Well, I'm thinking that setting myself a target date of 25/26 March 2011 may have been a mistake.

I'm having real trouble finding a venue that I like the look of, which isn't going to cost thousands of pounds.

OH and I would both like something quirky-ish, like a farm or barn, or something, but all I can find are really expensive and formal venues.

We'd love to have a venue where we can do everything, ceremony, wedding breakfast and reception, but don't think we can afford something like that. We live in Kent/SE London borders, and would go to London, Kent or Essex.

We don't want canapes, we don't want a sandwich evening buffet (bacon butties would be great!), we'd like Asti instead of champagne, and we'd like 30-50 people for the ceremony, and about 150 for the evening.

We've thought about getting married on a Friday then having a big party on the Saturday (lots of our friends live way up country and have children, so getting them down for a Friday reception would be a bit of a nightmare).

We've not been to look at anything yet as nothing seems to "pop" out at us.

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions/search pages that may help?

Thanks in advance for anyone who actually read all that :)

Hels

It's March - Wedding season is from April/May onwards - try bargaining with them xxx

I set a budget and looked on the net I then got a brouchure for the ones i liked and worked out costs for how many guests i wanted from those.
Then h2b and i sat down and worked out exactly what we wanted from the day and as we didnt really care on the date we picked a sunday out of season. (cheaper)
Then with all this info we emailed all the chosen venues told them what we wanted when how many and how much budget we had and asked what they could do for us? (we worked out that all the venues we had picked would be at least 1-2k OVER our budget so was panicking a bit).
Anyway we got an answer from them all and 3 said the prices and services where set and unless we basically pulled 1k out of our bums there was nothing they could do for us :-(
BUT 2 came back saying they would gladly work something out for us within our budget for the amount of guests we want :-)
So we went to look round them both (unoffiacially) and fell in love with one, it truely is gorjus and we have a meeting with the co ordinator on the 18th to go over the details, i sooooooooooooo can't wait :-)

So what im basically saying even if you THINK something is over your budget, work out what you want and what your budget is and ASK babe!!!
I f you don't ask, you will never know.................... it worked for us.

Haven't figured out how to quote yet - Hails, this is where my OH is going to have to step up...I never even think of haggling! I know I should, but I'm so used to hearing a price and either buying it or leaving it, I'm no good at haggling.

OH did manage to get nearly £300 off my engagement ring though, so I shall have to set him on the case :)

There are some stunning barns/farm type buildings in Kent (our venue is a barn with room for ceremony, reception meal, bar and band). We are getting married on 5th March - and Hails is definitely right - ask for discounts on the venues as it is low season - worked for us!
I can post a link to your wall of a website that we used loads to find venues if you want?

Posted link on your wall.
I hope it's a good day - it's just coming around so soon!
x