This weekend one has been an exciting one for the two of us and something we've looked forward to for a while now! We finally got to see our potential wedding venue..

Searching for a wedding venue we wasn't sure where to start. We knew we wanted it to be outdoors and something that was more an afternoon / evening event with plenty of dancing, we also thought we'd quiet like everyone to stay more than one day, something of a festival vibe. We looked everywhere to begin with from UK and all over Europe but when we started to think about it practically we realised we wanted as many people to come as possible so knowing we'd have difficulty getting everyone to travel far and the fact we couldn't rely on the English weather we decided Portugal was the perfect option.

Eventually we discovered a potential venue in the North of Portugal which seemed to have everything we needed and only be an hour away from where Carlos grew up! It felt like a bit of a sign. South Portugal is much more touristic and probably where most people will know or have visited but the north of Portugal is much more untouched and you can get lost in the windy roads of the mountains and their views. Once we found the venue, although we felt we needed to see it to be sure, we stopped looking for other venues and booked a flight out to stay on and view the venue in full. We've just left there this weekend and we are happy to announce we fell in love with it and the wedding is BOOKED!

While there this year we got to celebrate my birthday. There was a bit of a uncertainty to the date picking next year because we wanted to go for my birthday weekend (as i turn the ripe old age of 30) and have people stay out longer to celebrate that as well, however, the weather in the north of Portugal can be a little unpredictable like the UK especially in the mountains. Even though the weather was beautiful while we were there this year the night time was freezing and we ended up regretting massively not taking thick jumpers and trousers to sleep in. Tent sleeping still leaves you exposed to the elements and this is definitely not the vibe we wanted for next year and the guests. We imagine waking up and finding people in the morning who have just fallen asleep on the warm ground the nigh before. We want people to be relaxed, warm and having fun without being huddled in blankets around a fire. Let's keep everything crossed that theres no freak weather next year!!

We spent just two nights at the venue but this was enough to confirm it was the one for us. We were spoilt rotten by the in house chef who created amazing food for us, were took horse back riding on the owners horses, got massages by the in house masseuse, took a dip in the swimming pool and also had a drive off through the old local villages.

Now we've got the date set the fun planning begins and we even more excited for this next journey ahead now.

Sunday 27th August 2017.

We don't want to give too much away about the venue or location prior to the wedding as we want it to be a great surprise for our guests and have the same wow factor that it did for us when we arrived so for that reason i don't think (sorry) we'll be talking about the venue directly, however, we are excited to show you some sneak pictures of the area and venue to give you just enough!

Although the site is a fairly small camping site they have actually connected up with neighbouring sites to be able to create a multi level functional area and so now we have such a vast amount of space to play with we are trying to decide how best to pull it all together! Its like an empty adults playground :)

Luckily at the moment the guestlist is looking rather meaty but with any wedding you will undoubtedly have people who pull out so we are eager to get our save the dates out to know how many people we set to have as in such a big area (if not planned correctly) people could wander off to another area and make it look fairly empty.