mrs2be.ie

[dreais]

Hi, I'm hoping to get married abroad in June 2012. My OH wants a really unusual venue - such as a vineyard or a country house/farmhouse. I've been looking online and found a place that he liked that seemed perfect. but after looking into it a bit further the venue hire (nearly 4000) doesn't include food, alcohol, flowers, music - which makes this 4000 fee a bit steep. It includes a wedding designer, wedding planner, master of ceremony and exclusive use of the venue which makes it sound like they're offering a lot but it really doesn't equate to much IMO...

We're both in college so we don't want to spend a fortune. Does anyone know of any similar venue or any way that we could try to bargain with the place we found? I'd really appreciate any help I can get.

Thanks,
Dreais

[dreais]

Thanks Melissa, it looks really quaint & rustic (especially with the paint)! It'd be beautiful for the wedding photographs! I love it! I can't seem to see how many rooms/how many it caters for. We're hoping for 40-45 people so hopefully it wouldn't look empty with just that number of people... Were you quoted around the same price as the venue I mentioned (you don't have to give full details if you're not comfortable to do so).

Thanks for your help!

Andrea

[roma2011]

Hi I'm getting married out in Borgo di Tragliata in Italy later this year. Our wedding will be a good bit bigger than yours but at one stage it was going to be around the same size, they have a few different venues within the same venue to suit varying numbers. That sounds weird but it's difficult to explain, it's like old rustic farming village that has been all bought up and converted into a wedding venue/hotel/conference centre. It's different to any place I've been over here so would defo tick the "different" box. It's a working farm as well and the accom is gorgeous, lots of lovely old beams, shutters, exposed stone, antique furniture etc.
Because it's like an old village, they have a little old church on the grounds that can be used for your ceremony. They grow a lot of the produce that they use in their restaurant on their organic farm and the food there is DEVINE. Then the accom is all there on site as well, so you have no costly hiring of wedding cars etc and it's a nice chilled out day for all involved. It's handy for both of the Rome airports, approx 30-40 mins from each, and there are daily flights to Rome so that's good for the guests who might not be able to afford spend a full week out there.

There's an English guy called Steve running the show out there and he is fab to deal with, no communication issues although difficult to get a hold of during the summer months because they are so busy with weddings then (weddings there are usually 2-3 day events because they do a lot of foreign weddings) so he concentrates on the upcoming/ongoing weddings at that time. He gives a list of recommended suppliers and will negotiate with the local ones who have no English for you and comes up with lots of clever little ways to make your money stretch (for example, the local florist will take the flowers from the Church after the ceremony and transfer them to the reception tables) We first went out to see BdT in early 2009 and they were just getting started with weddings then. We fell in love with it but were too broke to pay the deposit so we shopped around for a while until we could afford it. Nowhere we saw in the meantime came close to BdT so we booked there the following October. We're stony broke as well and have changed our date twice since booking but the whole time Steve has been brill to deal with, no problem too big or small, and best of all no stupid planner fees or venue hire fees.

You would have to talk to Steve about what it costs because our numbers are double what yours are and we booked back in 2009 so I'm sure prices have probably gone up since then as they have got more established and very popular with foreign weddings, but make sure to say that you're on a budget and he will work with you to fit in your budget if possible. He cut out a few courses and elements of courses for us so that we could afford to go there. Their website is www.tragliata.it and there's a huge thread about it called "Rome wedding in Tagliata" or something like that over on the weddings abroad section of the weddingsonline.ie forums. Tis worth sending an email to Steve and asking him anyway because when I read your post it really seems to tick all your boxes.