Something had to go wrong… but maybe it’s gone right?

This is not a blog post that I ever intended to write. You always hear that something has to go wrong with your wedding, and to just be prepared when it does. I expected it to be something relatively minor; I’ve already accepted that it’s likely to rain on our day, it’s going to be cold, I'm so ridiculously clumsy that I’m bound to fall over walking down the aisle, and someone will probably throw up on the dance floor! What I didn’t expect was to have our dream venue snatched away in seconds.

We’d been back in the UK for about 20 minutes, having just ended our holiday in Paris (which was AMAZING!) when my phone rang. I saw it was the wedding venue so answered, expecting them to want to book in menu tasting or something. What I got instead was that the room we booked (which we’d been promised was being renovated over summer and turned into a private function room, which would definitely 100% be ready for our wedding) is no longer having the refurbishment. Or more accurately, it is, but they can’t guarantee when. They say January, but then they said April to us so who knows. Either way, it doesn’t work for our wedding date.

It was like the world stood still for a moment. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, it was like a nightmare. Most of you are probably reading this thinking we should have known that there was an element of risk booking a room which didn’t exist as a function room at the time, but we were assured that it was definitely happening – it didn’t even cross my mind that it might fall through. Some of you are also probably thinking, it's just a room, get over it. But it was perfect. Exactly what we both wanted. And this isn’t just a party, this is the most special day of our lives. So naturally, we were both heartbroken.

But anyone who knows us knows that we’re not the sort to wallow. We poured ourselves some VERY large gin and tonics, and set to work trying to fix this mess. The way we saw it, we had 3 options; move our date, find a different room in the hotel, or just move venue completely. We very quickly agreed that neither of us wanted to move the date; it already holds emotional significance to us as our wedding day (and we already had to move our date at the very beginning of planning!) and we’ve booked too much to move it now. I'm also loving watching the count down to the big day, and to suddenly add on a year would be gutting. So we arranged to go and see our venue early on Tuesday (our next available day together) to see what they could offer, and also booked in two appointments elsewhere; one with one of the venues we cancelled on after seeing our dream room, and then one with Milton Hill House, which you might remember from the Venue Hunting Blog.

We found out about the venue debacle on Friday, and couldn’t do anything until Monday as they were away for the weekend. By Tuesday, upset had turned to anger, which had turned to concern, which then moulded into one big mess of emotion. This emotion all poured out when we got to De Vere; our (ex) reception room is currently their hotel reception, and as soon as we walked in, I very quickly had to go and excuse myself. I don’t think either of us anticipated how emotional it would be walking back into that room knowing that we could no longer use it for our wedding. The manager who dealt with us was lovely, and she offered us more than she would to any other potential wedding client; price reductions, difficult layouts for the tables, anything really within her power. And the other room she offered was nice, but it wasn’t the barn, and to have to walk through that barn to go to a relatively basic room – it’d just be too upsetting.

On that basis, we decided to go elsewhere. The second venue we looked at didn’t really grab us, and was quite expensive so onto Milton Hill. I think by the time we got there we’d already basically decided that we wanted it; we loved it on our first viewing, and had we never been to see the barn, we probably would have booked it anyway.

Fiona (the wedding coordinator we were talking with last time) welcomed us back instantly; she was so thorough with trying to work out what we had planned so far and how she could accommodate it at Milton Hill; I honestly can't sing her praises enough, she’s made everything so much easier for us. She walked us around the venue again, which gave us the chance to remember how much we liked it before (the drinks reception room is so beautiful!!) and listened so intently to any questions we had. She also reassured us that there are no planned renovations! Which was definitely reassuring to hear.

Milton Hill House is a beautiful venue, and suits us really well. Its accommodation is also A LOT cheaper – if you’re a guest at our wedding and planning on staying over, then good news – this mishap has saved you £60!! And it's also a lot closer to the church, which means less travel time and more time to boogie at the end of the night. 

This whole situation has been exhausting, and so upsetting. But several people have said to me that everything happens for a reason, and that is something that I do firmly believe. It's upsetting for now, but I do love Milton Hill, and Anthony has always been really keen. I keep reminding myself that ultimately, it doesn’t matter where we get married, the commitment is the most important thing. I'm so glad that it's Anthony I’ve gone through this with; he’s been so supportive, and held my hand the whole way through, dried my tears, given me encouraging smiles – he even serenaded me with Disney in the car! And none of this has been easy for him either, we both loved that room and he was choked up when we entered it today, he’s just better at keeping it together than I am. I can totally understand how planning a wedding can push two people apart, but I feel that for us, it's just pulling us closer together. I’ve never been surer that Anthony is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.