Whats that I hear? Another rant?! This is something I've been wanting to get off of my chest for a while, now that I've started up a blog it gives me the perfect opportunity to. Not long after getting engaged all those Bridezilla feelings start to appear (“Oh my gosh I don't even know where I want to get married-Oh my gosh we need to do this” etc.) I had a bit of time on my hands so began looking online for places and trying to get a grasp of what we wanted, we thought we were being quite straight forward in our plans and ideas; simple-outside, hog roast or BBQ and our taste in music-but apparently there's unspoken rules in booking a venue when you fall into the category of “quirky” and/or “different.
The first place we contacted (who I daren't name) was somewhere I must have driven past thousands of times, so when I got a call back from them I jumped at the chance to view it immediately seeing as it was just around the corner. I warned the woman (who on the phone was wonderfully polite) that I would be coming straight from work as it was the only time I would be available for another week so would be showing up in uniform. At this time I was running a dog daycare, which meant I was wearing my work T-shirt (plastered in Logo's and contact details) and had a little bit of dog hair on me despite brushing it off as well as I could. I thought about grabbing the only hoody I had with me but it was hot out and I didn't think my day of the dead hoody would be appropriate.
So we arrived smiles on our faces and entered the doors into the cafe' we agreed to meet at on the grounds. Immediately I felt out of place-everyone was at their tables, a scone and tea in hand. I soon realised that I shouldn't feel concerned, we weren't being interviewed and it was this venue that had to impress us, not the other way around. I saw a woman stride in with her clipboard and go to the counter-she was pointed in our direction and her face immediately changed. Her nose scrunched up and she lifted it in the air, this was the point where she wrote us off. Now bare in mind this is the cheapest place we actually looked at so her judgement was severely misplaced.
We then proceeded to be rushed around the gardens with her occasionally saying names of different places we were passing. I put her behaviour to the back of my mind and concentrated on taking everything in. We both asked the normal questions and asked about the possibility of having a hog roast or a BBQ for the wedding breakfast and almost had our heads bitten off with “No you cant do that! You do a sit down meal for the breakfast and if you WANT a BBQ you can have it in the evening for an extra cost.” at this point I began to question everything about planning a wedding-why couldn't we map out our day like we wanted? Instead we had to fit in to their script of what happens to a wedding. Turns out most places are like this-which I learnt after more research-despite claiming they want to make ever wedding “unique” and “original” to create our “perfect day”.
Whilst we were there I asked about how much extra a Marquee would be and I could almost hear her smirk thinking we couldn't afford what she was offering any way. She said she would have to check and I smiled and was as polite as I was the entire time. We briefly mentioned music and how that was an important aspect to us-this may have been what put the nail in the coffin when we said we wanted our taste in music to be the main genre played. FYI you will be judged for listening to any form of rock or metal.
20 minutes it took for this woman to walk us round the entire venue, and in those 20 minutes I lost all faith in a large portion of the wedding industry. She kept her goodbye short at the exit-literally it was “okay bye” I stopped her and asked if she could send us the price of the marquee's-more so for curiosity and to prove a point than anything else. To this day I have had no response back nor will I ever know how much the marquee's are...but hey since then I've found two kick ass venues willing to work to our personalities and what we want rather than what they want us to do.
I'm sure this venue would be great for someone who wants to stick to the traditional style of wedding, but for against the grain people...run...save yourselves. Now the question remains...do I email this woman and let her know that we've found somewhere both willing to cater to us and more expensive so she can stick that up her snobby nose? Plus she might learn a lesson to not judge a book by it's cover-especially if they've warned you before hand they wont be looking their normal selves. Trust me-I worked with millionaires-and they all used to show up in jeans with holes in along with their rattling cars. Not that I'm a millionaire...I bloody wish...I'd have so many more birds.
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