Our Venue - Westerham Golf Club

Hi everyone,

I have decided to make a blog so eventually we can put some wedding information on here but I thought I would start with just writing how and why we picked our wedding venue.  I hope to be able to look back at some of these posts when Michael is 85 and still playing FIFA on his new PlayStation and reminisce...

When I tell people where we are getting married, I am often asked "Why Westerham Golf Club...", simply because it's not in Crawley, its not in Brighton and most people who live near us haven't ever heard of it!

Well anyone who heard me talking about trying to pick a venue knows that there were 2 things I was interested in:

• The carpets
• The staff 
• (oh and the price - yes I know that's 3!).

Whilst I was browsing venues, online and in real life, I was instantly drawn to some of the multi-coloured mustard/brown/chequered carpets that were visible with their matching curtains in many hotel venues. Whilst some people would no doubt be going for that rustic look, I really wasn't.

When I looked at barns, I decided that many were just far more expensive to hire than I thought was reasonable. Not to mention, some had camp sites attached to them and offered free camping for the bride and groom.  Those that know me, know that I HATE CAMPING. The Blacklands Farm school trip really haunted me for life.

Michael and I are both neutral (some might say boring!!) kinds of people when it comes to decor. We like light, simple and airy, so when we visited Westerham Golf Club we loved it instantly.  I think it took us about 2 minutes after seeing the venue to decide that it was where we wanted to hold both the ceremony and the reception.

It wasn't fancy like some of the venues we had seen, it wasn't rustic like some others, but it was a blank canvas that we still think looks lovely when plain. Oh and the good news, when we mentioned "Summer Wedding", it didn't end up costing us the absolute earth. We may not have a clue about Golf but you can't deny that Golf clubs have lovely grounds, and Westerham was no exception to that rule. It was green, simplistic and lovely :-)

The next plus point for us was the lovely Bobbie who showed us around. She wasn't pretentious and didn't say "Your wedding is a once in a lifetime opportunity so live your dream and get everything you want". I won't name the venue that has that point of view as I appreciate many couples may feel like that.  However, Mike and I are not that sort of couple, yes getting married will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for us, but we do not believe that we would have to be paying for it for the rest of our lives nor do we really think our friends and family could care where we tied the knot! As long as we have our friends and family there, that to us is the most important thing.

Bobbie was not like that all, she was a normal girl who was not pushy, not a typical sales person that was basically trying to get us to sign up before we could even leave. That was our deciding factor... I knew that she wasn't going to treat us like a wedding moneymaking conveyor belt, and to this day she hasn't! 

So Westerham Golf Club is our wedding venue and its the 7th August 2015 :-)

What shall we talk about next? Bridesmaids? Honeymoon? The photographer? Fifa?!