The venue hunt begins

After weeks of head-in-the-clouds daydreaming, the wedding plans finally snapped into sharp focus yesterday as the hunt for the perfect venue finally got underway. Somehow, despite dreamily reading a whole stack of wedding magazines over Christmas and visiting what I can only imagine must be dozens of venue websites, I've managed to get to this point without any clear vision of what I want, and beginning the round of visits hasn't made things any clearer.

After de-icing and digging out the car, we drove out through the picturesque, snow-covered Epping Forest to visit Gaynes Park Barns in Essex first. I was really excited about this one having seen their facebook page (here) and our arrival wasn't disappointing. Although slightly hard to imagine a spring wedding with everything covered in snow, the gardens and general setting were obviously lovely and the prospect of walking through the walled garden to make my big entrance had me giddy with excitement.

As we started to delve into the details further however a couple of negative points emerged. Firstly, as it has an indoor barn with mezzanine level and an outdoor barn, is it too big for our 60-odd guests? And more importantly, where is everyone going to stay? The site itself has no accommodation for anyone besides the bride and groom, who stay in a little cottage called the Apple Lodge. Doug has an unshakeable idea that he'll be up all hours drinking port with the boys and while I'm not convinced about that(!), I do have a picture in my mind of everyone having breakfast together the next morning as a finale to the wedding, which I'd have to abandon if we used the Apple Lodge as our accommodation.

Finally, and more spanner-in-the-works still, they don't have availability in May. Our only choice here is to have the wedding on Easter weekend and I suspect that by the time we make a decision to book, that this will be gone, leaving us with a choice between early April (even more hit and miss with the weather) or May 2012, which is head-spinningly far off.

Feeling totally confused, we headed next for The Hertfordshire, a very grand-looking golf club which is closer to home and quite a bit cheaper than Gaynes Park. The major plus with this venue is that food and drink isn't packaged so we can do exactly what we want and won't waste cash on things we don't need. They also won't turf us out as soon as the clock strikes midnight (Gaynes Park will) and have availability for the weekend we want.
There are, naturally, some downsides here as well. The members bar is right alongside the function room so it's not as private as we would like. In fact, knowing what golf club members can be like, a badly timed football match could ruin our reception with rowdiness - and not rowdiness of our own making! Also, the ceremony room, although nice with it's fireplace, just doesn't offer the grand entrance and long sashay up the aisle other venues can. In fact, the main entrance into the building for the bride here is the same as that for anyone using the gym or hairdressers that day - not exactly glamorous!

So, after a morning's venue research I'm left more confuzzled than ever. We really liked both venues for their architecture and setting so I now don't know if I'm more a grand house or a rustic barn bride, but neither was quite right, leaving me panicing that no venue will tick all our boxes.

Am I being too fussy? Do all of these things really matter? And, if there's no such thing as perfect, what should we compromise on?