Can I have lighting like this please?

I want lighting in our reception exactly like this... I hope people wont see this as over the top, but there alot of blank wall at our reception!

Just an idea.. My brother is an electrician so I might run this by him and hope its ok with the venue.. I found this while reading Eric egwers website.. So talented! http://www.erichegwer.com/wedding-stuff/wedding-decoration-lights

Are you having lighting at your wedding?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Omgoodness I forgot to update you on venue!

I was flicking through the blog and I just seriously forgot to mention that WE FOUND A VENUE and ITS BOOKED!!! EOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

This happened last week, and I updated everyone everywhere else but not here! How could I be so stupid!

So with excitement I give to you our venue: Dog Rock Convention Centre(going by the title, not very appealing!) But inside is a different story than the title... :)

The Entrance

The Bar

The Bar Area done up for a sit down wedding (even tho ours is cocktail)

If you spin around this what you will be facing in the bar area.

Down the other end of the building (can you see the bar way up the back?)

Its a really good deal to hire the venue under 1k inclusive of bar staff, dance floor and PA system and we can access the venue from 5am - Midnight the day of the wedding :)

Stoked that its booked!


Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Another reception place found - but not booked.

Today I found another venue, after all Saturdays venue upset.

I had a friend recommend a local hall (not as flash as our previous choice) but well, it was actually really nice! It has sent my brain into DIY mode and I feel once again that I am back on the creative wagon. My parents have left the coastal city and have gone away till Thursday so we haven't booked anything(yet) It was a considerable amount cheaper and by considerable.. I mean.. costing 1/6th of the cost of the amount cheaper than the hire of our other venue.

The plus side was; more space, not outdoors, really nice outlook of the local harbour and gives me the opportunity for DIY and etsy shopping!!!

We agreed that with the reduction in cost we can spend a lot more on the reception and even have a possibilty of a sit down dinner after working out the figures! (I never thought we would be able to have a sit down meal due to numbers of people and cost per head with the caterer)

Sheridan and I are pretty keen on it, and I think we will go ahead and make our booking.

I feel as tho that once the venue is booked everything can settle. I wont be upset or stressed.

Anyway Ill post pictures soon. Maybe you can give me ideas?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Reception Venue - I do love.

As I became engaged in July the next few posts is to clue you in to of what I have done since being engaged till now- I'm not superwoman and have done all this overnight! (however many times in talking to wedding vendors I wish I was and could do this all myself!)

FH and I have decided on our criteria for our venue;

1. fit 150 people for a cocktail reception (we don't want a sit down meal as FH and I love to mingle!)
2. able to bring in our own caterer (as being in a small coastal city people think that because they have a venue they can charge exorbitant price for minimal food so selecting our own caterer was important!)
3. able to BYO drinks. (A family friend has graciously volunteered to provide the wine for the entire wedding. We are ever so grateful for this generous offer so in order to take up the offer we needed to be able to BYO drinks.)

In a small coastal city there were not too many venues that could fit this criteria. But after about 2 months of on and off searching we found our venue;

Flinders Park Lodge (a bed and breakfast) that will!

On our booking we are able to have the whole venue to ourselves allowing us to be there at 10am to get ready and our package provides accommodation for the night for 8 couples! (we are asking some close out of town guests to stay as well as spend our honeymoon night there)

Our only reservation was the price, They had a package for two nights but we negotiated for us to only have the one night to halve our cost.

We also had to have a marquee over the deck due to the possibility of bad weather. The Lodge have negotiated with the local Marquee hire to give us a discount of more than half price for a marquee to go over the deck. We were very excited as to see a vision become a reality. We had gone to the Marquee hire place previously and been given a rough estimate that it would cost $1000 dollars for the marquee to go over the deck. After receiving that news we were devastated but resilient to the fact that sometimes we will need to find the alternate option. So Flinders saying that they had negotiated the price for us and had it considerably marked down, we were thrilled.

We have verbally booked but due to make a payment soon (Mid January)

Since making our booking we have found out that the husband that runs the business with his wife has passed away. He was only in his mid 40s. We have not called to check booking as we would like to give the wife her space over the busy period of Christmas in New Year and follow up with a phone call soon.We hope we can still go ahead with the booking, if not our backup plan is a to have a marquee on a friends vacant block in secluded area of our coastal city.

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx