registry offices/locations - suggestions?

Hi, ladies (and gents if any are inclined to read wedding related posts!) Jamie and I are having serious problems with our wedding planning because of the money involved (my mom is paying for a lot of it, but the exchange rate means that I have to double the amount everything costs and I'm really starting to feel guilty everytime I call her with a new figure) and because of family stuff (his neices really want to be bridesmaids but I'm not having any, his entire extended Irish Catholic family want to come though we've only got so many seats available, my family want to come but flights and hotels are super expensive, and on and on and on.)

So we're starting to think about just running off somewhere to do the ceremony and then having a simple, casual party when we get back. And I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions as to where we might go. I'd like a registry office with a bit of charm/history and I've looked at a few online but it's hard to tell much from pictures. I thought I'd call Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, and a couple in the Lake District to see if they've got available appointments. Jamie probably wouldn't get a lot of time off and we don't want to spend all of our time driving, so places like Cornwall and Scotland are a bit too far away (we're in So. Buckinghamshire....) Any other suggestions?

eek i just  typed a big post all about Swansea and got some error and lost it! bah!

Here is a link to Swansea registry office:

http://www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=882

This is where we got married and I can highly recommend it, beautiful rooms and there is a beach/cliffs right behind the building, lovely location, although from the front it doesn't look so salubrious.  There is a link to our wedding pics on my profile if you want t ose emore. A great bonus is that they have a webcam in the marriage room so your friends and family all over the world can tune in. We had people in the US, Thailand, Austalia and New Zealand all watching. They will turn it off too, of course, if you don't want people watching.

The people of South Wales are wonderful too, so friendly, we got treated like royalty everywhere we went.

Let me know if you do end up going there and I'll let you know where we stayed etc

Liz

ps it is easy to get there too, train takes a couple of hours from Paddington.  We went down on The Thursday, got married on the Friday and came back on the Sunday.

Aaahhhh! Your pictures are absolutely adorable (and I really like your outfit - the matching hat and wrap are so very cute!) That registry looks lovely - I'll definitely add that to the list of possibilities!!!

Here's a question that I've been too embarrassed to ask any of our friends 'cause it seems a bit... I don't know... rude somehow. Did your witnesses come along with you for the whole weekend? And did you pay for their hotel? That's our one worry - we're SO skint it's ridiculous and we're afraid that if we invite our two closest couple friends to come along that to be correct and not presumptuous we would have to pay for them to come. But we can, in all truth, probably barely even swing dinner for everyone if we end up running away together!!

Yeah tricky one ... we didn't have much (ie any) money to spend either. One of our witnesses came for the day and the other stayed the night before, either way they each spent about £100 getting there. We didn't pay for their hotel or train fares but we paid for the slap up lunch & champagne etc afterwards.

Well, after looking at a bunch of options (fwiw, Swansea was my front runner!  ) we've agreed on Bath. It's an easy enough drive, it's got lots of charm (the town and the registry office) and most importantly they've got heaps of open appointments during the week that we need them!

Now we just have to agree on how to deal with the witnesses - I actually think it would be cute to grab two strangers, but Jamie wants to take his best mate and his fiance along, which I understand.

It feels so much better having decided to go away alone (well, more or less alone) - the planning for a party is going more smoothly now and we both are just acting like a weight is off of our shoulders. We had the first "sane" conversation about wedding stuff that we've had in nearly a month last night - chose invitations for the party without even a hint of irritation from either of us.

Whew.

That's great Anne. Bath is lovely and close to some beautiful countryside. I hope you have a wonderful day. Can't wait to see some photos!

I can imagine that's a huge weight off your mind, Anne!
I remember when we were planning our wedding, i kept saying over and over, let's just run away and get married on holiday somewhere, but DH wasn't having it. 

I can imagine that's a huge weight off your mind, Anne!
I remember when we were planning our wedding, i kept saying over and over, let's just run away and get married on holiday somewhere, but DH wasn't having it. 

I got to that point, too.  Luckily Phil was more level-headed than I was. 

Luckily, we were "sensible" from the start. We never planned to have the Big Do at all and agreed Gretna Green was the best option for us.  No friends. No family. Would have been a financial and logistical nightmare otherwise.

Hope it all works out for you Anne!! 

Ours was a registry office do from the start, but things started getting tricky when planning the guest list.
We ended up inviting immediate family only, so it worked out ok.  Anyone who was niggled at not being invited eventually got over it! 

I really honestly tried so hard to keep the guest list to our closest friends and immediate family (ours was also going to be registry office all along, but our local one rather than out of town) but then my more remote family in the US started talking about coming over, his neices would NOT take "no" for an answer regarding being bridesmaids (ill mannered for sure and Jamie was being a wimp and wouldn't tell them to piss off  so I was ending up the "bad guy") and we were SO stressed out about it! And I just don't have the sort of personality that allows me to lay it on the line/put my foot down - I waffle way too much! 

So thanks everyone who's posted here - your comments have made the decision to run away SO much easier! And suddenly we're actually enjoying planning the party that we'll have a week or so later and looking forward to getting away on our own for a few days too! Honestly, the change in Jamie's attitude has been astounding.

Lynne, how was Gretna Green? We thought very seriously about doing that, but opted for a slightly closer to home option....

Lynne, how was Gretna Green? We thought very seriously about doing that, but opted for a slightly closer to home option....

To be honest, it was ace!!! We just took the train there as we didn't have a car then and thought it was more special to us to travel somewhere rather than go just down the road. Especially since we weren't going on a honeymoon straight after either. Added bonus was that we didn't tell anyone beforehand so no guilty feelings about non-invites. 

They just asked a couple of tourists that were there (and happened to be checking the place out for their own wedding) if they'd be our witnesses. Since it's still part of the museum, really, they just roped off the room during the ceremony and passers by stopped to watch as well. 

At the end, our witnesses decided it was definitely for them too.  It was really the best option for us and I whole heartedly recommend it to anyone. 

I've uploaded a few pics to my photobucket account but I don't think I can link the actual folder. You'll have to excuse the pixelation, too, as photobucket seems to have completely destroyed most of them when shrinking. (I really will have to put them up proper on a webpage soon!) But at least you can get an idea of the actual room for the ceremony.

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/Ceremony.jpg 

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/Proposal-T2.jpg 

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/Lstandinginsun.jpg 

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/ALunderluckyarch-T.jpg

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/ALstandinginsun.jpg 

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/ALsittingatanvil-T.jpg 

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/ALinfrontofloversstatue-T.jpg 

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/lynnecgill/wedding/ALatgretnasign-T.jpg 


Hope yours goes great! Just remember that it's *your* day and try not to stress. Easier said than done, I'm sure. 

Oh, Lynne!! Thanks so much for posting those pictures - they're fantastic! You look SO pretty and I LOVE your hubby's kilt! Those are great pictures! Jamie is, as we speak, trying to get a couple of days off around the dates that the Bath office has appointments available, but if that falls through, Gretna Green certainly looks like a fun place to go!!!!