Registry Office Venue in Kent

Regular readers will know that Danson House Registry Office is one of our favourite Kent wedding venues. It's grand, beautiful and truly the most stunning registry office I have ever seen and we love photographing weddings there.

Fitting perfectly within our plan for a budget wedding, and being available on our chosen date meant that our ceremony venue, Danson House in Bexley was the first part of the wedding ticked off of our list. The room we have chosen is The Salon which hosts 45 guests (+ Children on laps) which fits perfectly with our guest list and are over the moon. We have photographed a few weddings at Danson House before, so do check out what it looks like from outside; it's beautiful.

I have a little story to share with you...

Back when we were first dating, Luke took me for lunch one day and decided that as we were passing we should visit Danson House. Having never visited before, I fell in love with the place immediately and enjoyed wandering around all the different rooms as they all have such different styles. One room in particular stood out to me with its beautiful ornate walls and stunning gold chairs so I asked Luke to stand still. Looking at me confused, he asked why and my response was "So I can take a picture of you in the room we will get married", as you can see we laughed it off at the time but I remember the moment like it was yesterday. In this photograph, Luke is standing about a metre away from where we said I Do, I guess it must be fate.

Wedding Reception Venue

Having booked Danson House Registry Office, our attention then turned to a location to host our wedding reception. Thankfully our first choice of Danson Stables was available and the team were very helpful in making the b process easy for us.

We chose Danson Stables for its proximity to Danson House but also because their food is always such great quality. Being food lovers ourselves, ensuring each of our guests enjoy their meals is important and we wanted a menu that meant everyone could choose something they would enjoy. Although the full menu was available if we wanted, to stay practical we chose a smaller selection of options that we felt covered everyone (scroll down a couple of photos to see the choices on our invites).

Guests could choose a hearty roast dinner, a burger or fish and chips, and before the wedding had happened we received so many compliments about the food choices and how so many people were excited for their meal.

With 45 guests each needing a 3 course meal on a Sunday in November, I was delighted to hear that the £250 room hire fee could be waived and instead the agreement was that there would be a minimum spend of £1000.

Once the RSVPS and food choices had been received, we were also given a small discount on the standard pricing meaning we paid just shy of £800 to Danson Stables in total. Guests then purchased their own drinks on the day which covered the total needed.

The control freak in me visited the private hire area of Danson Stables a few weeks before the wedding to measure up and plan table placements. I was met by the lovely Nisha from Silk & Comfetti Events who very kindly set the room up for us on the day, so we talked through the decorations etc and then I designed the table plan myself. The stables is a slightly unusual layout with steps, dividing walls etc (as you would expect from a building that used to be stables) but we used the partitions to create an area for our first dance and although a tight squeeze we managed to fit everyone in.

Designing Our Own Wedding Invitations

We decided to make our own invites to keep our wedding stationary budget friendly. We chose an adobe illustrator design on Envato Elements, a content library that we already subscribe to as part of our business (you will find some of the Envato licensed music tracks featured in our video projects).

We chose the design initially because it worked well with our Grey and Midnight Blue theme, perfect for a November wedding in Kent and tweaked elements to suit our needs. Here are the budget friendly Wedding Invites and RSVP cards we designed together, not too bad if we say so ourselves.

For a premium quality we used our 12 colour Canon Image prograf commercial printer to print the wedding invitation design. This was then mounted onto super thick 500gsm white card using professional spray glue and left to dry overnight. Once cut and each bundle tied with ribbon, our invitations were placed in midnight blue envelopes and ready to deliver/send to our guests.

In terms of our wedding budget, we spent £29.85 on the card and envelopes (both purchased via Amazon). Photographic paper and spray glue were items we already had in stock, as were a book of stamps that had been in my purse for about a year. We intend to hand deliver the majority of our wedding invitations to again reduce postage costs and will be using the remaining card to create table numbers, place cards, a table plan and activity mats for the children.

Naturally we are perhaps a little more comfortable about designing and printing our invitations ourselves and owning our own printing workshop means we have the resources available but if you're planning a budget wedding yourselves, consider speaking to a local printers who may be able to help keep create your invitations.

I also designed a basic a table plan for our wedding day using Adobe Illustrator, printed it off and popped it in a cheap frame from The Range that was in the garage. Place cards were very simple to make, I used gift tags I already had with each guests name handwritten on in silver pen, my handwriting is certainly not the neatest but for keeping efficient, it did the trick.

Finding A Wedding Photographer

As you can imagine, our wedding photography was a really important choice for us. As a Professional Photographer himself, Luke knows a large network of fellow wedding photographers within the industry so you would think it would be easy right? Not exactly when you are planning a wedding at such short notice.

In our search for finding the perfect wedding photographer, we had a few strict criteria that we needed to meet, alongside wanting someone we trust and feel comfortable with

Our Criteria for a Wedding Photographer

• Our wedding photographer must be happy to work under our brand on an associate basis - For those who do not work within the industry; this means that they are hired by Luke Granger Photography, not us as a couple. Similar to how a second shooting contract works, a photographer can be hired to photograph the wedding on our behalf, however the ownership, editing and rights to all the files remain that of Luke Granger Photography and these are handed over at the end of the day. This is a typical arrangement for all sorts of photography work, so it's not unusual however, I imagine most photographers wouldn't do so for their own wedding.

• As we will be be completing the editing ourselves, the style of our wedding photographer was not necessarily an area we were concerned by, however their composition and creativeness was important.

• We wanted someone who doesn't typically photograph weddings in Kent themselves. We welcome healthy competition and appreciate there are a lot of fantastic wedding photographers right here in Kent however, as the photographs are being taken under our brand we felt that there could potentially be a conflict of interest.

• We always intended Alex, who is our apprentice to work a little on our wedding day; after all the more experience he gets the better, so we also wanted to ensure our photographer would be someone that would work well alongside him.

As with everything we do we set out finding our wedding photographer in an open and honest way, knowing we would find the perfect photographer for our wedding day and I am pleased to say we chose to use Geraint

Geraint is based in Wales (Tick), is a fantastic wedding photographer who keeps it natural and has great composition (Tick). Having previously worked with Luke he is happy to work under our brand (Tick) and is available and happy to travel (Double Tick). If you happen to be reading this blog and need a Cardiff based wedding photographer, Geraint definately has our recommendation.

Here Comes The Bride

Despite choosing to plan a wedding on a small budget, there was one thing I made certain I was not going to give up and that is having an amazing wedding dress.

Knowing that with just a 3 month planning window I would have less choice when visiting bridal stores I focussed my attention online early on and soon fell upon a website/app called Still White. A platform for real brides and stores to sell preloved or sample dresses, Still white is the largest online bridal marketplace and I knew If I searched I would find myself a bargain. Being able to filter down sizes, wedding dress designers, location and styles, I soon found a beautiful wedding dress that I knew was the one.

A handful of messages back and forward with the seller helped answer a few of my questions and despite never seeing the dress in person, I committed to purchasing a beautiful Justin Alexander for a bargain price of £350 (It retailed at £1600!)

After a stress free and protected payment made was via StillWhite, two days later the postman arrived bearing a very large box and as Luke was out, I enjoyed 10 minutes swishing around the living room feeling very smug about my bargain of a lifetime. My wedding dress needed minor alterations but it is the most beautiful dress I have ever seen, the rose/sand/ivory colour is stunning and the style suits my shape so I felt fantastic.

Wedding Dress Alterations

Obviously I love my wedding dress (or I wouldn't have purchased it) but I have always preferred a corset back as opposed to buttons so I was in need of some wedding dress alterations. A lace up back is more suited to women with a curvaceous figure so wanting to look my best, I was on the search of a specialist who could fit my dress to my body perfectly, plus I am only 5ft 3 so I needed a good few inches taken up so I don't fall over.

Having looked around a little, I chose to use the alteration service at Jodi's Bridal Wear in Maidstone. Having dropped in to visit and leaving feeling comfortable with their customer service and expertise, I was happy to hear that their prices were reasonable too. When the day came round to visit for my fitting I was so excited; My Mum & Sister came to see my dress for the first time and we headed to lunch after.

I needed to have 2 follow up fittings as I also requested a panel to be added to the bust and once the corset had been added, the straps needed an additional adjustment too. It's important you feel comfortable on your wedding day so be sure to speak up during any alteration appointments, the ladies at Jodi's were really helpful and no one will think you are a bridezilla, they just want you to spend the day uncomfortable and will do what they can to make that happen.

Bridal Hair

I chose to use the lovely Becky from Becky's Unique Creations to do my bridal hair and she was so lovely, helping keep my nerves at bay as we all got ready. Jessica & Abbie both opted for plaited styles similar to mine and we added simple headbands to Jessica and Isla as accessories. I chose a simple curled half up half down style with curls framing my face and she did a great job as that is exactly what I got... that was until I stepped out the door at the hotel and a gust of wind attacked me but never mind, at least it didn't rain!

Bridal Make Up

Not an expert at applying make up myself, I booked Rosanne Make Up Artist based in Meopham to give me a classic bridal look on my wedding day. I chose against having a trial and she followed my brief of keeping a natural look.

I regularly get classic lash extensions done by Tudos Lashes in Ebbsfleet, so this helped bring a little glam to my look but I loved that I still felt myself. I'd had a microdermabrasion treatment from Louise at Simply Be Skincare a few weeks beforehand to ensure my skin was in the best condition. I also had my nails and my eyebrows waxed by Timeless Beauty by Hannah. I went with Moonstone colour gel nails which I loved; a little nod to the nickname my parents gave me before I was born, "Moonbeam".