Well, after the last venue we were disappointed with, we booked elsewhere......and yesterday was the first meeting with the wedding co-ordinator. I felt a massive sense of ease with her professionalism. so much better than the last place.

we talked colours, food, decor....eveything, and she is even rolling out a red carpet for our arrival!
ok we are nothing special and they do it for all the weddings......but i read at some venues that the red carpet was an additional charge.....WTF?

she told us to please bring all our table decor.....crystals etc the day before, (we couldnt have the crystals at the other venue)
and all in all I came away from there with a great sense of relief that she had our wedding in hand.

I paid the deposits and its now all systems go.
Also, as we booked this place fairly late, there are no rooms available to sleep over, but the manager has put me on the waiting list, and she is going to try and sort out a 4 poster bedroom for us. ( i dont know if she knows something i dont)

I have written to the other venue as I thought it would be more official in writing, cancelling the booking. and asking for the £200 back, and seeing that we hadnt got as far as a contract, I am pretty sure they will have to refund us that. if not then i will take her to a small claims court for it. she added on more and more charges for this and that, that it was costing us more than we could afford, and more than was originally discussed.
£200 back to me will be much better for her than me taking her to court and getting herself a bad name as a wedding venue.....and I actually work as a photographer for the towns local newspaper sometimes....so I know a few people who would write a good story.....
If it happens that i didnt or couldnt get that £200 back, well I am still happy to be with the new venue, because she is treating our wedding as JUST AS IMPORTANT as any of the other weddings they cater for, and for me thats brilliant.

Anyway, just wanted to say I am happy......really happy today, and just wanted to share.

Horncastle register office and the reception is at the Petwood Hotel in Woodhall Spa.......

Its such a relief I can tell you, to be able to KNOW that your wedding is in the hands of a professional, and treats us with the respect we deserve.....and we DO deserve it because its not free is it? it costs a lot of money.

the previous hotel treated us like poor relations, and not ONCE did I ask for discount or anything, there was never any suggestion that we coulndnt afford to get married there.....on her initial quotes that is...

it was only when she began adding this and that, charging us £200 for the honeymoon suite , £100 for a room to get ready in, £350 for the ceremony room which she initaily told me she would do that for £100,, when its stated on her website that the bedroom was free for the bride and groom, things like this we hadnt factored into our spending.....well you wouldnt would you if you were under the impression it was free....thats £500 approx that we never knew about previously....

but the main reason was because she wanted us to eat 1 hour after our ceremony, to get us out of the dining room to make way for her hotel guests.....she wanted to cut short our wedding to 3 hours......and because we are only a wedding of 24 people, i got the feeling we wasnt important enough or big enough for her. this was never discussed at our initial meeting, in fact we had stated we wanted to eat at 4.30-5.00

at the new hotel she asked US what time we would like to eat> so we told her 5.00

I really feel like I can take a back seat now and relax and enjoy the rest of the wedding planning....its a good feeling to have.

I am now in the process of ordering the invitations because I couldnt do it before because things kept changing.

LOL....I intend to, but keeping sweet for now , while she has my cash....

we wanted it later because we are not having an evening reception so we wanted it as late as we could, so that it went on til around 7-7.30. the other hotel wanted us out of the dining room by 5.00.
at the new place the room is ours until midnight if we want. But i doubt we will, we will probably be in the bar in the next room, or outside weather permitting, but its nice to know that that room is OURS and we wont be rushed out of it. Its our base, and there are patio doors opening out to a garden which will have garden furniture set out....and we have a personal waitress fetching us drinks from the bar in the next room, if we dont feel like moving from there. it just 'feels' so much nicer not to have to rush out of there if we dont want to, because the room is ours so we can stay there as long as we like.

we get married at 2pm. then get to the hotel at 3.00-3.30. that gives us 1.5 hours for welcome drinks and photos.
I am wondering whether to put on canapes at 3pm, to stave off the hunger for 2 hours. or maybe an afternoon tea, with cream cakes or something?

Great news raggedyanne, sounds like you made the right choice to change your venue, glad you feel happier now, all systems go lol xx