Garth and Louise's 2018 New Forest Wedding

[LostPrincess]

Update 15/09/2016 - Photography
Update 16/01/2017 - Accommodation, Flowers and Ice Cream!

Hello everyone! I’m so excited to be planning our wedding and thought I’d start a journal on here. It’s not a Disney wedding unfortunately so I hope you guys don’t mind but fear not, we will be Disneying on our honeymoon!

About Us

Garth and I are both 20 years old. We met when we were 5 at primary school. We were friends until we moved up to secondary school when we stopped talking, then we reconnected through mutual friends in year 9 and the rest is history! A mix of msn messenger and facebook messaging led to our first kiss on 15th February 2010! Here’s one from the early days…

How embarrassing! 2014 was a bit better...

And here's a recent one

After school we went to college together, and then we both applied for university together and were thrilled when we both got into Surrey! We lived in student accommodation for 2 weeks but I was miserably unhappy (I’m horrendously shy and living with 13 loud teenagers who love alcohol was a nightmare) so Garth offered for us to try get our own flat together at uni. It was honestly the most amazing feeling when he came into the laundrette to find me one morning to tell me we had a flat! So there we were at uni studying a subject we love, living together! Everything was absolutely perfect. And how to make if even perfecter? Get engaged of course!

We were in DLP in March 2016 eating dinner in Auberge de Cendrillion (except I wasn’t doing much eating… remember my horrendous shyness? That extends to characters too, I was terrified!). Cinderella and Prince Charming then approached our table with this:

and he got down on one knee and I cried and cried! We had an amazing time in DLP and it’ll always be our special place now.

Originally we wanted to get married as soon as we graduated. We were looking at a June 2017 wedding with a three week Orlando honeymoon. However both of our families wanted us to wait an extra year. We knew that we weren’t guaranteed to get three weeks off our future jobs if we waited so we came to a (brilliant) compromise… go ahead with our three week Floriday when we graduate, and then get married in July 2018 with a shorter but just as wonderful honeymoon, a west coast adventure finishing up in Disneyland! So now we had to save for all three of these great expenses!

Which brings me on to the budget… Garth and I both work part time in corner shops and have done for 3 years. We’re savvy savers and are always thinking about our next Disney fix so we’re very good at keeping our belts tight. We're also living at home with our parents and commuting into uni for our third year to save some money. I have several bonds coming through that my amazing family bought for me when I was born and the interest has been building up on that. We also have tonnes of student finance that we don’t need for uni. Factoring in the year between graduation and the wedding when we could still be stuck at the shop or could be in a “proper job”, our wedding budget is £20,000. Honeymoon budget is £8,000. It’s still early days but I think we can stick to this budget. I have several spreadsheets (spreadsheet nutter) and we’re trying to do lots of overtime at the moment to give ourselves some wiggle room but I’m feeling very positive about it!

The one thing we knew we wanted was to get married outside in a beautiful setting. Of course Disney would have been our absolute dream but it means much more to us to have all our family there, and this wouldn’t have been possible if we’d have chosen Orlando. So we focussed our search in Hampshire near where we live. Before we got engaged we had looked at wedding venues. We knew after 6 years together we’d definitely be getting married at some point and yes, I’m ashamed to admit I’m one of those girls who had a wedding pinterest board before she was engaged… However, all of our shortlisted wedding venues weren’t for us. When we went to visit them they all lacked, they didn’t feel special. So we decided to start our search again and found Rhinefield House Hotel. I have no words… I’ll just add some pics.

It was perfect. But expensive. So we thought of how we could save some money. First we decided we’d get married on a Sunday, cutting thousands off the bill. Then we decided instead of a three course wedding breakfast we’d have an afternoon tea style meal, followed by a hog roast in the evening. We also decided we’d stick to their minimum numbers, 60 guests. We managed to get the venue, the catering and the honeymoon suite for £8,000. Still expensive, I know, but we honestly can’t picture ourselves getting married anywhere else! So know we’ve booked the venue, we’ve held our date and time with the registrar and we’ve got wedding insurance with Debenhams. We’ve also got our ESTAs for our Floriday next year which will also cover our honeymoon.

From this point our next things to do are:

Photographer – the venue have a recommended photographer who we think we will go for if he’s free. We’ve been in contact but we need to meet and make sure he’s right for us.
Florist – I’m trying to put together a collage of ideas before we meet florists so they know what we’re after. Our colour scheme is blush pink, navy blue and hints of gold so I’m cutting up mags and using pinterest to get ideas together.
Accommodation – our venue is 45 minutes away from home. We need to sort out rooms for me and the bridal party the night before the wedding so we’re looking at B&Bs near the hotel venue to save some money

Those three things are our top priority right now! Thanks for reading if you’re still with me by this point and I’ll update when we’ve sorted those three things and are on to the next jobs!

[DisneyDreamer!]

Such a cute proposal, love that glass slipper 😁 I haven't eaten there yet but will be doing this Christmas.

Your plans sound lovely though and the venue youve chosen is just so beautiful!
I'm also having that colour scheme! Well except the gold will be silver.

Have fun planning

[plutofan1]

Rhinefield is beautiful
There are often offers on handpicked hotels site
We have stayed and hope to stay again in September
The proposal was so cute and your plans sound fab
Weddings are so expensive but I think your venue and food price isn't too bad considering the beautiful venue
I look forward to reading along as Dd is organising her wedding for July 2018

[Lola]

Beautiful, enjoy all the build up

[Beaker's Fluff]

Loving your plans. Congratulations.x

[EJSakaAnna]

What a lovely proposal Congratulations!

[Jesslydevie1]

Congratulations , how super organised are you both ? Very rare haha I would love to be like that , hope you keep us updated regularly .

[onion2803]

Oh this is so lovely, congratulations on your engagement! Can't wait to read along with your plans...we're also planing a 2018 wedding! Its so exciting isn't it! xx

[DiddyDan]

Aww what a lovely story! How sweet that you've both done everything together, and what a lovely proposal! Can't wait to hear your holiday plans

[LostPrincess]

Originally Posted by DisneyDreamer!

Such a cute proposal, love that glass slipper 😁 I haven't eaten there yet but will be doing this Christmas.

Your plans sound lovely though and the venue youve chosen is just so beautiful!
I'm also having that colour scheme! Well except the gold will be silver.

Have fun planning

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Thank you! The restaurant is amazing I'm gutted I couldn't eat more on the day. We're thinking of changing the blush pink to a duskier pink now after getting some colour swatches. It's a difficult decision, I love pink, no matter what shade! Works so well with the navy as well. I hope you have an amazing time at Christmas!

Originally Posted by plutofan1

Rhinefield is beautiful
There are often offers on handpicked hotels site
We have stayed and hope to stay again in September
The proposal was so cute and your plans sound fab
Weddings are so expensive but I think your venue and food price isn't too bad considering the beautiful venue
I look forward to reading along as Dd is organising her wedding for July 2018

See more...

Thanks for commenting! Yes luckily we could compromise on the day of the week to get the price down a bit. It is a gorgeous venue though so totally worth it. It must be a very exciting time for you with your daughter getting married, enjoy every second

Originally Posted by Lola

Beautiful, enjoy all the build up

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Originally Posted by Beaker's Fluff

Loving your plans. Congratulations.x

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Originally Posted by EJSakaAnna

What a lovely proposal Congratulations!

See more...

Originally Posted by Jesslydevie1

Congratulations , how super organised are you both ? Very rare haha I would love to be like that , hope you keep us updated regularly .

See more...

Originally Posted by onion2803

Oh this is so lovely, congratulations on your engagement! Can't wait to read along with your plans...we're also planing a 2018 wedding! Its so exciting isn't it! xx

See more...

Thank you all so much! Trying to be organised now so we can take it nice and slowly and so it hopefully doesn't take over our lives completely... we'll see how that works out though!

Originally Posted by DiddyDan

Aww what a lovely story! How sweet that you've both done everything together, and what a lovely proposal! Can't wait to hear your holiday plans

See more...

Thank you! I read your sister's trip report and your wedding day report and I'm sooo jealous of your amazing wedding. Really would be the dream but unfortunately some members of our family wouldn't be able to go and I don't think they'd ever forgive us! Definitely up for renewing the vows in a ceremony like yours in the future though