Planning a UK wedding from the US - help!

Hi y'all! 

This is my first ever post to this forum, though I've been browsing around here and there for several months now, and I'm hoping that some of y'all will be willing to help me out.   I live in the US - in Georgia, to be specific - but I'll be moving to the UK on a fiancee visa in September and marrying my sweetheart there in January 2006 (we hope!).  We got engaged on Thanksgiving Day, and I'm just beginning the whole wedding planning process, but I'm already a bit frustrated with trying to do this long-distance.  Do any of you who have planned a UK wedding, whether or not you were doing it from afar, have any recommendations for wedding planning books/websites/helpful sources of information?  I'm sort of looking for a site like The Knot, but for the UK - I've browsed a bit on Hitched.co.uk and that's been somewhat helpful, and Chris is bringing me a ton of UK wedding magazines this weekend when he comes to visit, but other than that, I'm a bit bewildered as to how to really begin my planning.  It's not that I'm anticipating a huge event wedding or anything - it's more that I'm a neat freak/organization queen by nature, and it's driving me crazy not to be able to really get started. 

We've started discussing potential venues, using websites like Hitched and various others as a guide, and are planning a trip to the UK in April to visit our top choices and try to pin down a place and a date.  I've started looking at dresses, though I haven't called around to try any on yet, and we've started making the guest list, though it's hard to know where to go with that without knowing how many people our (eventual) venue will hold.  I've been looking at samples of invites, and we've talked about flowers, and things like that....I don't know!  I think I'm just sort of looking for a place that I can share ideas and get input from others in my situation, in a way that the US-based boards I've been lurking on just can't provide.  So, any thoughts?

Thanks!
Meg

Hi where are you going to be living it helps if you have the area and you can look up places like John Lewis, House of Fraser, Marks and Spencer's and there are quiet a few others but it all depends on where you are going to be living and how much you have to spend, do you want a church wedding or a registry office that type of thing you need to both decide what type of wedding you want what your budget is and do not get bullied by everyone to invite the world it puts all the costs up.

London you can put around £2000 extra onto the bill.

Go to the local town hall web site that will tell you of venues halls hotels and the like and where the local Church's are or reg office is and all the telephone numbers.

Remember in most parts of the country dependent on what you want you will find things booked 12months in advance to so if you want something lavish get started now.

Here's a link that may help. Good luck and welcome. Don't forget to introduce yourself in Welcome Wagon!

http://www.weddingguide.co.uk/articles/legal/englandwales.asp

Hi Meg, I can totally relate.  My fiancé and I were engaged last winter (2005).  I moved here to the UK on a fiancé visa at the end of the summer.  We're getting married, well, next weekend.  I didn't do any planning until I moved here.  It absolutely can be done in a matter of months, so don't fret.  (I'm also a planning-freak.)  I checked a few gown designers' websites, and they all had listings of local stockists.  I ended-up getting my dress from a shop that's only about 2 miles away (I'm in London), but a different dress than I originally planned.  And I love it.  Also remember that you will get many industry recommendations -- for example, the venue or hall will know DJs, photographers, florists, cake bakers, etc.  They all see each other at different functions.  Your fiancé's family and/or friends may also be able to give you some advice, even if it's "So-and-so's cake was great, let's find out who made it" or "Their pictures turned-out terrible," etc.  A lot of this business is done by word-of-mouth.
The stately home where we're holding our reception actually gave me a bunch of wedding planning guides.  In addition, here is a link to a website with reviews for various UK-based wedding-planning websites:  http://www.reviewcentre.com/products2321.html

We did our wedding on a budget but I don't feel we missed out on anything. I brought my dress with me when I moved but everything else I bought or planned in the 2 months I lived here before the wedding. My husband did book the registry office date about 6-7 months ahead though. Rings were what caught us by surprise with the expected wait - the 2 months wasn't enough to have rings ordered in our sizes at what I'd consider a typical jewelers. We ended up getting a pair from Argos

good luck

Hi Kenny

I don't think this is the appropriate place for posting this kind of thing........