The venue hunt ends (hopefully)

Thanks to the success of yesterday, today's venue hunt was a bit of a non-starter. Our first appointment was at Tewin Bury Farm, which I had thought might have given our first choice a run for it's money. On the website it looked lovely (and, to be fair, the buildings themselves are) but it was so obviously wrong for us from the get go that we found it difficult to even bother asking the appropriate questions! The issue really is that there are four (yes, four!) different wedding venues here and, we felt, no separation between them. They are so close together and our guests would have rooms around the farm, presumably amongst the guests of the other weddings. There was no guarantee that I wouldn't see the other brides on the day - in fact, I'm almost certain it would be unavoidable, and I've realised that this is something I feel really strongly about. We looked at the Millstream and the Stables but the Millstream was right next to the vast marquee so would be totally overshadowed by the bigger event should there be one in there, and the Stables building was lovely, but not nice enough to combat the fact that it virtually overlooked the Barn's gardens where any guests from a wedding in there would be milling about. I may be wrong, but to us it seemed like a money-spinning machine with scant regard for a bride's special day and I'm sure now that I want a venue at which we're the only wedding that day.
This would be the case at Ponsbourne Park, a place which hadn't wowed with its website or brochure but impressed immediately in reality. Our ceremony here could be outside under the domed circular terrace or inside in the lightest ceremony room we've seen by a mile. The reception room was a lovely traditional manor house-type space which would be the perfect size for us and the bar would remain open for as long as we wanted (one of our main considerations!). The bedrooms were pretty standard hotel rooms but can sleep up to four and were really affordable - although the bridal suite was rather uninspiring - and everything was very much about the personal touch and doing just what we wanted.
Our final venue (of nine, phew!) was Fanhams Hall where we didn't have an appointment but which was hosting a wedding fair. We had to pay £5 which I'm not sure was really necessary but we got a good look around and had a few canapes and a dip in the chocolate fountain. It really is a stunning venue and as we're looking at a Sunday wedding we would be the only bridal couple there that day, giving us free reign of the beautiful formal gardens. The wood-panelled Great Hall (which could be used for both our ceremony and our reception) was straight out of a fairytale and there was a quality feel to the place, including the wonderfully traditional bridal suite - but that big hotel feel was back with a vengeance when the rather stern receptionist started outlining strict minimum numbers and ultimately we just didn't feel it would be worth the higher price. Maybe for a more princess-like bride...
So, we decamped to the pub to deliberate over a roast. Looking back over what we've seen, two venues stand out as being right for us but we can only pick one and in the end we just keep coming back to one above all the others. A few small questions remain about those all-important practicalities but hopefully before this week is out, our venue will be booked - and then the real fun begins!