Mature bride looking for ideas !

View quoted message Thank you so much! It's a bit overwhelming right now. We are still trying to decide what style of venue..simple vs more formal. Did you both know what you wanted right away or did your plans sort of evolve with time ?

Hi there!

I consider myself a mature bride with grown children. In fact my daughter is getting married next year. Its been a process wrapping my head around the idea and here I am 15 days away from my wedding. Its better this time around because we know what we want and the industry has grown. With sites like Wedding Wire things are much more simple. Reach out anytime. Good luck with your planning 👰🏼😀

View quoted message I did a lot of research. I looked through reviews. Most places will show online what they cover. Just remember that if a venue quotes higher than your budget - just thank them for their time and tell them you'll be in touch after you've met with other vendors. You are under no obligation to sign until you've found what's perfect for you both!

View quoted message I have been to a wedding at the venue I chose. The food was great and they have amazing winter prices. We made our guest list (just under 100) and they have a room available min 80 max 100. It is perfect.

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Hi Chere-Lee !

That sounds great - how did you find the venue ? I am struggling to find a place that is affordable and will agree to a smaller guest list. I would love to find a place that was "one stop" shopping !!

Congrats on your engagement!

Celebrating with a small number is great with a BBQ backyard reception followed by the wedding. Close family and friends will be there with you.

Banquet Hall or community Hall is something that can work too depending on your budget and space that fits you two.

The kids can pitch in different areas so your paying all the expenses yourself. Music can be played on a cd or a source that one of them know about.

You know your children well enough for them to arrange what they can and for a discounted price possible through connections somehow. It does help and to ask for assistance.

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Hey !! We are also wanting to do things differently this time (makes sense eh). I will be shopping for a dress (I made mine the last time). But no showers, gift reg, etc. One witness each. How did you decide on your venue ?

Hi Erin!

My FH and I are 40 and 41. This is my second marriage and his first. We decided to go with a hotel banquet hall - they do just about 90% of the work for us and it isn't too expensive. Our wedding group will also be around the 50 people mark. Our venue does the decorating, takes care of the food, cake, bartender, DJ. We just had to find an officiant, flowers for the wedding party, clothes, photographer. The venue covering most of the ceremony and reception has really helped out a lot! We also rented two hotel rooms in the same hotel for the night before the wedding (as well as the night of) - this way we didn't need a limo to drive us around so we saved that cost.

Because it's my second wedding, I had hoped to elope, but because it is my FH's first, we decided on a medium sized idea. I also have 4 kids - 2 adult kids, 1 teenager and pre-teen - all of whom are in the wedding party!

Hi Erin,

Welcome to the Wedding Wire Community and congratulations on your engagement!

I'm less than two months from my second wedding (fiancé's first). I'm 46, he's 45 and he has two teenage sons. I was into eloping in Banff. He wanted the full-blown wedding. So, we compromised with a max of 30.

We decided to go with a private room in a heritage house restaurant. If the Calgary weather holds we will have the ceremony on the front lawn of the house and then move inside for dinner. (We're doing a first look so there isn't a huge time gap between the ceremony and reception.)

The one thing I've learned (unfortunately a somewhat costly lesson) is that there are no rules, even with a second wedding. Choose the dress you want, not what you think you 'should' have. You get to make the rules. Well, really, there are no rules. lol

Enjoy the planning process. I found I was far more relaxed and less worried about the little things this time around.

Have fun!

I'll be getting married for the second time FH is having first wedding. I have 2 adult children and 2 little children. We are doing the full blown wedding. Everything I didn't do the first time. With my first husband we had the backyard bbq, no honeymoon, let's just get this over with wedding. This time I get to do what I want. I get to try on wedding dresses. That being said I'm not having a big bridal party or engagement party or any of that.

View quoted message That's exactly what we are looking for! Time to make some calls !! Thank you..great ideas 😘

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Also, if it helps - our venue is a private room in a restaurant. We wanted to make sure that it wasn't too big, so it didn't look like we had a huge room with so few people!

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Too funny, I'm from Ottawa.

Yeah, Google was my best friend when we starting looking into what would work for us. Looked up a bunch of places in Canmore to find options with the right capacity, contacted a few to see what their set up was like and what options were available for the rest of the evening, and then came here to see reviews, etc. We picked our venue and then decided to hire a planner as trying to plan and organize everything from here would have been too stressful I think!

View quoted message Hi Lisa,
Thank you for your message ! Sounds like us..our guest list has 48 names on it right now. I've just started searching for venues and am already learning about the "minimum number of guests" policy for some venues. We also would prefer something simple as we live in a rural area west of Ottawa. FH grew up in Ottawa. I'm also from the Peg.
How did you track down small local venues ? Just basically call around?
Cheers
Erin

Hi Erin,

FH and I both have adult kids, and are planning a small (apx 45 people) wedding in Canmore (we are from Winnipeg). If I can help with anything let me know!

Well congrats on the engagement and welcome to the WeddingWire community!!

You've come to the right place! Although I'm only 21 (turning 22 in just over a week!) and my FH is 29 - there have been and are multiple brides on here that are either having their second marriage and/or are mature with their age (can't speak for their minds )

I see that you have May 17th 2020 picked out - do you have anything else set up for the wedding? If you are looking for a place to start I would say that you have 2 routes you could go with finding a venue. 1. Use a backyard or 2. Here's the link to venue's in your area that are listed here on WW: Wedding Venues Ottawa (There may look like a lot but you filter it by choosing they style of venue you are looking for)