Wedding Series | The Venue

Today in my wedding series I'm going to be sharing all about our wedding venue! Even before we got engaged, Jack and I had both decided that when we got married we wouldn't want it to be in a church. Neither of us are religious so it just didn't seem right. We both also wanted it to be all in one venue - not only making it easy for guests, but to save us the worry of extra transport and finding more than one venue!

We actually first went to our venue for a wedding fair last September! The second we saw it we just knew it was the place we wanted to get married. Salomon's Estate is a Victorian mansion was everything we were looking for and more!

We opted for a package as it was such an amazing price, and included everything we wanted! It included the ceremony, drinks reception, 3 course wedding-breakfast, and the evening reception (including an evening buffet). The wedding team, and all of the staff were brilliant and very helpful. We even had our own wedding co-ordinator who helped finalise all the little details, super helpful as we were very sleep deprived in those final weeks haha.

The girls and I got ready in our own rooms provided at the venue. We then made our grand entrance down the staircase towards the ceremony room. Everyone was watching and it made me feel so special! It made for some lovely photos too. The room we married in was called the Gold Room and fit our number of guests perfectly. We kept it simple with just a floral centre piece on the registrar's table. The room didn't need much though as it was so pretty!

We had the meal and reception in the Drawing Room; which again was the perfect size for our wedding party. I'll be doing a separate post about the decorations and favours - but my sisters and I did all the decorating ourselves the night before. The food was one of the highlights of the day (I unfortunately couldn't eat as much as I would have liked; my dress was pretty tight haha). We dined on leek and potato soup, roast chicken and chocolate brownie. Everyone complimented us on it and apparently the wine was good too; not that Jack and I drink it haha.

After the ceremony we had our drinks reception in the conservatory and terrace. It was such a beautiful day so everyone got to relax with drinks in the sunshine, whilst enjoying the view. The grounds are absolutely stunning and we had free roam of them. Our photographer knew where all the great spots for photos were - there were two lakes, amazing views and acres of space to enjoy! We even got to travel around in a golf buggy which was a fun adventure.

For some reason that day there were hundreds - and I'm not even joking - of ladybirds around! They were everywhere and I think they were attracted to my bright dress as they wouldn't leave me alone haha. Every two seconds they were in my veil, on my dress, in everyone's hair... it was the strangest thing I'd seen in a very long time haha.

I think what I loved most about the venue, was the fact that we really didn't have to do anything to it! Everything was perfect, and looked exactly how I imaged it to look. We wouldn't have had time to do any DIY with a baby on the way/a newborn, so it put my mind at rest. The inside and out was just so pretty; the weather just topped it off and made it perfect!