18 replies to this topic

[Becky]

That is ridiculous!! No wonder you're thinking about alternatives...

Have you spoken to the owners of any of those houses yet?

[MrsBrown]

What!!!! To cut your own cake £3 a head!! .........thats just mad! what about cupcakes ha ha! Though they would probably still charge you, just for handing them out!

Most places charge a corckage fee if you use your own stuff, but that sounds a money making scheme! Not like they will need to employ many more staff!

As for your cottage idea, I really like this one from your list and change over day a friday!!
http://www.colehayes...vailability.htm

Why not give them a ring and discuss, though as they do weddings in the big house I wonder what their response would be as they might want you to hire out the whole big house!

Oh and if you went for this one, your final outfit could be a wedding swimming costume ha ha!

http://www.holidayco...rsdon-farmhouse

Sorry dont think I am helping much

[poppleminster]

Becky, on 25 September 2011 - 08:21 AM, said:

That is ridiculous!! No wonder you're thinking about alternatives...

Have you spoken to the owners of any of those houses yet?

It's crazy. I was really annoyed. Turns out their caterer is the wife of the caretaker and their sole supplier for catering. The drinks quote of £2.50 per glass doesd not include a drink, just them serving the drink you provide! Then you can only eat and drink on the very bottom floor anyway. To buy their cheapern range of canapes, which I considered, i'd need a mortgage for. The most overpriced food ever. If they supplied the drink, it's still subject to the serving charge.

However, my way round this is that the land is public right of way and has picnic tables and chairs so i'll be taking a big box of drinks and snacks as originally planned to keep people going. Not as posh as a glass of fizzy but that can all be done later. I love the venue but hate the prices. I guess that as they don't do formal receptions there, they have to make cash wherever they can so providing basic catering and drinks serving adds up the pennies as most people probably go for it. I'm just not prepared to do that when I can spend the money so much further elsewhere.

Thanks for the ideas, it'll get there, something will just snap into place at some point. I just panicked when I wanted to do my itinary and couldn't.

As for the houses, i've contacted Colehayes who are considering letting me use the cottage I have also managed to locate the postcode for the house with the huge garden and views of Dartmoor (took ages as the holiday company guard gthe house name and exact location well, got it by matching their map to google and getting map co-ordinates then translating them to directions and then the directions to a post code). I love google maps! Now I can contact the owner direct as I suspect they are more likely to allow us to do as we want because we are local rather than just a booking through their letting agent.

I'll just keep looking until something works and if it doesn't then we just have an early night

[Becky]

Excellent news about Colehayes, that one looked really nice! You'll have to let us know their verdict