The end of last year I said yes to becoming Mrs Coop, and spending forever with my best friend. 

So as I navigate my way around wedding planning and engagement highs and lows I thought I would share on my journey to become a farmers wife.

The first thing that I learnt from becoming engaged is suddenly you are presented with the most annoying question. ‘So when’s the wedding?’  -insert eye roll -
I didn’t realise how much id hate this sentence till id heard it from the 6^th person wed told in a row. Along with the questions comes the comments, what to do, what not to do. I never knew that when you told someone about your wedding plans people think they have a right to comment on it as if its their wedding. And unless you are paying, you have no say.

But aside from the initial comments comes the wedding planning, which during a pandemic Is a little tricky when my family’s in the UK and despite everyone saying ‘youll have to have two weddings’ -double eye roll- you’re planning your wedding in NZ.
So first comes deciding on a date, to some say ‘Its too soon.’  And others say ‘That’s too far’ but for the two of us actually getting married, hoping on 2 years the world wont be as closed off as it has been the past year.
But before you have a concrete date you need a venue.

 

Do you know how hard it is to find a venue?! I did not think it would be this tricky. Especially when despite what you type into google, not everything pops up. I bought every wedding magazine I could find to help expose venues to us. However I noticed that they don’t love to share venues more than stores to buy your wedding dresses. Which was super frustrating when they are showcasing a real life wedding and no where on the page does it let you know the venue. Or the most common venue I see is ‘Their home.’ ‘Family batch.’ ‘Family farm.’
But recently after another late night scroll and search hoping to find a new venue to give us ideas, I learnt a trick to finding some venues that don’t pop up on searches. Wedding photographers.
While looking through some Waikato wedding photographers, a lot of them will showcase a couple weddings and the best part is, they show the venue! Which was how I found one that im fond of and cant wait to visit. But I checked and although its listed as a wedding venue, I cant find it on any other search!
So kill two birds with one stone, check wedding photographer sites as well! Not only do you get an idea on cost/what you like but also what suits you best along with hiding some hidden gem venues!

Let me know if you want me to share venues we’ve looked at/ visited as well.