Got engaged 14/10/12 in Central Park NYC!
Became Mrs Macdonald 13th September 2014
Mummy to 4 girlies and baby blue boy Due 10/05/2016
CommentAuthorInDreamland
We were going to but then when actually sitting down and adding up costs after speaking to suppliers and doing some research realised how much more expensive it was going to be for what we wanted and also a lot more work so ended up going for packages where things were done for us making for a cheaper and less stressful planning and wedding day x
Married the love of my life on Saturday 11th May 2013 xxx
Had our dream perfect honeymoon in Hawaii!
CommentAuthorCarrieD26
We have gone down the church and village hall route. So literally every part of our reception is down to us to organise. We looked into doing our own bar, as well as running out or having loads left over, you have to consider whether you want to give drinks away or have a pay bar. If you have a pay bar, you will need a licencee and a temp licence. The temp licence is around £100, but you need a licence holder to apply. We have one on our guest list who was willing to do this for us. But, factoring the outlay, licence fee, glassware, cleaning up, etc; we had a look at mobile bars. At £75 for the stocked bar, staff, cleaning up and glassware provided, we decided that was a much cheaper and stress free option. Might be worth considering.
Is there anything else you were wondering about?
CommentAuthorEmmaG
ahh we having a free bar :) im getting very excited about it all now, I think I will ask caterers some of the questions I need to work out, they would have done a wedding like mine loads im sure :) Thanx ladies x
Soooooo excited to be marrying my Best Friend !!
Life is Wild, Love it Live it !
CommentAuthorbarbie86
edited
Hey, I just dug ours and here's what was consumed:
Bottled lager: 80 Draft lager (pints): 65 Beer (bottled): 44 Wine (175ml glasses): 11 (! That really shocked me! Clearly everyone was drinking spirits or beer/lager, must have been sick of wine after the meal lol) Spirits and mixers: 198 measures (mix of singles and doubles; the vast majority (around 190) were singles as that's what we'd asked for; don't know how the doubles snuck in lol) Shots (all were sambuca (32), tequila (14), or cointreau (5) (for some unknown reason..): 51 Soft drinks: 37
The bar was open from 7pm-2.30am and we had around 70-75 guests at the evening, about half a dozen or so of whom weren't drinking. Most people were aged 24-28, or 45+, with a roughly 50/50 men/women split, and the majority of people stayed until 1am. Not everything was included (we basically had a cap of around £8 a drink) so I think that additionally, around 20 or so cocktails, a couple of bottles of champagne, and a few glasses of wine, were also purchased by guests. During the day we provided 2 welcome drinks (1 x sparkling wine; 1 x buck's fizz), 1/2 bottle of wine or 2-3 pints/bottles lager/cider, and a glass of champagne for the toast as well as water and soft drinks.
Hope that helps!
CommentAuthorCharlotteE98
We're having our reception in a goods shed at a railway museum. We pretty much have free reign on what we do with it. The only no no is candles because the building has wooden floors and wooden ceilings. They gave us a list of their recommended suppliers but we didn't have to use them. We have got a package with Maj3st1c w1n3s. I can't remember how many bottles it is off the top of my head but enough wine, water and sparkling wine for the toasts came to £322. Our caterers are providing a bar aswell.
I agree with going to wedding fairs etc. Great for ideas. I've also bought pretty much every wedding magazine going and our local one which gives lots of ideas. And P1nt3r3st :o)
CommentAuthorEmmaG
that's AMAZING Barbie, thanx so much :) really really helpful.. I went to 1 wedding fair and realised that i don't want anything like what they have there, same as mags i have looked at.. i don't want the same stuff as everyone else , its all a bit samey samey to me hoping my wedding is going to be a bit more unique rather than same old stuff that i see a lot of people having.. .. I have loads of ideas and we going to make a lot of our stuff so that's all good , i more just wanted help on the boring stuff :) Thanx though x
Soooooo excited to be marrying my Best Friend !!
Life is Wild, Love it Live it !
