General wedding planning help!

I really need some help on where to start on wedding planning in Essex. I realized that I'm being selfish by only looking at venues in America when we haven't pinned down which country we are going to have our wedding. I just have no idea where to look, so I just.. haven't. Of course FH is clueless, too! Planning websites, active wedding forums, or blogs would help. I've googled Essex weddings and U.K. weddings but I keep getting websites on huge manors, grand hotels, and historic barns and while that would be nice we haven't got a lot of money for a wedding.  I need to know about the hidden gems and good deals, where discussions are held on this in earnest and I can see pictures. Everything needs to be done via internet because we live in Tokyo at the moment. Some examples of American wedding websites I follow are Weddingbee, Wedding Plans livejournal community, and to a lesser extent The Knot, Style Me Pretty, and Off Beat Bride (ok I'm a little obsessed...)

We would be getting married around Chelmsford, Colchester, or anywhere in between and I've already found:

http://www.essexcc.gov.uk/vip8/ecc/ECCWebsite/dis/guc.jsp?channelOid=13921&guideOid=13949&guideContentOid=13964 [nofollow]

a link to the the Essex County Register Office. The websites say that there are pleasant areas around the offices to gather, take pictures, and that there are 40+ seats in some of them. FH told me Register Office weddings aren't a place for vows and couples normal just invite a couple of witnesses but they sound like a nice, intimate place to have a small wedding. Do people have 30+ guests at Register Office weddings? Did anyone do this and then have a reception after? Do people do this in the U.K.?

If I were you, I'd look for country house hotels.  They usually have wedding facilities and some have a wedding coordinator on-site.  You could try googling "wedding venue X" with X being your central location.  For example, if you google "wedding venues Colechester" you should get venues in the city and also in the surrounding countryside. 

registry office ceremonies tend to be fairly common in cambridge, particularly when people want to have a reception at one of the colleges (most of which won't allow ceremonies unless you are a member of the college).  the room they have for ceremonies is pretty nice and holds 50 people.  from what i'm told, the cambridge registry office lets you customize the ceremony to a certain extent (i.e. you can choose 2 or 3 songs to play throughout, can have someone give a reading, etc).  my fiance has seen several weddings with 30-50 guests in a registry office and then a larger reception somewhere else after this.  i imagine in essex it would be a fairly similar setup. 

Hey there,

Having just planned a wedding on a budget, I'll pass along this great site... offbeatbride.com.  Sign up for the Offbeat Bride Tribe.  There's a slightly long application, but if you put in real answers (not just one liners) they'll accept you to the group.  Inside there's special groups for British Brides, brides for every state in the US... tons and tons and tons of groups.  With a wealth of information.  It was super helpful to me for planning my wedding.

Also, we went the Registry Office route.  So many Registry Offices are very historic, and they are awesome because they'll let you play your own music, write your own parts of the ceremony, etc. 

Good luck!!!

Wooohoo! Thanks for the great replies everyone! 

I second the Off Beat Bride suggestion! I also used Weddingbee.com for alot of my planning. They have a great message board

Happy planning!