big bookings, big smiles.

Several weddingy things have happened in the last week that I'm excited about, All the big things seem to be falling into place, I think I'm about to hit that lull that everyone talks about, where having booked all the major parts of the wedding, its just pottering and fiddling for quite a while until I reach the year mark.

Firstly, I confirmed with the venue for our reception. Cumbria, for all its beauty, seems a bit short on interesting venues for wedding receptions. Its largely a choice of country hotels, even when you get into the Lakes itself, and most of these now market themselves as wedding venues, meaning that the prices are exorbitantly expensive. We didn't want to actually go out into the lakes to get married, while its nearby, and stunningly beautiful, it seems to be becoming a cliche. When we first got engaged we had to decide which end of the country to get married in - I'm a southerner who moved up here for college, and he's a cumbrian through and through - I'd always imagined that I would marry in my parish church, but when it came to it, I didn't want to plan my wedding remotely, and we wanted to see the church we got married in for the rest of our lives, have our children christened in it, and so on.

So a little hotel it is. It only has 11 bedrooms, so we have sole use, which means I get breakfast too :) Neither of us had ever been there before, despite it being about 5 miles from our house, and it looks over the Eden valley. Its a small venue, which limits our guest list for the day to 70, and we can invite 30 more in the evening. We wanted a small wedding, we're not crazy partyers, to be honest the Evening reception is still the biggest stumbling block I have, so we liked the fact that the venue was forcing us to make that choice. Anyway, it looks like this:

pictures from: Crosby Lodge

The other major thing we've booked is the photographer. In one of my first posts I mentioned my photographers, but we've changed quite suddenly at the last minute. I have no regrets about this, in fact I can't stop grinning, and I wouldn't have found them were it not for the blogging community. Heres a couple of their photos:

photos by: Lillian and Leonard

So yes, Peonies and the Boy, or Lillian and Leonard in their official capacity are going to be our photographers! Suddenly, I love living in Carlisle, because we're really close to Glasgow! Peonies has already been delightful to work with, coping with my Mum giving her the wrong year for the wedding, and me asking lots of stupid questions, and what I'm finding really wonderful is that I know she'll record all the little details for me, and that their style is so unobtrusive. J and I are quite camera shy, I love taking photos, although I'm rubbish at it, but I always look like a complete idiot when I'm in front of the camera. We were both a bit nervous of being very posed, doing grooms running up the road pictures etc, so we both really love their background style. Thank you Peonies!!

Lastly, thank you all for the lovely comments you've been leaving me, its nice to know people are actually reading the ramblings I leave here, please keep talking to me!