Setting a Date and Choosing a Venue

With the requirement of "..I would like to be married by Christmas", the limitation of Imogen's school holidays and the desire to have as many of our Dubai friends there as possible we decided to set a date of 19 December 2009 for the wedding and set about finding a venue.

After lots of net searching, wedding magazine reading and asking of people the following list of criteria was arrived at:

1. Must be a lighthouse (Steven).....modified to must be by the sea
2. Somewhere old and a bit special but not too over the top
3. Somewhere that would look good in the photos
4. A single venue that could "do it all" (no need for cars and travelling)

We then went to work with this list and came up with a favorite each; Imogen choosing St Mews Castle in Cornwall and me choosing Peckforton Castle in Cheshire. That said I still favoured the Smeaton lighthouse in Plymouth but apparently its limit of no more than two guests at the ceremony was considered too restrictive by Immy.

Anyway, we then started researching each of these a little more and found that St Mews has no heating (not good in winter) and Peckforton could only do mid week so it was back to the drawing board. So frustrated with the time wasted so far to no avail I turned to my trusted solver of problems, answerer of questions and general knower of all things.....google!!

I did a search for "Where can I get married in Cheshire?" and it came back with Wrenbury Hall (among a few others). We read up on Wrenbury Halls web page a details and liked the sound:

1. Must be a lighthouse (Steven).....modified to must be by the sea - NO but oh well
   
2. Somewhere old and a bit special but not too over the top - YES
   
3. Somewhere that would look good in the photos - Oh Yes
   
4. A single venue that could "do it all" (no need for cars and travelling) - Yes, in fact all we appear to need to provide is the Bride, Groom and wedding cake - RESULT!!

There were also the destict advantages that:

1. It is close to most of my family so less travelling
2. It is in Wrenbury, where I spent most of my childhood weekends
3. Its in Wrenbury - say no more
   

So we decided to go with Wrenbury Hall, dropped them an email and spoke to them the next day on the phone (Desmond was very excited about a couple from Dubai) and so the plan was set in motion.