Wedding Table Decorations -Favours, Crystals, Confetti ...

So, let me give you a bit of a back story.
Where I grew up in Fulham, UK, there was a place called the British Legion. It was a pub owned and supported by the charity that sells the poppies each year. It was a members only bar, mainly for old war veterans to have cheap drinks. It was also a bit of a party central. They offered a cheap room to hire out for parties etc. It was a big place, ground floor had the bar and party room. Next floor had the snooker and pool tables, as well as a small room with a couple of dart boards. Next floor was an empty flat the landlord could live in if he wanted to, but spent most of the time in Spain. Top floor was a disused flat in need of serious renovation. There was also a dog that lived in the pub. He was literally, about 17 years old. Riddled with arthritis, barely moved and never made a sound. Part of the furniture is the perfect description of him. The whole place was stuck in the 70s from decor to furniture.
There was a little spate of christenings, wedding receptions and birthdays there when I was about 14-15. I'd either been Invited personally, or went with friends. One such party, I was looking for my friend, so had gone to the first floor expecting to finding him playing pool or snooker. Instead, he was with a couple of older lads, playing with a ouija board in the darts room. I sat and watched them for a while, but then started to feel very uncomfortable so went back downstairs thinking nothing of it. However, from that day on I couldn't physically cross the threshold of that room.
Over the next few years, you'd hear stories of funny goings on in the pub but thought it was just urban myths. Fast forward to when I was 18. I'd ended up between jobs and knew the manager at the pub, so blagged myself a job. Just for a short time. Had a couple of shifts to show me the ropes etc and was then left to crack on with it. One morning, about 2 months later, I turned up at about 1000 to open up for 11. We had to check a few bits, hoover and unlock the toilets etc and sort the tills out. I walked into the main bar and found the dog, standing up, barking at something in the corner. I didnt think too much of it, but did find it weird. There was also this really old intercom that hadn't ever worked, would show a video but no sound. This was on full blast, just playing static. Maybe this had just decided to completely died... I also found 4 chairs not on top of the table - the regular habit on closing up, was to put all the chairs on the table so it could be hoovered easier, broken glass was on the floor by one of them. Again, thought it was odd but nothing weird.
I then found the door to the toilets, not only unlocked, but open. This was a big no no as anyone breaking in through the toilet window, would have free reign throughout the building. Straight away I called the police because I believed someone was in the building. At the same time i called the landlord. The police turned up about 15 minutes later. It was 2 young-ish lads. One sat with me taking my statement and the other started walking around the building. About 10 minutes later he came in, looking as white as a sheet. He told us he hadn't found anything suspicious, no lights where on anywhere so didn't suspect anyone had broken in, but then started going towards the very top floor, where the empty flat in serious need of renovation was. As he'd stepped onto the bottom step of the final flight, the temperature changed. Went from mild British summer day, to being able to see your breath cold. He told us he'd felt like something had brushed past him going upstairs, so got too freaked out and came back downstairs. Obviously, his colleague was laughing and just taking the piss out of him. But noted it in his book.
When the manager finally turned up, he told us a bit more detail.
Apparently he and a couple of his regular customer mates, had been having a few after hours drinks. He had finished putting all the chairs on the tables, and sat down to have a pint. One of the others had gone for a pee in the toilet and came back saying it had felt like someone was in there with him, but just assumed it was one of the others messing about, but carried on drinking. About 10 minutes later, the manager had put a glass on the table, which then slipped off and fell on the floor. Anyone working in a pub knows, if there is a thin layer of liquid on the table, it can make the glass "aquaplane" like you do in a car. Anyway, he picked up the glass and put it back on the table. Apparently, the same glass then rattled, shook and flew across the room, hitting a chair that had been put back down on the floor and smashed. It was at this point they all got up and left.
Needless to say, I didn't work many more shifts after that.

An alternative guide to Santorini from a resident

Hello to everyone,
I did this guide because I started receiving a high number of messages for suggestions etc. Coming from a resident of the island, this is a guide that will help you navigate in Santorini as I recommend you a plethora of things to do that you might not find the in the usual guides. So, don’t expect me to suggest things like Sunset in Oia etc. Hope all the below helps but if you have questions feel free to let me know!
DISCLAIMERS:
1) If you can avoid visiting during the summer, do it. The best period is April-May and September-October.
2) If you can avoid AirBnB type of places, please consider it. It has been destructive for the island and touristic destinations globally.
3) DO NOT RENT AN ATV/QUADBIKE. They are extremely dangerous and there are many fatal accidents with tourists every year. I understand that you want to “escape” and have fun, but you will be driving a vehicle you are not familiar with, in a place that you don’t know, and where the drivers aren’t the best. Just don’t do it, it’s not worth your life. Rent a car instead.
4) TripAdvisor ranking doesn’t mean a restaurant is good, and this applies especially to touristic destinations, Santorini being no exception. Avoid any restaurant where they try to catfish you in the entrance, it’s guaranteed to be crap.
5) Avoid Taxis. They are extremely expensive, and tourists tend to be overcharged by the drivers.
6) Do not go swimming in the Red Beach, only admire from afar. Landslides are frequent.
7) No, Oia is not the “best” place for the sunset, the sunset is what it is and it’s beautiful from all the spots of the caldera in Santorini. Oia is just advertised more so you will fall into a sardine-can type of situation. Beat the crowd by not going in the edge of Oia like everyone else.
8) I don’t know where the “blue dome” church is that you saw in the pictures as there’s isn’t just one. Most churches have blue domes in the island.
VILLAGES/EXPLORING
· Megalochori: One the best kept villlages in the island. Small, cute and picturesque with a small square with a couple of tavernas. One the best places to walk around.
· Mesaria is usually neglected by tourists as it's in the middle of the island, however, together with Megalochori, it's the most "local" & traditionally residential village you will find. Old cave-houses, neo-classical buildings, chapels, cathedrals and "villas", make part of the village architecture. I recommend walking around in both and get lost in the little narrow streets in order to get a good sense of things go about and how people live.
· Akrotiri is the small but pretty village built around the ancient site of Akrotiri (you can visit the ruins), where people 3000 years ago had built one of the most prominent ports of the Mediterranean. It is also connected to the Minoan civilization and other discoveries. Near Akrotiri you have the red beach to visit (don’t go swimming there, it’s dangerous as there are landslides). The lighthouse is nearby and it offers beautiful views of the whole island.
· Emporio is a traditional village which is the “heart” of the local population. Very picturesque with a small castle/café at its core.
· Pyrgos. This village is probably the village with the highest altitude and it offers beautiful views. It’s kept very neatly, built on a hill with traditional housing and a castle on the very top. The square of the village has two places to eat/drink (nothing great but the environment is relaxing)
· Fira is the capital which offers services and shopping opportunities, restaurants, bars etc. It is connected to Firostefani and Imerovigli. So I would suggest you to walk around all the three villages (that have now merged into one). Under Imorivigli and overlooking the caldera there’s a famous rock called Skaros – you can’t miss it (it looks like a nipple) and it’s beautiful to visit. Steep steps however, especially on the way back it can be difficult for some.
· Kamari, nothing great, flatlands by the beach and very cheap-touristy places overall.
· Vourvoulos tiny village, cute but not much to see or do except to eat in Roza’s Tavern.
· Foinikia cute traditional little village which is very nice for a walk and it can be combined with a nice dinner in the restaurant mentioned below, and a welk in Oia.
· Oia – I am sure all the info you found online was about Oia, so I’m not going into it here. Avoid sunset hours, it’s very busy. Prices are higher in Oia than anywhere else in the island.
SITES/MUSEUMS/ART
· MATI Art Gallery in Fira, est. 1990. The only art gallery in the island which is on another level. Fish and sea-scape themed modern art by the Greek artist Yorgos Kypris. If you like art and want to see something different and fresh, this is the place. They also have minimalistic jewelry by renowned Greek designers.
· In Megalochori make sure you don't miss the fantastic Symposion, where Angie and Yannis, having renovated an old winery and cave, make shows & events with Greek ancient music, played from the very instruments that Yannis makes himself: it's an ode to the ancient world of Greece, Santorini and the Cycladic islands.
· SAF: cultural event centre in an old tomato factory by the beautiful beach of Vlychada. Dance shows, art exhibitions and concerts.
· White Door Theatre: An interactive sort of theater. The show revolves around a Greek wedding in the 1920s while the audience is drinking and eating, dancing etc. Often they are asked to partake on stage.
· Akrotiri ancient ruins
· Ancient Thira ruins
· Prehestoric Museum
· Archaelocial Museum
BEACHES
· Kambia. Small, picturesque, quiet
· Vlychada. The best one in the island in my opinion. Few umbrellas for a small part of the beach, but most of it is empty. Lunar-like pumice cliff landscape.
· Perivolos/Persissa/Kamari. Most accessible beaches. Long stretches of flat sand, bars, restaurants.
· White beach. If you can get there go for it (by boat).
· Red beach (not to swim! It’s extremely dangerous). Go there only to see it from afar.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
· Kayaking in Akrotiri is super cool and you will see lots of amazingly colored rock formations most people never see.
· Similarly, (at around 150€ per person), is to do the boat trip (catamaran boats) from the Vlychada marina to the sunset in Oia, with stops at beaches and the hot springs, lunch and drinks onboard. It’s a one in a lifetime experience, it’s really worth it.
· There's horse-back riding near Vlychada as well.
· If you like to hike there are two main paths that are popular: Fira-Oia or vice versa (walking along the Cliffside on the caldera), and Kamari - Pyrgos where you climb up a mountain for 2-3 hours. More paths here: https://santoriniplus.net/blog/santorini-hiking
EATING & DRINKING
· Wine: if you like it, go drink lots of it. Santorini is known in the wine world for its Asyrtiko grape, a white acidic grape that results into a very crisp, fresh, dry and acidic wine that is aromatic but not sweet. Three wineries I recommend for you to try wine from, as well as visiting for a wine testing/lunch snack, as they have very nice spaces among the vineyards. Vassaltis winery, and Sigalas winery. Hatzidakis wines are als exceptional. Santo Wines doesn’t offer great wines but the view and environment is fantastic to go for a sunset or relaxing lunch
· If you like beer, the one and only true Santorini beer, comes from the Donkey brewery. They are all great beers: Red Donkey is my favorite. Don't fall for the "Volcan" and "Nissos" beers, they are just cheap pilsners/lagers with a good branding behind them .
· Local produce: tomatoes, fava beans (awesome and easy to cook - it's eaten as a hot/cold spread with onions and capers),local cheeses, capers, white aubergines (sweeter than the usual), katsounia (a crispier less juicy version of cucumber-great stuff for salads).
· Places to eat: The best place to eat hands down, is To Psaraki. The chef is a Michelin-star chef who gave up on high-end cuisine and opened this simplistic fish tavern, however he does it better than anyone. The restaurant sits on top of a cliffside and overlooks the marina below, as well as the open sea. I recommend going there for lunch as you can see the open water, and perhaps think about booking prior to going. Don't hesitate to ask the staff/ Mrs Aggeliki for recommendations and to show you the different fish they have for the day, she knows everything. In Greece we really like to share plates (mezethakia/starters), as we want to try everything possible, so I would do that over there. My favourite dishes: Grilled sardines with onions, lemons and a ton of herbs...Mixed boiled veggie salad, octopus, fava, sea bass ceviche, tuna carpaccio, mussels, cod with lemon, wine and capers, tuna or swordfish souvlaki. Ouzeri in Fira (seems touristy but trust me, the food is great! Best Tomato croquettes and mousakas in the island!). Frantzeskos for fresh fish, simply made (tavern-like). Owned and run by the same family of fishermen that sells the fish in the pick-up trucks in Mesaria every morning. Roza's tavern is new and doing great, as the food they serve is super high-quality produce. Focused on traditional Greek cuisine by celebrating the use of good produce. Book a table as the place is small. Metaksi Mas is quite popular among tourists and locals; the food is not the best, but good, but the best thing is the atmosphere as located on an open veranda/terrace on top of a cliff overlooking Kamari, and it's very relaxing. Similarly, in the village of Foinikia you can eat a great restaurant called Lefkes. Great food & service, cool architecture and decoration –main focus is meat. Pentozali is a “rakadiko/tsipouradiko” (where the focus is sipping raki while snacking). They have decent food for really cheap prices but the focus is drinking and relaxing under the trees). Ta Delphinia in Akrotiri, you literally eat on the water, it’s a beautiful spot. Fresh fish and family-style cooking. A great but pricey restaurant is OVAC in Cavo Tagoo hotel. If you are looking for souvlaki, Athens is the place to go, Santorini’s souvlaki are generally poor. The best one in my opinion is Fanouris in Karterados. It’s mostly locals, not tourists.
· Bars: Personally, when I go to a bar I want a good drink and great music (not commercial, shitty type of house music etc). Based on that, the island is lacking so I can’t suggest a lot of things here because I gave up on going out. If you want good music but very standard drinks, Kira Thira was the first bar that opened in Santorini (ethnic/blues/jazz/folk/rock), but the drinks are meh. Above it, there’s Casablanca who serves very nice drinks but the (electronic) music can be hit or miss. In Perissa there’s Tranquillo, a very hippie kind of place that serves mediocre food and mediocre drinks but the portions are huge and cheap (the drinks are like 2-3 times your usual cocktail) and they are known for their insanely massive salads. The environment is very chilled, with good music, a live stage, and it’s all by the beach.
Any questions are welcome. Above all, have fun in your holidays and be safe!
Alex

23 Cheap-But-Luxe Things To Help You Have The Lockdown Wedding Of Your Dreams

Winter wedding budget and recap

https://imgur.com/a/fRTRtRJ
I've found budgets and recaps interesting and useful, so here's mine! I'll try to keep it fairly short - if you have any questions, fire away.
We got married between Christmas and New Year in Kelham Hall, Newark, UK. We saved £2k by having the wedding on Thursday, instead of Friday or Saturday. We'd have saved a further £1k if we'd had a Monday-Wednesday, but the way Christmas fell that wasn't possible.
Our ceremony was at 4:30. We spent a long time writing our vows and choosing readings. We also had a ring warming, which was really well received. The ceremony lasted about 15 minutes and was heartfelt and beautiful. Our guestbook had a section for people to write their favourite part of the day and 90% of people said the ceremony - it was personal and bursting with love, with no unnecessary waffling.
After the ceremony we had mulled wine, mulled cider and sparkling wine, with mince pies and gingerbread men. We wanted the day to feel wintery and a little bit Christmassy, without feeling like a Christmas party.
We went through to the main reception room after an hour or so of mingling and chatting. The tables looked beautiful. We'd bought cheap vases, filled them with pine cones which we had collected ourselves and sprayed silver, and twigs which we'd cut from my Mum's garden and painted white. Christmas baubles hung off them and the tables were finished with sprinkles of white flower petals, small snowflakes and some tea lights in glass holders. We'd wound fairy lights around the pillars in the room to complete the winter-magic feel.
Dinner was a hog roast buffet, followed by wedding cake. We displayed the cake - decorated by my beautiful friend - on the way in and it was removed and cut while we ate our main course. Cake cutting is a weird tradition that we didn't really feel like doing.
After the speeches, which were amazing, we headed outside for fireworks. I am quite deaf, so the fireworks were extra loud and AMAZING!
Back in for the band and dancing. Our first dance was 'All I want for Christmas is you' and then it was party until midnight. A perfect day.
Guests - 62
BUDGET:
My outfit - dress £450 (ex-sample), veil £40 (eBay), hair decoration £12.99 (Amazon), £150 for alterations
Husband's outfit - jacket and trousers £150 (Marks & Spencer), everything else was already owned
Best man's tie and pocket square - £30 (Marks & Spencer)
Flower girl outfits - £115 (Monsoon), petals £32.94 (Amazon - used on tables too), baskets borrowed, ribbon was lying around the house, shoes/leggings etc. were either already owned or bought by their Mum as things they'll wear loads again
Venue/food/drink - £4202 which included venue hire, all food, all wine/beesoft drinks (guests paid for their own premium drinks, if they wanted them)
Band - £1588 (paid by family as a gift)
Fireworks - £1000+ (no idea how much +, was a gift from family)
Photographer - £400 - we saved by booking him when he was relatively new, not having any getting ready pictures (so he didn't start until 3:30) and refusing a fancy presentation box
Registrar / legal fees - £463
Invitations - £44.30 (Vistaprint) with £3 postage - we used a friend with their own business to frank most of them and only paid for the overseas one
Cake - around £10? We made them ourselves and a friend decorated them as a gift
Rings - £238 (Amazon) - mine was £124, his was £114 - both plain gold bands
Guestbook - £72.78 = £36, polaroid camera and some film (eBay), £10.80, book (Paperchase), £25.98, some more film (Amazon)
Decorations - £140.40 = £42.20, fairy lights (eBay), £2, top hat for cake topper (Amazon), £25.30, paints and card for centrepieces and seating plan (Hobbycraft), £15, baubles (Debenhams), £1.90, small baubles (local farm shop), £32, 8 vases (Dunelm), £22, tea lights and tea light holders (IKEA, obviously - where else do you get tea lights????)
Taxi home - £32.90
I'm sure I've left something off, and I feel like there's loads of stuff I haven't mentioned! Anyway, it was perfect. :)

RECAP: June 29, 2019 - Canada Day Long Weekend - Calgary, AB - $19.5K

Background: He proposed while on vacation in Disneyland on September 30, 2017, shortly after our 3 year anniversary. We decided Summer 2019 was ideal but we wanted to enjoy being engaged and didn't start doing a more in-depth look into budget, date, etc until January 2018. A lot of people felt our engagement was going to be "too long" (21 months), but it was perfect. I never felt rushed to book/plan things, we got to enjoy our engagement and were able to save more than enough money.

Budget: $16K
Actual: $19.5K
We initially had our budget at $15K and then increased it to $16K after looking into prices in our area. We still went over-budget, but not over our means. We could still afford the wedding we had and we wouldn't change anything. We actually started saving well before the engagement, as we both had discussed a wedding was in our cards, but we really buckled down on saving once we got engaged.
My parents gave us $5K and his parents gave us $2.5K. The rest of the money was up to us. My parents used their money towards my dress and the flowers, then sent me the rest to use towards the reception. His parents live in another province and had little involvement in planning, so they sent us the money to use as needed.

Guest Count: 110 Invited, 96 RSVP'd Yes, 88 Attended (9 No-Show's, 1 last-minute RSVP change)
I did an in-depth RSVP breakdown here.
The no-show's were a bit disappointing. We were informed indirectly of 3 no-show's and directly of 1 no-show. Luckily, one of our RSVP's who originally said he could not attend, had asked the night before if he could still come and we told him to just take the extra escort card/meal we were aware of. If we had known about the other no-show's we probably could of filled some of their seats with friends who wanted to come but we originally didn't have room for.

Theme: Classic/Simple
I wouldn't really say I had much of a theme. I mostly just tried to play off my color scheme, which was mainly lilac and white. I got a lot of my inspiration from Pinterest.
General Timeline:
9:00AM: Getting Ready
2:15PM: Groom & Groomsmen arrive at Venue
2:45PM: Bride & Bridesmaids arrive at Venue
3:00PM: First Look & Bridal Party Photos take place
4:30PM: Ceremony start time
5:00PM: Cocktails/Family Photos
5:45PM: Reception begins

PHOTOS
Here are some photos and I will have some detail shots scattered throughout the breakdown!

Venue: $1,535.78
Booked the venue on May 16, 2018.
We ended up choosing a venue slightly outside our city (it is on the edge of the city limit), as it was the "cheapest" golf course option nearby and I really wanted to do a golf course. I liked the appeal of everything all in one place. Our venue's package initially required a full cocktail hour, but I really wanted to do a first look and just have the reception right after the ceremony. The venue was more than willing to accommodate that for us!
The venue provided a personal event coordinator, free overnight parking for guests, all day access to a private room, overnight storage, 1 microphone, TVs for slideshow, napkins (with folds), tables, flatware, glassware, chairs and basic linens. They had 3 rooms to chose from for the reception, we chose the mid-point room with a 120 capacity and private patio access. They had an indoor or outdoor ceremony space, we chose outdoor but had the option to use the indoor space as a rain backup.
Our venue also provided a logistics meeting with our venue coordinator and the catering manager 3 months out. The venue coordinator and catering manager made planning incredibly easy and painless. In the meeting they essentially worked out all of the logistics of the wedding day with us. They prepared a day-of timeline and told us everything they needed from us and asked us for information regarding other vendors and the decor. They made sure our day ran smoothly.
The venue had a mandatory 1 hour rehearsal. When we booked them they initially said they would try and get it booked as close to the wedding day as possible but no guarantees would be made until 2 weeks prior. They ended up making it a priority to book us the Friday before so that we could also decorate after the rehearsal. We didn't even need to decorate much because the staff said it was a slow day and ended up doing most of our decor for us (we had dropped off decor in the morning) before we showed up for rehearsal!
Food: $6,095.24
We had to use the food & beverage services at the venue. We could do platted or buffet service. When pricing it out, platted ended up being cheaper so that is what we went with. We gave our guests 2 meal options, Beef or Chicken, and on request they would accommodate vegetarian, allergies, etc. It was a 3 course meal. The starter we chose was a Caesar salad. The main dish was either Prime Rib with Yorkshire pudding, garlic mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables or Chicken supreme stuffed with sun-dried tomato, spinach and cream cheese, with roasted baby potatoes and seasonal vegetables. For dessert, we chose cheesecake with a strawberry compote and fresh cream. This was $55/PP. Kids (12 and under) got veggies and dip for a starter, chicken fingers & fries for their meal, and a ice cream sundae for dessert at $15/PP.
Lots of people told us they loved the food. DH said the potatoes could of been better but that he still really enjoyed the rest of his meal. I enjoyed my meal, it was very filling! MOH had to let my corset out a little after dinner... lol.
The only thing that I would change was that for some reason the staff had a long lull between serving dinner and dessert, so a lot of my guests thought dinner service was over and weren't aware there was dessert. They started getting antsy because we hadn't started speeches or doing dances or anything, because we were waiting for the dessert. I maybe should of had someone hunt down our coordinator to figure things out but people kept wanting to come chat with me and take photos.
For the late-night snack we had a build your own poutine bar, which was a massive hit for those who stuck around to try it! This was $12/PP and we ordered for half our expected guest count (50 people).
Bar: $1,206.80
Our venue gave us the choice of doing a cash bar (guests pay), subsidized bar (guests pay $2, remaining cost paid by host), or host bar (host pays entire tab or commonly referred to as an open bar). Bar prices at our venue were the price you would expect to pay at a local bar and our families are huge drinkers. We chose to do a cash bar, which isn't abnormal where we live. The venue also had an ATM on-site and allowed guests to start a tab with a credit card. We put all of this info on our website.
The cost comes from ourselves and our wedding party (and their dates). Instead of getting our wedding party a bunch of needless gifts, we got them each small personal gifts and chose to pay for their drinks as the rest of their gifts. We also paid for passed Prosecco for all guests for the toasts.
The bar made 2 signature drinks for us. I chose a Blue Lagoon (Vodka, Blue Curacao and Lemonade) and he chose a classic Mojito. I made a sign (with prices) and they were a huge hit.
We had 3 bartenders throughout the night, but it seems the first one was the only one who knew how to make our signature drinks unfortunately. She eventually came back and showed the 2nd bartender how to make the Blue Lagoon but he never got the Mojito right. So one thing I would be sure of, if you have signature drinks, is that all bar staff know how to make them.
Gratuity (Tip): $1,328
There was a 20% gratuity on the bar & food services. We forgot about this when we did our calculations. We both knew about it and it was clearly stated in all of our packages/contracts, we just forgot to calculate it into our budget, so this was a big reason we were over-budget. We had the money & it was no big deal, but just a cautionary tale for other couples.
Cake/Cupcakes: $368.80
Booked January 3, 2019.
We had dessert included in our dinner service but I really wanted to get a small cake for cutting and cupcakes from my favorite local bakery, so we splurged a bit here. We ordered a 6" cake to cut after dinner and 78 cupcakes that were put out an hour after dinner (to give people time to digest). We had a lot of leftover cupcakes, even though I insisted people take them home, nobody really took me up on my offer. If I could go back, I probably would of ordered more like 54 cupcakes instead. My parent's had a pot-luck on the Sunday after our wedding to attend and took all of the leftover cupcakes there, so it worked out okay!
DJ: $800
Booked July 9, 2018.
We are very neutral on our DJ. Our package included ceremony & reception music and equipment (speakers, standard lighting, one microphone).
We had some minor issues leading up to the wedding, but nothing I would consider a red flag. On the day of, all of the ceremony music was played right on queue and the sound was excellent. He struggled to find our reception grand entrance song and said he could only find a 30 second version. Our groomsmen found a 2 minute version and brought that to the DJ, but he tried to tell him it was only 5 seconds? It wasn't, he showed me the song and it was the same song I sent the DJ a week prior to the wedding when we went over the song choices. We ended up entering without music but he recovered it by playing the 30 second version before we sat down. He played our special dance songs right on queue as well and faded out my father-daughter dance song at the correct time.
When we went over songs prior to the wedding he asked for all of the songs above as well as 8 requested songs from the bride & groom and of course special instructions for "do not play" songs or anything else. For special instructions I specified that our crowd was into 80's rock and 90's pop and to play limited country music and choreographed dances. He played 4 of our 8 songs, and barely any of the genre's I suggested. People could also make requests, and I found out later that some people said they never heard the song they requested. It seemed he played about 50% of the songs people actually wanted to hear, therefore not as many people danced as I would of liked, which was a bit of a bummer.
I also found out after the wedding that he apparently was very unprofessional (loudly swearing) when he couldn't find our grand entrance song. He also supposedly was rude to my cousins at the end of the night, instead of politely telling them he could no longer take requests for the night, he apparently was short with them and just said "we are done after this song".
I wouldn't say he was awful. He was very prompt at answering emails/texts before the wedding, and he was very good at timing the scheduled music. I'm not sure if he was having an off day or what, but there definitely could of been some improvement.
Photographer: $2,000
Booked July 1, 2018.
Our package included one photographer, an engagement shoot, and full day coverage up to 14 hours. I loved our photographer. We vibed really well with her, she did an amazing job with our photos and turned them around quickly.
We got 83 edited engagement photos 1.5 weeks after the shoot and we got 425 edited wedding photos just over 3 weeks after the wedding. When I received the wedding photos, I noticed there was no full body shots of our first dance and asked her if she had any, she responded immediately saying she would find some and sent some that night!
Florist: $1,265.25
Booked February 7, 2019.
I really struggled to find a florist that didn't have a $2K minimum for weddings in my area. I was starting to feel defeated, when I started browsing Instagram, where I found my florist. They didn't have a minimum spend and worked with me to be closer within my budget. They were still slightly ($365) over-budget, but we decided that we could make it work.
We had 13 centerpieces (she let us provide our own lanterns for the centerpieces), Brides bouquet, 2 bridesmaids bouquets and 1 boutonniere made. She also provided us with the loose greenery for the head-table. The flowers turned out beautiful! My florist liked that I gave her creative freedom to just work within my color palette, and I am glad I did this because she absolutely nailed it.
Reception Decor: $545
Booked rentals February 4, 2019.
We rented 100 white chair covers, 12 white 120" round tablecloths, 14 lilac table runners and 2 white table skirts for $412.25. I wasn't a fan of the table cloths provided at the venue for the guest tables (we used their table cloths for all other tables though) and the chairs were those typical banquet chairs. We picked up the rentals Thursday morning, dropped them off at the venue on Friday morning, and returned everything on Monday morning. It worked out really well and I loved how it turned out.
The other costs were the lanterns for the centerpieces & frames for the table numbers and various signage, all from IKEA.
Officiant: $471.45
Booked July 10, 2018.
When we initially started looking at officiants, we were shocked at how much they actually cost in our area. We really wanted an officiant that reflected us as a couple, and didn't want the typical formal officiant. We ended up booking a company who has 4 officiants who all reflected an alternative style. They were super easy to work with and the officiant we worked with did an amazing job! I had tons of people tell us how much they liked our officiant and how well he fit in with our style.
Stationary: $250
We saved some money here due to the fact that I work in a print shop and my manager gave me free reign to print all of my stationary at work. We ordered our STD's off VistaPrint during a sale for $33, because I wanted to do the magnet thing. I designed and printed our invitation suite, all of our signage and thank you cards at no cost to us. Most of the cost was due to stamps, envelopes and the materials to hand-make all of the belly bands on our invitations.
Dress: $2,520
Purchased September 13, 2018.
My dress was Sophia Tolli Y11715LB Deon. I bought it off the rack, as the sample fit. I wanted something Elegant & Sexy, everyone told me I nailed that with this dress. It was over-budget but my mom & grandma agreed to help pay the difference so that I could afford it.
Bride's Alterations: $792.75
First Fitting: May 4th, 2019. Last Fitting: June 22, 2019.
Alterations included a hem, 3-point bustle, bringing in the cups to fit closer to my chest, extending the corset panel a bit and extending the boning to help smooth me out.
I only had a first fitting and last fitting. I was surprised they were able to do it all so quickly and efficiently, it really made me nervous that my final fitting was a week before the wedding but everything went well.
Bride's Accessories: $190
I went pretty minimal with my accessories. No veil for me, I didn't like the look of them on me. DH gifted me my earrings for Christmas and I saved them for the wedding day. I ordered Steve Madden purple block heels from ASOS. I ordered hair pins and a Captain America bouquet clip (keychain) on Etsy. For under the dress, my seamstress recommended high-waisted shapewear or nothing at all. I ordered cheap shapewear from Amazon and ended up just cutting a hole in it for bathroom breaks, and it worked great!
Hair & Makeup: $70
Booked MUA January 21, 2019. Trial was on May 25, 2019.
My aunt is my regular hair dresser and she offered to do hair for myself, my 2 bridesmaids (1 of the bridesmaids was her daughter, my cousin) and my mom, all for free of charge.
My aunt also paid for my MUA as a gift to me, I just had to find one. I found my MUA on Instagram. She charged $70 for a trial, which I paid for myself. It was $80 for the Bride's day-of makeup. I gave my bridesmaids & mom the option to pay for their makeup. My MOH & mom paid $75 each for makeup, my bridesmaid opted out and did her own makeup.
Groom's Attire: $400
My groom went shopping for his attire with my mom. I gave him a color palette and he got everything himself. He insisted on having a "proper" first look, so I didn't see his attire until the day-of. It was very cute and he looked fantastic!
Groom's Alterations: $100
My groom wanted to get his pants fitted a little better (he likes a skinny fit) and he had holes made in his shirt for cufflinks. He also got his suit cleaned/pressed.
Groom's Accessories: $120
He wanted to have some small Captain America aspects in his attire. He ordered his tie from Etsy. He got his cufflinks from EBGames (or Game Stop in the US). He got a 3-pack of socks from SockShop, a pair for himself and a pair each for his groomsmen. He got his shoes on sale at Call It Spring. His watch is one he already owned from a couple years ago and his ear plugs are the one's he wears daily.
Rings: $870
DH & I agreed this expense didn't really feel like a wedding expense, so we didn't include it in our total wedding budget, we had our own personal budgets for this. We skipped gifts because we felt like the rings were more like gifts anyways since we shopped for them as if they were. We asked for input from each other but we both did the research and picked each others rings.
He splurged on my ring so he could have it custom made with amethyst. He ordered from Sapheena on Etsy. I love my ring, it's beautiful and everything I ever wanted.
I ordered him a Tungsten ring with blue on the inside from EMBR. I also ordered him a silicone ring for work from Enso. He also loves his rings. He actually has been showing off his ring more than I have!
Miscellaneous: $790

2-Night Hotel Stay
Marriage Licence
Small personal gifts for wedding party
Handkerchiefs for Mom & Grandma
Cake topper
UbeTransportation
Crayons for kids

We skipped a DOC, our venue coordinator filled the role perfectly fine, plus friends & family were more than willing to help. We also skipped a guest book and favors, nobody seemed to notice or miss them.
I did the majority of planning. I am very Type A and I have more down-time at work, as well as have every 2nd Friday off work, so it just made sense. All final decisions were made together as a team. DH did tasks when I asked and was a massive help with the DIY's we had.
We were very lucky in the fact that my parents hosted and paid for our Rehearsal Dinner, as well as put together and provided all of our day-of snacks while we got ready at the Hotel. My parents also built & paid for my card box and backdrop. Both of our parents also did all clean-up at the end of the night and my parents picked up all of our stuff from the venue on Sunday morning and returned our rentals for us on Monday. They were a huge help throughout the entire wedding planning process and we are very grateful.
My MOH & her husband also booked & paid for a hotel room next to us so that the groom & groomsmen could get ready in their room, while the girls got ready in our room. MOH's Husband also picked up the flowers & cake/cupcakes the day-of and delivered/set them up at the venue. They were also a massive help throughout wedding planning. Our day would not have gone so smoothly if it weren't for our friends & family, honestly.
This is already incredibly long, so if you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Wedding Breakdown – 28th April in Edinburgh for ~£4k

We finally did it! This sub has been a lifesaver over the past year, and I’ve used so many of the tips and tricks here, it seems only fair to give a little back… Although really, who am I kidding, I’ve been planning this write-up for the past month!
We got engaged a year ago (I proposed to him, but we’d already agreed it was happening so it wasn’t a surprise to anyone) after dating for two years. I was all up for eloping or at least doing intimate family only… but then we ran into the classic family mismatch. My immediate family is five of us vs him and his mum… but I’m not close with any of my extended family, whilst his 20-25 aunts/uncles/cousins are his pseudo-siblings. He also wasn’t keen on eloping and did want a celebration, so the next thing we knew, we were organising this semi-traditional day for 75 people, plus another 30 or so in the evening. Final guest count was 73 day and 20 evening, which was perfect.
From a budget side, we wanted to keep it cheap and cheerful. We could have afforded to go bigger, but we’re looking to buy a house in a couple of years and we’d rather have a bigger deposit for that. We also wanted to make the day feel like our own, and I’m quite into DIY, so we decided to focus on smaller cheaper touches. This did mean we made major sacrifices in certain areas to get what we did want, but overall I don’t regret cutting on anything.
We haven’t got the official pics back yet but we’ve got a good range of guest pics – enjoy!

Venue – Duddingston Golf Club (£1285)

This place singlehandedly let us hit our budget target. They started running more events like weddings a couple of years back, and they’re really good at it. They’re tucked away in a gorgeous secluded side of Edinburgh, the dancefloor is very decently sized (which was really hard to find in our price range) and the manager bent backwards to fit our ideas.
Hire £0 (!!!) Food £15/head, £1095 total Reception drinks & toast £190 Tea/coffee £73 Drinks during meal (£584)
YES. YOU READ THAT RIGHT. £0 FOR ROOM HIRE.
The golf club have a policy where they don’t charge for room hire as they make their money from the bar during the night. It meant we had to do a bit more (i.e. we had rosemary and twine round the napkins, so we picked them up the night before to tie them on ourselves) but I was so much happier doing that to save money.
We went into the venue really aiming for £15/head with a simple buffet. The manager has a bit of a weird thing against buffets, but it meant he worked hard to offer us an alternative menu at that price. When he mentioned a Sunday roast, we were sold! (Especially as we have awkward friends who between them rule out every meat on the planet.) Gave people choice, was nice and tasty, and relatively simple. We also went with bruschetta trio for starter and profiteroles for pudding. ALL FOR £15/HEAD. Amazing.
To make it more our own, we also went with Pimms for the cocktail drink (my favourite) and a shot of ginger beer for toasts (my DH’s favourite, as he doesn’t drink).
My MIL covered drinks during the meal. We weren’t originally going to do them (part of choosing a golf club was cheap drinks, and no open bar is fairly common in Scotland), but she had a bit of a bee in her bonnet about it, so she offered to pay for it. We ended up offering people two drinks of their choice during the meal – as two non-wine drinkers who never get to make use of the usual wine on tables, we felt it would be hypocritical to do that at our own wedding!

Church – Duddingston Kirk (£460)

I’m not religious but DH is, and the church was important to him. Luckily the church round the corner from the golf club was Church of Scotland, and it is gorgeous (seriously, google it). It’s 900 years old, right at the base of Arthur’s Seat and looks like a castle, so I was sold.
The fee included all of the organist, minister and other people costs, and they were fantastic. Dr Jack put me at ease right away – particularly appreciated as my first panicked exclamation to him was ‘so I’m a heathen, I’m so sorry, am I still allowed to be married here?!’.
However, I did want to make the ceremony a little more me as well, so I asked my choir if I could hire them to sing me down the aisle. Not only did they all do it for free, my choirmaster arranged the most beautiful excerpt of ‘For Crying Out Loud’ by Meat Loaf (who I adore). It was perfect. Then, as I chose the entering music, DH got to choose our exit… and got the organist to play ‘All Star’ by Smash Mouth. I am telling you, if you’ve never heard that on a full organ, you haven’t lived. Totally worth it for the immediate hysterics from our friends on the front row.
My MIL was a star and produced the orders of service herself (she does this a lot for her local church so knew what she was doing).

Invitations (~£20)

This is an area where we cut costs. Our best man is very good at drawing so we asked him to do a dinosaur sketch and a border, which I then put into PowerPoint. We bought two packs of nice cream card on Amazon and printed them at home. We kept it black and white to keep it simple. They were definitely one of the plainer invitations you’d get, but with the hand-drawn art they were very personal. We had heaps of card left over which I proceeded to use for all the decoration signs later too.
We hand delivered the vast majority of the cards, so we only had to spend about £10 on second class stamps.

Flowers (~£5-10?)

And more cuts here! I’m not a big flower person and just wouldn’t have had them in the church, but it mattered to my MIL so she paid for it. I think it was about £90 as we shared them with the wedding later on that day.
I was also going to just not have a bouquet, but DH of all people said he’d like it if I did. (Fiiiiine…) I started trying to make paper flowers out of Magic the Gathering cards before very quickly giving up. The next plan was just to grab flowers out of Tesco on the day, but then my mum mentioned possibly doing a single flower bouquet. We checked out the florist next to me and got a beautiful dusky pink rose for about £3. My mum also bought some gypsophelia and some cuttings out of our garden from home, and pulled together my and my sister’s bouquets out of that with some floral tape and wire. It looked beautiful and I was quite happy to have cut costs here.

Photographer – Kristine Solmane (£150)

Another area of saving costs! Again, I was just going to skip this and go with guest photos (there are very, very few photos of me I like, so it’s just not important to me), but families wanted some portraits. I advertised on Gumtree for £150 for 2 hrs (ceremony and portraits) and got heaps of responses. I chose Kristine as she’s starting out after having loved photography for years, and I loved how vibrant her pics are. There was a little disconnect in styles on the day – she was clearly aiming for very romantic when we are… not. (I may have licked his nose when she asked us to kiss as I was giggling so much.) However, that’s still absolutely fine when you consider how little we were paying. Still to get the pics back so will see how they are!
I also put a fb group up for guests to upload their own photos and we’ve got some really beautiful ones out of that so I’m pretty happy all round. (See link above).

Dress (£108, plus ~£50 accessories)

And another area of cutting costs! (Told you there were a few…) Firstly, I was awkward and wanted a green dress. I love green, I’ve never really been a wedding person, and I would have felt like a fraud in an actual wedding dress. Plus, I hate clothes shopping and spending money on clothes, so spending a lot on a dress would have been a nightmare.
However, we were also amazingly lucky. We found my dress in one day – the department store Jenners was having a sale, and this gorgeous Ralph Lauren dress was down from £250 to £150. My mum got some more off as there was a loose thread at the back, so total price was £108. Steal!
Double bonus was that it was super stretchy (and a couple sizes smaller than me), so it fit me both when I bought it and when I was ~30lb lighter on my wedding day, so no alterations required. It will also be perfect for any fancy events in future, so great reuseability. (What can I say, I’m very practical…)
My shoes were £15 from ASOS, my necklace was £10 and my hairpiece was £40 from Debenhams (bought during one of their sales). My earrings were a splurge at £50, but they’re ones I’ve wanted for a while and I was planning on buying anyway so I don’t really class them as a wedding cost.

Ceilidh Band – Teannaich (£1000)

This was one of my top priorities. I love ceilidh dancing, and years ago at uni had fallen in love with this ceilidh band who mixed traditional Scottish music with classic rock (AC-DC, The Darkness etc) who did monthly big ceilidhs in Edinburgh. They were pricey but so worth it – I got so many compliments on the band and they kept the party going all night! Even friends who typically prefer a DJ to ceilidh-ing said the band were so modern and so much fun. I danced every dance (my poor feet) but it was a great way to get around all my guy friends (as an engineer, there were definitely a surplus of guy friends there). Just brilliant.

Dessert Table & Sweetie Table – me! (& mum!) (~£50)

We didn’t want to spend a pile more money on food in the evening, but we were aware evening guests would want some food… so here is where I went a little mad and decided I could bake a dessert table for 100 people by myself. I got 5 extra holiday days from work for getting married (woo nice UK companies), so took that off the week before and planned like anything. My mum also did a pile of baking at home and brought it along. We did a mix of cookies, mini pies, cake pops, rocky road, brownies, and iced biscuits, along with a few savoury things like cheese scones, puff pastry twists, palmiers and cheese biscuits. In total, I think baking supplies only came to about £50 for me, probably a bit less for my mum. We got cheap colourful paper plates from Asda, and I got napkins from Amazon using some of my cashback vouchers. We raided family friends’ cupboards for dishes and cake stands, and it went across really well! The only slight failure was my mini apple crumble pies, as the crumble went very soggy overnight. However, everything else mostly disappeared.
We also did a sweetie table, as my brother and sister have worked a lot of weddings and love them. Some family friends recently got married so we nicked their set of jars and supplemented with big jars we already had. Scoops and bags were again bought with cashback vouchers on Amazon, so basically free. For the sweets, we bought a bag or two of sweets with every weekly shop since last summer, so although it probably was something like £50 altogether, it never felt like it. We had a pretty huge pile of sweets by the end! The sweetie table was available from the cocktail hour and people devoured it – nothing left by the end of the night!

Wedding Cake (£0)

We were very lucky here as my mum offered to make our wedding cake. She did SUCH a good job – we had a chocolate, vanilla and fruit cake layer. My mum went to local sugarcraft meetings to learn how to make the dinosaur toppers, and the beautiful sugar flowers. Unfortunately, the second layer of sugar flowers was dropped and broke the night before, but we used my single flower bouquet to replace it and you never would have known that wasn’t the original plan anyway.

Decorations (~£70)

My big thing with decorations is that I wanted to generally avoid buying anything that we’d just chuck away later. We quickly came up with the idea of book centrepieces as we both love reading, and had great fun picking out authors and quotes. We took dust covers off books we already owned, piled about three high and tied them together with silver twine (bought again with cashback on Amazon). To add a little more, we had three glass jam jars with fairy lights inside and translucent gaming dice on each table. The fairy lights were my one ‘throwaway’ concession, but I do have a weakness for fairy lights.
We had to buy a couple new hardback books for certain authors, but we made sure to buy books we didn’t have already so it was more adding to our collection. We also bought new dice, but we play a lot of tabletop games and RPGs, so they will be used! We also had some friends take away some as they liked the colours.
We put rosemary sprigs tied with twine around each napkin, with rosemary being provided from my mum’s and MIL’s garden. My MIL also makes her own elderflower cordial, so we put a bottle of that one each table. When it came to cleaning up time they had all disappeared, so people clearly liked them!
For the seating chart, I saw an idea on reddit for a periodic table themed seating chart – which seeing as DH is a chemist and I’m a chemical engineer, was perfect! After seeing them on Etsy for £40+, I decided to make my own on Powerpoint. It was £15 to print at KodakExpress and we used a frame we already had in the house. The easel was provided by the venue.
Again stealing from reddit, we used Jenga for the ‘guestbook’. This was about £8 from ebay, and I used marker pens I already had. The glass bowls to store them in were borrowed from mum.
Table signs were just folded cardboard that we’d printed on using the border from the invites. Each table had a favourite quote on it from that author. For signs for the dessert, sweetie and guestbook tables, I just used some A4 black frames I already had on the wall at home and put the printed signs in them. It was all black and white – again, just simple and easy. They actually looked pretty good for being essentially free!

Escape Room – Padlox (£500)

This was one of our splurges, but we couldn’t resist! We both love escape rooms, and the one round the corner from home started advertising for weddings. They’d create a 15min long mini escape room based around the couple, and teams could sign up through the night. It was fantastic. Some family had reservations about it but on the night pretty much everyone did it. They had a box van outside the venue and took teams out there through the night. We had them from 5.30 – 11.30pm – and for only £500! It was something a little bit different, and very us.

Hair & Make-up (£0)

And yet more cuts here... I don't generally wear make-up, and we discovered over the year that I cannot stand foundation. I was a bit sneaky - when trying on some tinted moisturiser a lady gave me a sample of it to try out... and I ended up just using that. However, I'd never have used it again if I'd bought it! I borrowed my mum's Urban Decay eyeshadow and otherwise used my own make-up.
My sister did an amazing job with my hair - she did french plaits down both sides and curled the rest of my hair at the back. It looked lovely, and I was very grateful to her for being willing to take that on!

Gifts (~£150)

This covered gifts for both mums, my maid of honour (my sister), the best man and a little something for my choirmaster (as he arranged my song for free). We kept it personal, trying to get things engraved or embossed where possible.

Random Other Costs

License - £70 Insurance - £18 Lighting – ShowEquip £56
We only wanted a little bit of lighting to give atmosphere, and the son of a family friend had recently started up an events company so we used him. This covered the uplighters, and the fairy lights on the windows were thrown in for free.

Overall…

I was definitely one of those brides who very seriously considered eloping over a hundred times over the past year. It was a severe reality adjustment to get used to spending a couple of grand on one day – I’m a pretty frugal person and I just couldn’t justify it vs eloping. There were also a lot of arguments with family over expectations as I tried to throw away anything traditional at every possible opportunity. Weirdly, my family were far more difficult at first (especially when I told my mum I wasn’t having it in my home village up north), but in the final month they were absolutely brilliant. My mum told me the day couldn’t have been more perfect. Alternatively, my MIL was great early on and all the way through, but suddenly started expecting things we’d told her weren’t happening in the weeks before, leading to a number of arguments.
Due to this and also just the fact my brain would not turn off, I slept so badly the week before. My stress was through the roof, and I nearly had a panic attack in the church rehearsal the night before.
However, the day itself was great. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed all my uni and school friends, and it was so much fun to see everyone having a great time dancing the night away. As soon as I walked into the church I went into ‘performance mode’ instead of passing out, which was a relief, and after that I was just bouncing on adrenaline. And as cheesy as it sounds, it is SO nice to finally be married to my man!
I still think I’d have been happy eloping and saving money, but I did also have an absolute blast with my ceilidh and escape room, so either way I don’t regret doing it.
(Also, TopCashback or similar is my top money saving tip - I bought all Christmas/birthday presents/as much as I could through here over the past year and it covered a fair bit of all those little decorating things that add up! Not a huge saving but it was awesome every time you got another little thing for free.)
Edit: Changed slightly as I totally forgot about H&MU and a couple other small details!

I need board game pieces!!

Look at the thing that we did twice! An international wedding recap.

First of all, thank you, as a community, for all your help and advice with planning our shindig. I was never a heavy poster here, but your advice was invaluable. I hope this post might give something back.
We got married last May, and only now have I had a chance to get this all written down (and hopefully formatted)
The main story is also found on the imgur album here, but I'll do the breakdown here:
We got married twice! I'm Anglo-American, and my wife is Russo-Lithuanian, so in order to encompass we all of our family and friends, and all of the things we love, we did a registery office and party in London, and the following weekend a religious ceremony - and three day party! - in Lithuania.
This mean that we could have as many people celebrating with us as possible in London, while having a wedding we could never afford in the UK alone!
Wedding 1
The setup:
Day 1, Saturday May 20, London
I stayed at home, while my wife got an airbnb with her family and bridesmaids.
14:00 - wedding ceremony at a west London registery office (20 people)
14:45 - walk five minutes from the registery office to the Thames, for some photos and prosecco by the river (cheaper than buying the wine at the pub, too!)
15:30 - head to a pub on the river for lunch and drinks (people paid for themselves, barring close family). There was no venue hire, just a minimum spend that we hit with no problem.
17:00 - our first mistake! Our venue, which was quirky and cheap - a photographic studio in East London, involved everyone piling into ubers and heading across town. The bonus was that I got to spend 45 minutes relaxing and having out with my wife! Then we met up with the core party there and supervised setting up the venue. I sent a pair of groomsmen to pick up some of our food from restaurants we love (see below).
19:00 - party! We had 120 of our nearest and dearest drinking and dancing, with some moving speeches. We had a translator on hand for our families (my wife's parents don't speak English), and she did an admirable job translating speeches.
04:00 - stumble out of the venue, and into a hotel room next door!
Food in London:
We went to Smithfields meat market, a still functioning market in the heart of the city, and went to one of the professional catering companies. We ordered piles of pate, wheels of cheeses, antipasti and meats. We also got a wedding 'cake', 100 portuguese custard tarts! Topped with a £10 white cake from tesco for the ceremonial cutting!
My groomsmen went to pick up two of our favourite London foods: bagels with salmon and cream cheese from Beigel Bake, a famous 24 hour bagel shop in Brick Lane, and dozens of Khachipuri, a Georgian cheese pie, which is one of the best foods in the world!. We over-ordered, and were eating bagels and Khachipuri for the next week! (We donated a couple of sacks of bagels (!) to charity as well).
Here is the cost breakdown, with notes:

AirBNB (wife, night before): £200
Hotel (night of): £100
Registry Office: £70
Registry Room Rental: £210
Pub reception room: £0 (£400 minimum spend)
Reception Venue: £2,500
Bagels, Khachpuri, Other food: £550
Wedding Dress (Reiss): £250 (re-wearable)
Bouquet/Flowers: £65
Ubers: £100
ZipCar (car rental) £24
Make-up/Hair: £30 (a professional friend only charged for supplies)
Photographer: £280 (a professional friend - a news/politics photographer! only charged for camera rental)

Wedding 2
The setup:
Day 1, Friday 26 May
We took control of our venue in Lithuania at noon, and set about decorating. The venue was a converted barn on grounds that had once had a 17th century mansion house on them. As such, there was a giant venue, as well as a set of picturesque ruins, and an excellent on site brewery, selling beer (which they also sell all over the country) for €1.50 a glass. All this was next to a stunning lake in the countryside. We supplied free wine, which we had purchased in France and had transported over at the cost of €100. We had a hundred bottles of wine and a dozen boxes of cheaper plonk for the days before and after the wedding. For reference, our wedding red wine is now on sale in waitrose supermarkets in the UK at £7.99 a bottle, it cost us £1.49 a bottle in bulk, and is actually nice!
17:00 - people began to arrive at the venue, where almost everyone was staying. They were checked in, and those who were not in the immediate wedding party were charged for their room (this was taken off the price of the venue hire). Luckily the venue was happy to take the role of charging people.
18:30 - thanks fully threatened rain never materialised, and we had dinner in the ruins, a long communal table was set up, and we strung lights from the walls of the ruins. The chefs prepared a giant barbecue, which included a shockingly delicious beaver stew! This was my idea, as it had been mentioned that the venue owner hunted beaver for meat, and a Catholic friend of mine had requested a fish option for Friday. Me, being a smartarse, happened to know that the beaver had been declared a fish by the Catholic Church in the 1750s! So while there was some delicious fish on the barbecue, the runaway hit of the day was this stunning stew, which we ate as the sun set, next to a huge bonfire. We then moved over to the brewery for the evening, and my fiancée headed back to her parents place to prepare for the next day.
Day 2, Saturday 27 May
08:00 - woke up, got dressed, and drove my dad and best man over to my fiancée's town (an hour away), for the wedding ceremony. Nervous as hell, but no time to dwell on it!
13:00 - aaaaaahhhhhhh! In the church, waiting for my fiancée! We didn't do a first look, so I just about kept it together when she came in. Stunning dress (though I'm not allowed to know the price, which is probably for the best).
13:50 - prosecco outside while we do some group photos and run off to take a photo by the local war memorial, a Russian tradition.
14:00 - get back to find everyone gone! We jumped into the car, and sped up the road, to find them waiting at the bridge out of town- time for another tradition! I had to carry my wife over the bridge. And they picked a bloody long one!
15:00 - back to the venue, reception, canapés, and we run off to take some photos. People kick back a bit, freshen up in their rooms.
18:00 - dinner! Delicious russian food, herring, salads, chicken, steak and vegetarian options. This was periodically interrupted by more russian traditions and speeches, including a symbolic lighting of a candlestick by her parents and then my parents, as well as others (some are shown in the imgur album). We had to run off to take photos in the middle, to get the sunset shots, which meant I never got to finish my meal - it's true, there's never the time!
19:30 - cake cutting! We did a cake made of wheels of cheese, including Lithuanian, French and British ones. A friend rus a dairy, and gave us two incredible wheels as a wedding gift!
20:00 (or so) - we disappeared for a moment to ourselves, and trialed our first dance! It was great to take a moment, especially as while we were having fun, it was quite stressful in parts, and we had at times throughout the day snapped at each other, which was a bit of a downer. This really served as a reset button, and once the dance was done, we were free to party until the early hours! DJ was set up with a list of American, British and Russian favourites, we tapped into the supply of prosecco, and partied all night! We had more canapes brought out at midnight to help soak up some of the local beer!
Day 3, Sunday, 28 May
Recovery day! About 3/4 of our guest were still with us, and we swam in the lake, used the Russian sauna (Banya) which was perched on the edge of the lake, and eventually all joined together for an Elk (!) stew sitting on the lakeside. We really got to use every aspect of the venue.
Negatives and lessons:
London
Venues were too far apart. Other than that though, it was excellent. If we only had that wedding, that would have been fine!
Lithuania
mosquitos! At dusk each night, waves of them. The Russians were immune, but us westerners were eaten alive. Luckily, it only lasted for about 45 minutes a day, and it was easy to duck inside the venue or spray up with DEET.
Photography - great photographer, but we didn't have many photos of the venue, centerpieces, etc. We also missed out on some combinations of people, including groomsmen and bridesmaid shots. I wish we could have coordinated the sunset shots better. A side effect of a three-day wedding is that there are amazing moments that haven't been immortalised, though we did set up a Dropbox for our guests to share photos, and we have placed all the photos on out website for a year after the wedding.
DJ - musically great, but we didn't get to speak to him before the day, hence he began playing our dancing list as we sat down to dinner (MoH had to go get him to play something more appropriate - and quoter). We also had to make him turn off the disco lights while we were eating. No one had told him that our first dance would be in a different place, so we had to get him to re-set speakers at one point.
Food - some miscommunications, such as no waitstaff to serve canapés when we got back from the ceremony. They also forgot to put champagne flutes out on the tables.
Drink - not much to complain about, though once the first dance was over I… overindulged a bit, once the tension lifted! The russians, of course, brought some vodka, but no one went too crazy on it.
Wedding planner - we should have had one, at least a day-of coordinater, just so that we could have someone to act as a trouble fixer when something wasn't quite right
Positives - well, everything else! Surrounded by people we love, from three continents for four days! Stunning flowers and dresses and food and views.
Table list and cetnrepieces: We had a big map of the world, and each table represented a different place we’ve been, symbolised by our old guidebooks and piles of photographs from each country. We put guests from far away places on tables which would be covered by photos of us going to visit them. The bridesmaid’s boquets were repurposed as centrepieces, along with local flowers picked from the woods by my wife’s mother and her friends.
Here's the Lithuania cost breakdown:
Lithuania:

Venue (inc bartab, sauna, three dinners, including wedding breakfast, three ‘actual’ breakfasts) £10,820
Guest room rates taken off total: -£1,274
Church Candles/Fees: £80 (my Wife’s father works for the church, so a good discount was provided)
Wife and bridesmaid, mothers make-up, hair:£150
Wedding Dress: I’m not allowed to know. A lot.
Taxis and Transport (including rental car) £400 Photographer: £280
Robes for bridesmaids/mothers: £320
Flights:£300 (including flight earlier in the year to scout/see her parents)
Hay Bales £8 (for rustic aesthetic)
Cheese (cake) £70 (this worked as a big part of lunch the next day too,as well as drunk food)
Flowers:£105
Centrepieces: £90 (photo printing)
Wedding favours:£0 (little Russian Dolls, a wedding gift from a friend who came from St Petersburg)

And combined costs (things that covered both weddings):

Save the dates/invitations: £200
Stamps: £60
Instax Camera:£100 (sold on ebay later)
Wife’s Shoes: £189
Assorted Decorations: £150
Wine (both venues): £1,000 (there was plenty left over, we’re still drinking it!)
My Suit: £120 (worn as a two piece in London, a three piece in Lithuania)

[Report] I spent 2 weeks city hoping through Germany and Austria (Berlin – Dresden – Bayreuth – Nuremberg – Regensburg – Munich – Mittenwald – Innsbruck)

The route
We flew up to Berlin from Zürich and slowly worked our back via train.

Day	Start	End	Travel
1 Fri	Zürich	Berlin	4hrs
2 Sat	Berlin	Berlin	-
3 Sun	Berlin	Dresden	2hrs
4 Mon	Dresden	Dresden	-
5 Tues	Dresden	Dresden	-
6 Wed	Dresden	Bayreuth	4hrs(5hrs30)
7 Thurs	Bayreuth	Bayreuth	-
8 Fri	Bayreuth	Nuremberg	1hr
9 Sat	Nuremberg	Nuremberg	-
10 Sun	Nuremberg	Regensburg	1hr
11 Mon	Regensburg	Munich	1hr40
12 Tues	Munich	Munich	-
13 Wed	Munich	Mittenwald	2hrs
14 Thurs	Mittenwald	Mittenwald	-
15 Fri	Mittenwald	Mittenwald	-
16 Sat	Mittenwald	Innsbruck	1hr
17 Sun	Innsbruck	Zürich	4hrs

Planning - The trip was initially based around passing through Bayreuth to see a friend and grew from there based on where was interesting, and fit well with the direction going home. I mostly used wikivoyage to look up each place before arrival, this was mostly useful in larger places the Mittenwald page in English is useless but the German one is great. The Rewboss youtube channel from rewboss has a great intro on many of these places.
Timing - Mid-late August. Not my ideal time-frame but it turned out to be much quieter than I expected.
What we did - Mostly just exploring the cities, popping out heads into interesting looking places. There were vast numbers of museums, galleries and palaces to see but the mood didn’t really take us for most of them. When possible we got out to do some hiking or see smaller places.
Language – I speak German and my girlfriend is German so that was rather easy. In general most places dealing with tourists will offer English, sometimes it was hard for me to convince them to speak German.
Budget – for my means this wasn’t a big concern. Accommodation and eating out were the main costs. My mindset with accommodation was to be central but ideally cheapish. Coming from Switzerland it all seemed rather cheap too….
Weather – This was the 2018 heatwave so it was hot (30C+) and sunny almost all the way. Cloud and rain started to come down in the Alps and it almost started to feel cold.
Touristyness – most places were far less busy than I expected for mid August. Unsurprisingly Berlin, Munich and Innsbruck were probably the worst, but nowhere were there insane queues or streets that were frustrating to walk down. The only really crowded part were the narrow bridges at Bastei.
Transport – We got a Deutsche Bahn 25% discount card trial for 3 months which quickly paid for itself, though with most of the later parts it was cheaper to use a Bayern ticket. Trains were mostly on time, though the one trip with a connection was delayed (only so much DB can be expected to do). For city or local area transport we often used group or family day-tickets which for 2 adults is typically cheapest (assuming you stick together).
Views from the train - Berlin to Dresden was mostly flat and forest/field/villages, Dresden to Munich was a mix of rolling hills and forest/field/villages. Munich to Zürich naturally saw lots of Alps. The extent to which the country feels so empty/rural is quite amazing.
Regrets – Not taking more time for trips outside of the cities into the smaller towns and countryside. Bamberg in particular I would have liked to have seen. Neuschwanstein I have yet to see but honestly will only do so if it is barely out of my way.
Just for some more listicle….

Best surprise: Regensburg. Beautiful and with such a different feel.
Best beer: Franconian red. Franconian beer generally won out.
Most expensive: Munich. 4.5E for 0.5L of beer in the centre.
Most touristy: Innsbruck.
Worst tourist tack: 45E Christmas tree decoration of Santa holding the American flag in Nuremberg. Runner up to the 600E 1m tall Bavarian Wolpertinger smoking a pipe in Munich.

Berlin

Hotel - aletto Hotel Kudamm. Clean and comfy and right next to the transport at Zoologischer Garten. Nothing exciting but very practical.
I still can’t decided what I think of Berlin. It is very lively and filled with interesting things, but at the same time very ugly and I just can’t get a fixed feel for it.
I really don’t get the appeal or iconic level of Currywurst. The hint of curry powder doesn’t even give it any flavour.
Based on internet reviews we walked to a very unpromising area for dinner to find the Mabuhay Indonesian restaurant. It was little chaotic due to staff shortage, but the food was so very good and cheap, with the bloke in charge being wonderfully eccentric and friendly.
The Alex was well worth going up to appreciate the strange city scape.
I went in expecting Checkpoint Charlie to be a fake tourist circus but also to be entertaining enough for a few minutes – and that is exactly what I got. Worth taking a look but don’t expect much. The actual wall section at Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer near Northbahnhof is much more interesting and powerful. The DDR museum is very good too.
Schönefeld airport and the attached station has a really strange feel to it, like it wants to be something else or more.

Dresden

Hotel Hyperion. Very fancy and in a very good location. By far the fanciest place I have stayed at in Europe - a 5 star for 38 euros pp per night in August, I have paid more for a 12 person dorm room in Switzerland……
I really liked Dresden. A very lively city with lots going on. The mix of very beautiful land ugly is very stark, the style of the old town reminded me somewhat of Prague – only with far less tourists.
There was such good food. The places we went to were a short walk or tram ride from the old town: Zum Schiesshaus a quiet garden serving large piles of heavy German food and big mugs of beer to locals, just around the corner is BrennNessel a great veggie place in beautiful old house (also with good beer), and over in the new town area the mostly Indian Scheune cafe on the very lively Alaunstrasse.
The centrepiece Frauenkirche is majestic on the outside but rather horribly garish pink and forgettable on the inside. The view from the top of the tower however is very good (but rather expensive at 8 euros).
The rebuilt old town feels a little fake. Though being fancier grander buildings it doesn’t feel overly fake as you expect them to be kept clean and in good shape. Certainly it still felt more authentic than the over-done tourist parts of Colmar which actually are historical. Considering how much it has changed since the 70s they really have done an amazing job.
The Saxon Switzerland (and Bohemian Switzerland across the Czech border) offer loads of beautiful sites. We hiked from Hohenstein to Stadt Wehlen via Bastei as part 2 of the Malerweg. This was well worth the effort and done backwards to keep the simple transport connections for the end of the day.
Bastei is a standalone spot to visit. Interestingly it was once a fortress, but only a few signs of that remain now. It was also something of a circus with lots of people and a hotel and restaurants right next to it. But it is still very striking and offers fantastic views. Though I do want to go back to the area and push more towards the Czech Bohemian Switzerland which looks even more impressive.

Bayreuth

Slept on a friend’s sofa. Slightly less fancy than the 5 star hotel in Dresden.
Seemed quite nice if not overly exciting. If you like your Wagner this is the place for you.
Plenty of beer to be had. Even more in nearby Kulmbach too.
We spent a day in the Franconian Switzerland around Pottenstein. A region that is full of beautiful landscapes, villages, and all the beer you could ever want. However the term Switzerland is really overselling it there. Neuhaus looked very impressive too. We did this by car but you can certainly access some of the area by public transport.

Nuremberg

Garden Hotel. In a nice quiet part of the old town. Nothing overly special but it served its purpose.
Nuremberg must have been amazing before the war. It is still amazing now. But for every beautiful old (or redone) building there are plenty of forgettable new ones. The ugliness of some of the buildings around the castle area is rather surprising.
The western area of the old town around the river is especially nice but surprisingly quiet compared to the busy main routes around the market square.
That said the river itself was filled with bikes, other junk, a strange white foamy scum, and generally wasn’t very attractive.
My favourite spot for an evening drink was Bierwerk in the old town near the wooden bridge.
We took a 15 minute U-Bahn ride out to Fürth which has a lovely old-town and handsome new-town. The Kaffee Bohne did some good and very cheap food.
A 10 minute tram ride in the other direction is the infamous Nazi parade grounds. We took tram 8 to Dutzendteich then walked around the lake taking in the Zeppelin field and Grosser strasse before visiting the Docuzentrum museum. Signs around the lake explain the history and it is powerful to see, though I wouldn’t suggest wandering further into the area than that. The museum was well worth a visit and well done with the audio guide, the middle section of the museum documenting the events at the parade grounds (and how much of it was a giant cock-up) was the most interesting part.
The local mini-wurst are the closest thing I have found to a proper British sausage outside of the UK.
I would like to go back and spend some more time around there. The city makes a good base to daytrip out to many other places too.

Regensburg

Castle hotel. In a quiet spot right by the fancy. Very friendly staff and very good breakfast.
I really liked Regensburg. The style and the bright sun made it often feel more like Italy than Germany (it actually matches the nickname of northernmost city of Italy). Being abit less well known and not the closest daytrip option from Munich it seems to get overlooked so it wasn’t very busy – at night it just seemed to be students and a few locals out and about.
The old town is extensive and beautiful. The section across the river is a good option for a drink. The cathedral is astounding (and free). The bridge is impressive but feels a bit overly renovated and almost too new.
The Dreieinigkeitskirche has an easy and worthwhile tower climb for a good view over the city. Cheap too at only a few euros.
The Oma in da Antn was my beer garden of choice here.
We didn’t have time to see it, but for a more eccentric but oddly unknown sight Walhalla is a short boat ride up the river.

Munich

We stayed at Hotel MK München. A nice modern place that is 10 minutes to the main station or old town. It is (along with many other hotels) in a sort of red light distract to the south of the main station, but it is on a busy road and so long as bored looking strippers don’t bother you then that isn’t a problem.
The Englischer Garten is great to explore and relax in, even if you don’t go more than a few hundred meters in. The surfers are entertaining to watch for a bit (it is impressive what they can do in such a small space), and floating down the streams in warm weather is very enjoyable.
We had a fancy (and rather expensive) breakfast at Dallmayr. A long-established fancy deli and café/restaurant (Like the Harrods of Munich) which is worth a look around regardless of whether you plan to buy or not.
I think the Hofbräuhaus is rather overrated, it is worth a drink there (or even just take a wander through it) once for the experience. Some might like the constant loud and busy nature of it, but I find just about any other beer hall or garden to be much nicer. That said the garden is nice in summer, especially late on a weekday when it wasn’t rammed.
I much prefer the nearby Zum Dürnbräu. They do surprisingly good salads in the summer along with the standard heavy dishes, and also make hell of a good (and gigantic) Kaiserschmarrn.
Likewise I find that taking a Mass (1L) of beer is also a bit overrated. Better to drink 2x 0.5L rather than worry about the 1L getting flat and warm if you are not fast enough. Again it is something that is fun at least the once but not something I would bother with often. It is worth bearing in mind that Germans do not call the large glasses a “Stein” it is a Mass, with the ceramic mugs being a (Bier)Krug or Humpen.
If you want to buy a Bierkrug/Humpen to drink beer out of then then the Manufactum Warenhaus shop next to Dallmayr does plain 0.5L and 1L ceramic bierkrugs at much cheaper prices than you will find in any tourist shop and without the tacky decoration.
The tower climb up the Peterskirche is well worth it for 3E. But at 14 stories it was hard going for many people we saw. The first staircase is very tight and narrow, but it gets much better after.
By chance we were passing the town hall at 11am when the Glockenspiel did its thing. Clocks like this really don’t do much to impress me, but the big excited crowd clearly thought different.

We didn’t squeeze it in here but from a previous trip I also suggest:

Take the S-Bahn out to Herrsching then take the easy walk through the woods to the monastery at Andechs for copious amounts of beer and food in a rural setting. There is also an Andechs bar in Munich (currently being renovated) but that is far less fun.
Use the Bayern ticket for a cheap trip to Salzberg. Be warned the train always seems to be rammed with tourists so turning up 15 minutes or more to the platform in Munich might not be a bad idea.
S-Bhan out to Dachau and visiting the camp is a very powerful experience.
The Residenz palace in the centre is very impressive in size and decoration. I would suggest going early as judging by the queue it gets popular as the day goes on.

Mittenwald

Gästehaus Edlhuber. By far the best place we stayed. Lovely family run place with their pets wandering around. Breakfast was fantastic. This was the most expensive room per night, but it was essentially a private flat which was great for a few days to unwind in the mountains.
Town itself is nice and well worth a look around, but very much not the reason to be in the area. The reason being the mountains which tower above the town. The Lüftmalerei (painted houses) can be nice, though most were done with sickly sweet Disney-like scenes which are a bit too twee for my liking.
Being further than many other alpine spots from Munich (2hrs by train and lacking a fancy castle) it was fairly quiet tourist wise. Though getting an outside table at 7pm was a bit of a challenge.
The beer from the Mittenwald Brauerei is found all over town and was one of my favourites from the trip.
Someone missed out on a marketing op by not making a mangled cross language pun and selling Mittenwald Mittens.
You can walk into Austria in 30 minutes from the middle of town. Many of the local outdoor routes take you back and forth over it.

There are endless outdoor activities in the area. The tourist info office has info on various hikes and other activities in the area.

The Geisterklamm (spirit gorge) is a 20 minute walk from the centre of town. The café at the base is right up against the Austrian border and as soon as you walk into or up the gorge you are crossing over. You can pay 3E to enter the deep gorge for a few hundred meters up to a waterfall. The waterfall itself is not overly impressive but the walkways through the gorge are worth the entry fee. You can also buy some fish food to feed the trout at the mouth of the gorge – for 20cents this is surprisingly good fun as those fish are amazingly perceptive, fast, and accurate. The other attraction is the loop walk above the gorge. The northern half is composed of metal walkways sitting up on the side of the gorge and some impressive bridges over it, whilst the southern half goes through the forest. The initial climb from the café might be slightly tough going for some people but it isn’t anything too crazy as it is very much aimed at families (with lots of activities and story signs for the kids).
The cable-car up to Karwendel (Karwendelbahn) offers the most impressive views. Though it is a bit expensive and has rather low capacity – but you can swap the deposit on the tickets for a beer glass. At the top is an info centre (in German), a restaurant/café with views limited to the bowl at the top, and most importantly the panorama walk which takes you around the edge of the bowl and offers the best views in the area (even letting you cross into Austria). There are hiking and via ferrata routes up/down and around the peak but they are very stony and steep so are not for the casual walker.
The gentle hills forests and lakes around Kranzberg on the other side of the town offer much easier hiking and walking with good views. There is an infrequent bus going up to the lakes and the Kranzbergbahn is an easy way up (once you have climbed to the valley station and providing you don’t mind open and bouncy single seat chairs).

Innsbruck

Hotel Schwarzer Bär. On the river just across from the old town. Nice place with nice owners.
I mostly added Innsbruck to break up the final trip home and to have a quick look for my own curiosity to finally see the place.
Due to rain and fatigue we didn’t see much beyond a look around the old and new town areas. Both seemed rather grand, though if/when I go back for a more proper look in the area it will be for the mountains and the valleys.
The planes flying low over the city all the time were a bit of a surprise. I knew the airport was close but it has been sometime since I was in a city with low planes over it so often

Innsbruck to Zürich

It should have been a simple direct train. Instead construction works meant a coach ride for part of the journey. Full credit to the Austrians for a very well run operation getting everyone off the train and along the motorway to the waiting train at the next stop.
This is mountains almost all the way. The clouds were down but the views were still impressive. Due to a change in the weather there was even a dusting of snow higher up in late August.
The train passes through (but does not stop in) Liechtenstein, which I argue is enough for Liechtenstein for anyone.

[Report] I spent 2 weeks city hopping through Germany and Austria (Berlin – Dresden – Bayreuth – Nuremberg – Regensburg – Munich – Mittenwald – Innsbruck)

The route
We flew up to Berlin from Zürich and slowly worked our back via train.

Day	Start	End	Travel
1 Fri	Zürich	Berlin	4hrs
2 Sat	Berlin	Berlin	-
3 Sun	Berlin	Dresden	2hrs
4 Mon	Dresden	Dresden	-
5 Tues	Dresden	Dresden	-
6 Wed	Dresden	Bayreuth	4hrs(5hrs30)
7 Thurs	Bayreuth	Bayreuth	-
8 Fri	Bayreuth	Nuremberg	1hr
9 Sat	Nuremberg	Nuremberg	-
10 Sun	Nuremberg	Regensburg	1hr
11 Mon	Regensburg	Munich	1hr40
12 Tues	Munich	Munich	-
13 Wed	Munich	Mittenwald	2hrs
14 Thurs	Mittenwald	Mittenwald	-
15 Fri	Mittenwald	Mittenwald	-
16 Sat	Mittenwald	Innsbruck	1hr
17 Sun	Innsbruck	Zürich	4hrs

Planning - The trip was initially based around passing through Bayreuth to see a friend and grew from there based on where was interesting, and fit well with the direction going home. I mostly used wikivoyage to look up each place before arrival, this was mostly useful in larger places the Mittenwald page in English is useless but the German one is great. The Rewboss youtube channel has a great intro on many of these places.
Time of year - Mid-late August. Not my ideal time-frame but it turned out to be much quieter than I expected.
What we did - Mostly just exploring the cities, popping out heads into interesting looking places. There were vast numbers of museums, galleries and palaces to see but the mood didn’t really take us for most of them. When possible we got out to do some hiking or see smaller places.
Timing - Mostly fine without feeling too rushed (helped by having visited Munich and Berlin befpre). I could happily have spent more time in most places. Regensburg is the one place where I really wish we had another day to see some more.
Language – I speak German and my girlfriend is German so that was rather easy. In general most places dealing with tourists will offer English, sometimes it was hard for me to convince them to speak German.
Budget – for my means this wasn’t a big concern. Accommodation and eating out were the main costs. My mindset with accommodation was to be central but ideally cheapish. Coming from Switzerland it all seemed rather cheap too….
Weather – This was the 2018 heatwave so it was hot (30C+) and sunny almost all the way. Cloud and rain started to come down in the Alps and it almost started to feel cold.
Touristyness – most places were far less busy than I expected for mid August. Unsurprisingly Berlin, Munich and Innsbruck were probably the worst, but nowhere were there insane queues or streets that were frustrating to walk down. The only really crowded part were the narrow bridges at Bastei.
Transport – We got a Deutsche Bahn 25% discount card trial for 3 months which quickly paid for itself, though with most of the later parts it was cheaper to use a Bayern ticket. Trains were mostly on time, though the one trip with a connection was delayed (only so much DB can be expected to do). For city or local area transport we often used group or family day-tickets which for 2 adults is typically cheapest (assuming you stick together).
Views from the train - Berlin to Dresden was mostly flat and forest/field/villages, Dresden to Munich was a mix of rolling hills and forest/field/villages. Munich to Zürich naturally saw lots of Alps. The extent to which the country feels so empty/rural is quite amazing.
Regrets – Not taking more time for trips outside of the cities into the smaller towns and countryside. Bamberg in particular I would have liked to have seen. Neuschwanstein I have yet to see but honestly will only do so if it is barely out of my way.
Just for some more listicle….

Best surprise: Regensburg. Beautiful and with such a different feel.
Best beer: Franconian red. Franconian beer generally won out.
Most expensive: Munich. 4.5E for 0.5L of beer in the centre.
Most touristy: Innsbruck.
Worst (best?) tourist tack: 45E Christmas tree decoration of Santa holding the American flag in Nuremberg. Runner up to the 600E 1m tall Bavarian Wolpertinger smoking a pipe in Munich.

Berlin

Hotel - aletto Hotel Kudamm. Clean and comfy and right next to the transport at Zoologischer Garten. Nothing exciting but very practical.
I still can’t decided what I think of Berlin. It is very lively and filled with interesting things, but at the same time very ugly and I just can’t get a fixed feel for it.
I really don’t get the appeal or iconic level of Currywurst. The hint of curry powder doesn’t even give it any flavour.
Based on internet reviews we walked to a very unpromising area for dinner to find the Mabuhay Indonesian restaurant. It was little chaotic due to staff shortage, but the food was so very good and cheap, with the bloke in charge being wonderfully eccentric and friendly.
The Alex was well worth going up to appreciate the strange city scape.
I went in expecting Checkpoint Charlie to be a fake tourist circus but also to be entertaining enough for a few minutes – and that is exactly what I got. Worth taking a look but don’t expect much. The actual wall section at Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer near Northbahnhof is much more interesting and powerful. The DDR museum is very good too.
Schönefeld airport and the attached station has a really strange feel to it, like it wants to be something else or more.

Dresden

Hotel Hyperion. Very fancy and in a very good location. By far the fanciest place I have stayed at in Europe - a 5 star for 38 euros pp per night in August, I have paid more for a 12 person dorm room in Switzerland……
I really liked Dresden. A very lively city with lots going on. The mix of very beautiful land ugly is very stark, the style of the old town reminded me somewhat of Prague – only with far less tourists.
There was such good food. The places we went to were a short walk or tram ride from the old town: Zum Schiesshaus a quiet garden serving large piles of heavy German food and big mugs of beer to locals, just around the corner is BrennNessel a great veggie place in beautiful old house (also with good beer), and over in the new town area the mostly Indian Scheune cafe on the very lively Alaunstrasse.
The centrepiece Frauenkirche is majestic on the outside but rather horribly garish pink and forgettable on the inside. The view from the top of the tower however is very good (but rather expensive at 8 euros).
The rebuilt old town feels a little fake. Though being fancier grander buildings it doesn’t feel overly fake as you expect them to be kept clean and in good shape. Certainly it still felt more authentic than the over-done tourist parts of Colmar which actually are historical. Considering how much it has changed since the 70s they really have done an amazing job.
The Saxon Switzerland (and Bohemian Switzerland across the Czech border) offer loads of beautiful sites. We hiked from Hohenstein to Stadt Wehlen via Bastei as part 2 of the Malerweg. This was well worth the effort and done backwards to keep the simple transport connections for the end of the day.
Bastei is a standalone spot to visit. Interestingly it was once a fortress, but only a few signs of that remain now. It was also something of a circus with lots of people and a hotel and restaurants right next to it. But it is still very striking and offers fantastic views. Though I do want to go back to the area and push more towards the Czech Bohemian Switzerland which looks even more impressive.

Bayreuth

Slept on a friend’s sofa. Slightly less fancy than the 5 star hotel in Dresden.
Seemed quite nice if not overly exciting. If you like your Wagner this is the place for you.
Plenty of beer to be had. Even more in nearby Kulmbach too.
We spent a day in the Franconian Switzerland around Pottenstein. A region that is full of beautiful landscapes, villages, and all the beer you could ever want. However the term Switzerland is really overselling it there. Neuhaus looked very impressive too. We did this by car but you can certainly access some of the area by public transport.

Nuremberg

Garden Hotel. In a nice quiet part of the old town. Nothing overly special but it served its purpose.
Nuremberg must have been amazing before the war. It is still amazing now. But for every beautiful old (or redone) building there are plenty of forgettable new ones. The ugliness of some of the buildings around the castle area is rather surprising.
The western area of the old town around the river is especially nice but surprisingly quiet compared to the busy main routes around the market square.
That said the river itself was filled with bikes, other junk, a strange white foamy scum, and generally wasn’t very attractive.
My favourite spot for an evening drink was Bierwerk in the old town near the wooden bridge.
We took a 15 minute U-Bahn ride out to Fürth which has a lovely old-town and handsome new-town. The Kaffee Bohne did some good and very cheap food.
A 10 minute tram ride in the other direction is the infamous Nazi parade grounds. We took tram 8 to Dutzendteich then walked around the lake taking in the Zeppelin field and Grosser strasse before visiting the Docuzentrum museum. Signs around the lake explain the history and it is powerful to see, though I wouldn’t suggest wandering further into the area than that. The museum was well worth a visit and well done with the audio guide, the middle section of the museum documenting the events at the parade grounds (and how much of it was a giant cock-up) was the most interesting part.
The local mini-wurst are the closest thing I have found to a proper British sausage outside of the UK.
I would like to go back and spend some more time around there. The city makes a good base to daytrip out to many other places too.

Regensburg

Castle hotel. In a quiet spot right by the fancy. Very friendly staff and very good breakfast.
I really liked Regensburg. The style and the bright sun made it often feel more like Italy than Germany (it actually matches the nickname of northernmost city of Italy). Being abit less well known and not the closest daytrip option from Munich it seems to get overlooked so it wasn’t very busy – at night it just seemed to be students and a few locals out and about.
The old town is extensive and beautiful. The section across the river is a good option for a drink. The cathedral is astounding (and free). The bridge is impressive but feels a bit overly renovated and almost too new.
The Dreieinigkeitskirche has an easy and worthwhile tower climb for a good view over the city. Cheap too at only a few euros.
The Oma in da Antn was my beer garden of choice here.
We didn’t have time to see it, but for a more eccentric but oddly unknown sight Walhalla is a short boat ride up the river.

Munich

We stayed at Hotel MK München. A nice modern place that is 10 minutes to the main station or old town. It is (along with many other hotels) in a sort of red light distract to the south of the main station, but it is on a busy road and so long as bored looking strippers don’t bother you then that isn’t a problem.
The Englischer Garten is great to explore and relax in, even if you don’t go more than a few hundred meters in. The surfers are entertaining to watch for a bit (it is impressive what they can do in such a small space), and floating down the streams in warm weather is very enjoyable.
We had a fancy (and rather expensive) breakfast at Dallmayr. A long-established fancy deli and café/restaurant (Like the Harrods of Munich) which is worth a look around regardless of whether you plan to buy or not.
I think the Hofbräuhaus is rather overrated, it is worth a drink there (or even just take a wander through it) once for the experience. Some might like the constant loud and busy nature of it, but I find just about any other beer hall or garden to be much nicer. That said the garden is nice in summer, especially late on a weekday when it wasn’t rammed.
I much prefer the nearby Zum Dürnbräu. They do surprisingly good salads in the summer along with the standard heavy dishes, and also make hell of a good (and gigantic) Kaiserschmarrn.
Likewise I find that taking a Mass (1L) of beer is also a bit overrated. Better to drink 2x 0.5L rather than worry about the 1L getting flat and warm if you are not fast enough. Again it is something that is fun at least the once but not something I would bother with often. It is worth bearing in mind that Germans do not call the large glasses a “Stein” it is a Mass, with the ceramic mugs being a (Bier)Krug or Humpen.
If you want to buy a Bierkrug/Humpen to drink beer out of then then the Manufactum Warenhaus shop next to Dallmayr does plain 0.5L and 1L ceramic bierkrugs at much cheaper prices than you will find in any tourist shop and without the tacky decoration.
The tower climb up the Peterskirche is well worth it for 3E. But at 14 stories it was hard going for many people we saw. The first staircase is very tight and narrow, but it gets much better after.
By chance we were passing the town hall at 11am when the Glockenspiel did its thing. Clocks like this really don’t do much to impress me, but the big excited crowd clearly thought different.

We didn’t squeeze it in here but from a previous trip I also suggest:

Take the S-Bahn out to Herrsching then take the easy walk through the woods to the monastery at Andechs for copious amounts of beer and food in a rural setting. There is also an Andechs bar in Munich (currently being renovated) but that is far less fun.
Use the Bayern ticket for a cheap trip to Salzberg. Be warned the train always seems to be rammed with tourists so turning up 15 minutes or more to the platform in Munich might not be a bad idea.
S-Bhan out to Dachau and visiting the camp is a very powerful experience.
The Residenz palace in the centre is very impressive in size and decoration. I would suggest going early as judging by the queue it gets popular as the day goes on.

Mittenwald

Gästehaus Edlhuber. By far the best place we stayed. Lovely family run place with their pets wandering around. Breakfast was fantastic. This was the most expensive room per night, but it was essentially a private flat which was great for a few days to unwind in the mountains.
Town itself is nice and well worth a look around, but very much not the reason to be in the area. The reason being the mountains which tower above the town. The Lüftmalerei (painted houses) can be nice, though most were done with sickly sweet Disney-like scenes which are a bit too twee for my liking.
Being further than many other alpine spots from Munich (2hrs by train and lacking a fancy castle) it was fairly quiet tourist wise. Though getting an outside table at 7pm was a bit of a challenge.
The beer from the Mittenwald Brauerei is found all over town and was one of my favourites from the trip.
Someone missed out on a marketing op by not making a mangled cross language pun and selling Mittenwald Mittens.
You can walk into Austria in 30 minutes from the middle of town. Many of the local outdoor routes take you back and forth over it.

There are endless outdoor activities in the area. The tourist info office has info on various hikes and other activities in the area.

The Geisterklamm (spirit gorge) is a 20 minute walk from the centre of town. The café at the base is right up against the Austrian border and as soon as you walk into or up the gorge you are crossing over. You can pay 3E to enter the deep gorge for a few hundred meters up to a waterfall. The waterfall itself is not overly impressive but the walkways through the gorge are worth the entry fee. You can also buy some fish food to feed the trout at the mouth of the gorge – for 20cents this is surprisingly good fun as those fish are amazingly perceptive, fast, and accurate. The other attraction is the loop walk above the gorge. The northern half is composed of metal walkways sitting up on the side of the gorge and some impressive bridges over it, whilst the southern half goes through the forest. The initial climb from the café might be slightly tough going for some people but it isn’t anything too crazy as it is very much aimed at families (with lots of activities and story signs for the kids).
The cable-car up to Karwendel (Karwendelbahn) offers the most impressive views. Though it is a bit expensive and has rather low capacity – but you can swap the deposit on the tickets for a beer glass. At the top is an info centre (in German), a restaurant/café with views limited to the bowl at the top, and most importantly the panorama walk which takes you around the edge of the bowl and offers the best views in the area (even letting you cross into Austria). There are hiking and via ferrata routes up/down and around the peak but they are very stony and steep so are not for the casual walker.
The gentle hills forests and lakes around Kranzberg on the other side of the town offer much easier hiking and walking with good views. There is an infrequent bus going up to the lakes and the Kranzbergbahn is an easy way up (once you have climbed to the valley station and providing you don’t mind open and bouncy single seat chairs).

Innsbruck

Hotel Schwarzer Bär. On the river just across from the old town. Nice place with nice owners.
I mostly added Innsbruck to break up the final trip home and to have a quick look for my own curiosity to finally see the place.
Due to rain and fatigue we didn’t see much beyond a look around the old and new town areas. Both seemed rather grand, though if/when I go back for a more proper look in the area it will be for the mountains and the valleys.
The planes flying low over the city all the time were a bit of a surprise. I knew the airport was close but it has been sometime since I was in a city with low planes over it so often

Innsbruck to Zürich

It should have been a simple direct train. Instead construction works meant a coach ride for part of the journey. Full credit to the Austrians for a very well run operation getting everyone off the train and along the motorway to the waiting train at the next stop.
This is mountains almost all the way. The clouds were down but the views were still impressive. Due to a change in the weather there was even a dusting of snow higher up in late August.
The train passes through (but does not stop in) Liechtenstein, which I argue is enough for Liechtenstein for anyone.

Wedding reflections from an April bride - with budget where I know it

I found these super useful (and interesting) when I was planning so thought I should do one now I'm a few weeks past the wedding. Will include costs where I can, but there are a couple I don't know. I hope this is useful - and happy wedding planning everyone :)
Budget: Around £12000GBP including return 24hr flights for three people
Number of guests Approx. 90; 80 adults, 10 children between 2 months(!) and 7 years old
Theme colour: Navy blue bridesmaids dresses, white chair covers with silver chair sashes and silver table runners
Sweet table colours Pink, blue, yellow, red and white - matching all of the colours of my bouquet. This was gifted to us so unsure of cost.
Venue (and food) Waterfront restaurant (not the ocean) - I wanted to get married next to water, but didn't want to deal with sand. We found a lovely spot that had a gorgeous outlook and a lovely jetty. The venue took care of all food as well. Minimum spend basis, which was 10000AUD (Approx £5800) as we went for a Saturday evening but that covered canapes, three courses, serving of cake and alcohol. We only just went above the minimum spend so this was perfect for our numbers
Wedding dress Alfred Angelo Illusion dress in Ivory/Navy - photos at https://imgur.com/a/iwTHT - got on a great discount for £500 and alterations were only £45. Should have been approx £1100 for the dress.
Bridesmaids dresses (I paid for): Picture here: http://www.dressmonsoonline.com/images/occasion/evening/S1426026114.jpg (Monsoon) - approx £300 for both. They went perfectly with the navy on my dress which was great - we looked like we'd got them together which was fab.
Accessories Veil: £45 - elbow length and quite sheer as I didn't want to hide the back of the dress. I also bought a lovely navy silk shawl for around £18 that I didn't end up using as it didn't get cold enough, but I can use it for everyday or other formal occasions so that's fine :) Bridesmaids bags: less than £20 for both - and their shoes were around the same. My shoes were £29 and ordered from Elegant Steps (thank you Weddit for the recommendation!). My jewellery was all reasonably cheap - necklace around £15 on Amazon (simple pearl); Bracelet and earrings £15 from UK department store; other bracelet handmade by friend
Rings (not included in budget above) - £500 for my engagement and about £250 for my wedding band. FHs ring was approx £200.
Suits We bought these for around £300 for all three. Ties were £10 each. My husbands shoes were around £60 - the groomsmen sorted own footwear and belts.
Flowers Approx 1500AUD which is around £850 - they were beautiful but this is the one thing that made me double-take. The area was expensive for flowers compared to where I live, and our order kept growing as family wanted corsages, we needed ceremony decorative flowers as well as bouquets - and due to the shape of the tables we needed a few vases on each table. It was a destination wedding so there was no choice re: DIY or silk flowers so this was what it was, but if getting married locally this is one I wouldn't have gone so high for.
Photographer - About the same cost as flowers and worth every penny (over 700 photos and very quick)
Cake - approximately 500AUD (£280) for a two tier cake big enough for everyone. Good range of flavours, able to work with guest allergies, and she personalised the cake to match my dress and our favours.
Music Ceremony music used our officiants set-up and was managed by my SIL using her iphone and songs we'd sent her - can let people know what songs we used if useful (our song for signing the register was Lord of the Rings - most guests just thought it was a pretty piece of music, and those that knew it loved it, so this worked well). DJ hire for our 6 hour ceremony was approx 600 AUD (£350)
Officiant Approx £450 - this is for one of the leading people in the area (which we didn't realise initially - we just really clicked) - generally I'd say absolutely worth it but email issues did cause me a lot of stress before the day.
No bouquet toss, no garter, no father-daughter or mother-son dances. If I've missed anything from the list feel free to ask.
Reflections
The Good Almost everything!! I got married to my best friend! We had a fantastic time and all of our guests loved the venue; guests thought the ceremony was beautiful (our celebrant specialises in personal ceremonies), and the food was fantastic.
My SILs did a FANTASTIC job decking out the venue - it looked beautiful and other than some favours ribbon tying the previous day they basically wouldn't let me help, so for us it was stress-free, and looked much better than it would have been had we DIY'd as they are infinitely more crafty!
My in-laws are actually awesome. So pleased they are now officially family.
Bridal party and parents were all great. Everyone who had RSVP'd yes showed up, and we all had a good time.
We were super lucky with the weather.
I gave my bouquet to my husband's Nan, which made most of the table cry (not intentionally - but was a very sweet moment)
First dance went well (husband generally has two left feet)
I managed to not need to pee all day (sorry if this is TMI but I was very worried about dealing with this in my wedding dress!). Probably helped that I didn't drink much as I was giving a speech.
All speeches were good - short and funny, despite there being 5 guests seemed to remain engaged throughout.
The bad

One of the children had a minor accident in the morning - is absolutely fine now but had to go to A&E to get checked over so a couple of close relatives missed the ceremony
As close relatives were missing who would have been in most photos we kind of threw out the photo list - and a couple got missed. Nothing critical (a whole group shot would have been nice)
Not much seating for ceremony (which we knew when we booked) - we actually had the opposite problem than I expected and people had to be asked to sit down as everyone was being too polite and we still had half the seats left - but they were full by the time I walked in.
Officiant told people we wanted an unplugged ceremony when we'd specifically had a conversation about it where I'd said I was happy with photos. Was a little annoyed about this as a) I have hardly any photos of walking down the aisle, and b) I'm usually someone taking pictures at wedding so will have probably seemed very hypocritical!
My dress had no bustle! Not sure how this got missed, but I had two people under there searching for it - so when dancing and off for photos I had to hold up my incredibly heavy train
My dress had a button come off whilst my bridesmaids were sealing it - no big deal in the grand scheme of things but it is sitting slightly oddly in many of the photos (noone else would notice, but it bugs me - and it was under my chest so I didn't see it on the day.
We were overruled on some small things - such as being held on the jetty so there could be a big entrance, which we had specifically not wanted.
I wasn't nervous until the day, but I spent my morning feeling nauseous - freaking out about how much make-up I was wearing (tend to wear very little), and then freaking out I'd lost my (non-wedding) earrings. Felt great until the day but I found the morning very hard. All went away as soon as it all started though :)

Overall we had a fantastic day - final tips: try and enjoy it; make sure you eat; take a few moments just the two of you to enjoy the day. We found it odd that it was our wedding and all attention was on us, but it was so lovely having all our friends and family there to celebrate us. I thoroughly recommend photographer as one of the most important suppliers - and if you can get help with decorations and taking down just ask, most guests are very willing to help.
I hope this is helpful - any questions, please ask!

[Not Switzerland] I spent 2 weeks city hopping through Germany and Austria (Berlin – Dresden – Bayreuth – Nuremberg – Regensburg – Munich – Mittenwald – Innsbruck)

The route
We flew up to Berlin from Zürich and slowly worked our back via train.

Day	Start	End	Travel
1 Fri	Zürich	Berlin	4hrs
2 Sat	Berlin	Berlin	-
3 Sun	Berlin	Dresden	2hrs
4 Mon	Dresden	Dresden	-
5 Tues	Dresden	Dresden	-
6 Wed	Dresden	Bayreuth	4hrs(5hrs30)
7 Thurs	Bayreuth	Bayreuth	-
8 Fri	Bayreuth	Nuremberg	1hr
9 Sat	Nuremberg	Nuremberg	-
10 Sun	Nuremberg	Regensburg	1hr
11 Mon	Regensburg	Munich	1hr40
12 Tues	Munich	Munich	-
13 Wed	Munich	Mittenwald	2hrs
14 Thurs	Mittenwald	Mittenwald	-
15 Fri	Mittenwald	Mittenwald	-
16 Sat	Mittenwald	Innsbruck	1hr
17 Sun	Innsbruck	Zürich	4hrs
		Total:	approx 22hrs

Planning - The trip was initially based around passing through Bayreuth to see a friend and grew from there based on where was interesting, and fit well with the direction going home. I mostly used wikivoyage to look up each place before arrival, this was mostly useful in larger places the Mittenwald page in English is useless but the German one is great. The Rewboss youtube channel has a great intro on many of these places.
Timing - Mid-late August. Not my ideal time-frame but it turned out to be much quieter than I expected.
What we did - Mostly just exploring the cities, popping out heads into interesting looking places. There were vast numbers of museums, galleries and palaces to see but the mood didn’t really take us for most of them. When possible we got out to do some hiking or see smaller places.
Language – I speak German and my girlfriend is German so that was rather easy. In general most places dealing with tourists will offer English, sometimes it was hard for me to convince them to speak German.
Budget – for my means this wasn’t a big concern. Accommodation and eating out were the main costs. My mindset with accommodation was to be central but ideally cheapish. Coming from Switzerland it all seemed rather cheap too….
Weather – This was the 2018 heatwave so it was hot (30C+) and sunny almost all the way. Cloud and rain started to come down in the Alps and it almost started to feel cold.
Touristyness – most places were far less busy than I expected for mid August. Unsurprisingly Berlin, Munich and Innsbruck were probably the worst, but nowhere were there insane queues or streets that were frustrating to walk down. The only really crowded part were the narrow bridges at Bastei.
Transport – We got a Deutsche Bahn 25% discount card trial for 3 months which quickly paid for itself, though with most of the later parts it was cheaper to use a Bayern ticket. Trains were mostly on time, though the one trip with a connection was delayed (only so much DB can be expected to do). For city or local area transport we often used group or family day-tickets which for 2 adults is typically cheapest (assuming you stick together).
Views from the train - Berlin to Dresden was mostly flat and forest/field/villages, Dresden to Munich was a mix of rolling hills and forest/field/villages. Munich to Zürich naturally saw lots of Alps. The extent to which the country feels so empty/rural is quite amazing.
Regrets – Not taking more time for trips outside of the cities into the smaller towns and countryside. Bamberg in particular I would have liked to have seen. Neuschwanstein I have yet to see but honestly will only do so if it is barely out of my way.
Just for some more listicle….

Best surprise: Regensburg. Beautiful and with such a different feel.
Best beer: Franconian red. Franconian beer generally won out.
Most expensive: Munich. 4.5E for 0.5L of beer in the centre.
Most touristy: Innsbruck.
Worst (best?) tourist tack: 45E Christmas tree decoration of Santa holding the American flag in Nuremberg. Runner up to the 600E 1m tall Bavarian Wolpertinger smoking a pipe in Munich.

Berlin

Hotel - aletto Hotel Kudamm. Clean and comfy and right next to the transport at Zoologischer Garten. Nothing exciting but very practical.
I still can’t decided what I think of Berlin. It is very lively and filled with interesting things, but at the same time very ugly and I just can’t get a fixed feel for it.
I really don’t get the appeal or iconic level of Currywurst. The hint of curry powder doesn’t even give it any flavour.
Based on internet reviews we walked to a very unpromising area for dinner to find the Mabuhay Indonesian restaurant. It was little chaotic due to staff shortage, but the food was so very good and cheap, with the bloke in charge being wonderfully eccentric and friendly.
The Alex was well worth going up to appreciate the strange city scape.
I went in expecting Checkpoint Charlie to be a fake tourist circus but also to be entertaining enough for a few minutes – and that is exactly what I got. Worth taking a look but don’t expect much. The actual wall section at Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer near Northbahnhof is much more interesting and powerful. The DDR museum is very good too.
Schönefeld airport and the attached station has a really strange feel to it, like it wants to be something else or more.

Dresden

Hotel Hyperion. Very fancy and in a very good location. By far the fanciest place I have stayed at in Europe - a 5 star for 38 euros pp per night in August, I have paid more for a 12 person dorm room in Switzerland……
I really liked Dresden. A very lively city with lots going on. The mix of very beautiful land ugly is very stark, the style of the old town reminded me somewhat of Prague – only with far less tourists.
There was such good food. The places we went to were a short walk or tram ride from the old town: Zum Schiesshaus a quiet garden serving large piles of heavy German food and big mugs of beer to locals, just around the corner is BrennNessel a great veggie place in beautiful old house (also with good beer), and over in the new town area the mostly Indian Scheune cafe on the very lively Alaunstrasse.
The centrepiece Frauenkirche is majestic on the outside but rather horribly garish pink and forgettable on the inside. The view from the top of the tower however is very good (but rather expensive at 8 euros).
The rebuilt old town feels a little fake. Though being fancier grander buildings it doesn’t feel overly fake as you expect them to be kept clean and in good shape. Certainly it still felt more authentic than the over-done tourist parts of Colmar which actually are historical. Considering how much it has changed since the 70s they really have done an amazing job.
The Saxon Switzerland (and Bohemian Switzerland across the Czech border) offer loads of beautiful sites. We hiked from Hohenstein to Stadt Wehlen via Bastei as part 2 of the Malerweg. This was well worth the effort and done backwards to keep the simple transport connections for the end of the day.
Bastei is a standalone spot to visit. Interestingly it was once a fortress, but only a few signs of that remain now. It was also something of a circus with lots of people and a hotel and restaurants right next to it. But it is still very striking and offers fantastic views. Though I do want to go back to the area and push more towards the Czech Bohemian Switzerland which looks even more impressive.

Bayreuth

Slept on a friend’s sofa. Slightly less fancy than the 5 star hotel in Dresden.
Seemed quite nice if not overly exciting. If you like your Wagner this is the place for you.
Plenty of beer to be had. Even more in nearby Kulmbach too.
We spent a day in the Franconian Switzerland around Pottenstein. A region that is full of beautiful landscapes, villages, and all the beer you could ever want. However the term Switzerland is really overselling it there. Neuhaus looked very impressive too. We did this by car but you can certainly access some of the area by public transport.

Nuremberg

Garden Hotel. In a nice quiet part of the old town. Nothing overly special but it served its purpose.
Nuremberg must have been amazing before the war. It is still amazing now. But for every beautiful old (or redone) building there are plenty of forgettable new ones. The ugliness of some of the buildings around the castle area is rather surprising.
The western area of the old town around the river is especially nice but surprisingly quiet compared to the busy main routes around the market square.
That said the river itself was filled with bikes, other junk, a strange white foamy scum, and generally wasn’t very attractive.
My favourite spot for an evening drink was Bierwerk in the old town near the wooden bridge.
We took a 15 minute U-Bahn ride out to Fürth which has a lovely old-town and handsome new-town. The Kaffee Bohne did some good and very cheap food.
A 10 minute tram ride in the other direction is the infamous Nazi parade grounds. We took tram 8 to Dutzendteich then walked around the lake taking in the Zeppelin field and Grosser strasse before visiting the Docuzentrum museum. Signs around the lake explain the history and it is powerful to see, though I wouldn’t suggest wandering further into the area than that. The museum was well worth a visit and well done with the audio guide, the middle section of the museum documenting the events at the parade grounds (and how much of it was a giant cock-up) was the most interesting part.
The local mini-wurst are the closest thing I have found to a proper British sausage outside of the UK.
I would like to go back and spend some more time around there. The city makes a good base to daytrip out to many other places too.

Regensburg

Castle hotel. In a quiet spot right by the fancy. Very friendly staff and very good breakfast.
I really liked Regensburg. The style and the bright sun made it often feel more like Italy than Germany (it actually matches the nickname of northernmost city of Italy). Being abit less well known and not the closest daytrip option from Munich it seems to get overlooked so it wasn’t very busy – at night it just seemed to be students and a few locals out and about.
The old town is extensive and beautiful. The section across the river is a good option for a drink. The cathedral is astounding (and free). The bridge is impressive but feels a bit overly renovated and almost too new.
The Dreieinigkeitskirche has an easy and worthwhile tower climb for a good view over the city. Cheap too at only a few euros.
The Oma in da Antn was my beer garden of choice here.
We didn’t have time to see it, but for a more eccentric but oddly unknown sight Walhalla is a short boat ride up the river.

Munich

We stayed at Hotel MK München. A nice modern place that is 10 minutes to the main station or old town. It is (along with many other hotels) in a sort of red light distract to the south of the main station, but it is on a busy road and so long as bored looking strippers don’t bother you then that isn’t a problem.
The Englischer Garten is great to explore and relax in, even if you don’t go more than a few hundred meters in. The surfers are entertaining to watch for a bit (it is impressive what they can do in such a small space), and floating down the streams in warm weather is very enjoyable.
We had a fancy (and rather expensive) breakfast at Dallmayr. A long-established fancy deli and café/restaurant (Like the Harrods of Munich) which is worth a look around regardless of whether you plan to buy or not.
I think the Hofbräuhaus is rather overrated, it is worth a drink there (or even just take a wander through it) once for the experience. Some might like the constant loud and busy nature of it, but I find just about any other beer hall or garden to be much nicer. That said the garden is nice in summer, especially late on a weekday when it wasn’t rammed.
I much prefer the nearby Zum Dürnbräu. They do surprisingly good salads in the summer along with the standard heavy dishes, and also make hell of a good (and gigantic) Kaiserschmarrn.
Likewise I find that taking a Mass (1L) of beer is also a bit overrated. Better to drink 2x 0.5L rather than worry about the 1L getting flat and warm if you are not fast enough. Again it is something that is fun at least the once but not something I would bother with often. Most Germans don’t, it isn’t that common a sight outside of the south west. It is also worth bearing in mind that Germans do not call the large glasses a “Stein” it is a Mass, with the ceramic mugs being a (Bier)Krug or Humpen. The use of Stein for that is a pure Anglo invention.
If you want to buy a Bierkrug/Humpen to drink beer out of then then the Manufactum Warenhaus shop next to Dallmayr does plain 0.5L and 1L ceramic bierkrugs at much cheaper prices than you will find in any tourist shop and without the tacky decoration.
The tower climb up the Peterskirche is well worth it for 3E. But at 14 stories it was hard going for many people we saw. The first staircase is very tight and narrow, but it gets much better after.
By chance we were passing the town hall at 11am when the Glockenspiel did its thing. Clocks like this really don’t do much to impress me, but the big excited crowd clearly thought different.

We didn’t squeeze it in here but from a previous trip I also suggest:

Take the S-Bahn out to Herrsching then take the easy walk through the woods to the monastery at Andechs for copious amounts of beer and food in a rural setting. There is also an Andechs bar in Munich (currently being renovated) but that is far less fun.
Use the Bayern ticket for a cheap trip to Salzberg. Be warned the train always seems to be rammed with tourists so turning up 15 minutes or more to the platform in Munich might not be a bad idea.
S-Bhan out to Dachau and visiting the camp is a very powerful experience.
The Residenz palace in the centre is very impressive in size and decoration. I would suggest going early as judging by the queue it gets popular as the day goes on.

Gästehaus Edlhuber. By far the best place we stayed. Lovely family run place with their pets wandering around. Breakfast was fantastic. This was the most expensive room per night, but it was essentially a private flat which was great for a few days to unwind in the mountains.
Town itself is nice and well worth a look around, but very much not the reason to be in the area. The reason being the mountains which tower above the town. The Lüftmalerei (painted houses) can be nice, though most were done with sickly sweet Disney-like scenes which are a bit too twee for my liking.
Being further than many other alpine spots from Munich (2hrs by train and lacking a fancy castle) it was fairly quiet tourist wise. Though getting an outside table at 7pm was a bit of a challenge.
The beer from the Mittenwald Brauerei is found all over town and was one of my favourites from the trip.
Someone missed out on a marketing op by not making a mangled cross language pun and selling Mittenwald Mittens.
You can walk into Austria in 30 minutes from the middle of town. Many of the local outdoor routes take you back and forth over it.

There are endless outdoor activities in the area. The tourist info office has info on various hikes and other activities in the area.

The Geisterklamm (spirit gorge) is a 20 minute walk from the centre of town. The café at the base is right up against the Austrian border and as soon as you walk into or up the gorge you are crossing over. You can pay 3E to enter the deep gorge for a few hundred meters up to a waterfall. The waterfall itself is not overly impressive but the walkways through the gorge are worth the entry fee. You can also buy some fish food to feed the trout at the mouth of the gorge – for 20cents this is surprisingly good fun as those fish are amazingly perceptive, fast, and accurate. The other attraction is the loop walk above the gorge. The northern half is composed of metal walkways sitting up on the side of the gorge and some impressive bridges over it, whilst the southern half goes through the forest. The initial climb from the café might be slightly tough going for some people but it isn’t anything too crazy as it is very much aimed at families (with lots of activities and story signs for the kids).
The cable-car up to Karwendel (Karwendelbahn) offers the most impressive views. Though it is a bit expensive and has rather low capacity – but you can swap the deposit on the tickets for a beer glass. At the top is an info centre (in German), a restaurant/café with views limited to the bowl at the top, and most importantly the panorama walk which takes you around the edge of the bowl and offers the best views in the area (even letting you cross into Austria). There are hiking and via ferrata routes up/down and around the peak but they are very stony and steep so are not for the casual walker.
The gentle hills forests and lakes around Kranzberg on the other side of the town offer much easier hiking and walking with good views. There is an infrequent bus going up to the lakes and the Kranzbergbahn is an easy way up (once you have climbed to the valley station and providing you don’t mind open and bouncy single seat chairs).

Innsbruck

Hotel Schwarzer Bär. On the river just across from the old town. Nice place with nice owners.
I mostly added Innsbruck to break up the final trip home and to have a quick look for my own curiosity to finally see the place.
Due to rain and fatigue we didn’t see much beyond a look around the old and new town areas. Both seemed rather grand, though if/when I go back for a more proper look in the area it will be for the mountains and the valleys.
The planes flying low over the city all the time were a bit of a surprise. I knew the airport was close but it has been sometime since I was in a city with low planes over it so often

Innsbruck to Zürich

It should have been a simple direct train. Instead construction works meant a coach ride for part of the journey. Full credit to the Austrians for a very well run operation getting everyone off the train and along the motorway to the waiting train at the next stop.
This is mountains almost all the way. The clouds were down but the views were still impressive. Due to a change in the weather there was even a dusting of snow higher up in late August.
The train passes through (but does not stop in) Liechtenstein, which I argue is enough for Liechtenstein for anyone.

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After a Ouija board...

An alternative guide to Santorini from a resident

23 Cheap-But-Luxe Things To Help You Have The Lockdown Wedding Of Your Dreams

Winter wedding budget and recap

RECAP: June 29, 2019 - Canada Day Long Weekend - Calgary, AB - $19.5K

Wedding Breakdown – 28th April in Edinburgh for ~£4k

Venue – Duddingston Golf Club (£1285)

Church – Duddingston Kirk (£460)

Invitations (~£20)

Flowers (~£5-10?)

Photographer – Kristine Solmane (£150)

Dress (£108, plus ~£50 accessories)

Ceilidh Band – Teannaich (£1000)

Dessert Table & Sweetie Table – me! (& mum!) (~£50)

Wedding Cake (£0)

Decorations (~£70)

Escape Room – Padlox (£500)

Hair & Make-up (£0)

Gifts (~£150)

Random Other Costs

Overall…

I need board game pieces!!

Look at the thing that we did twice! An international wedding recap.

[Report] I spent 2 weeks city hoping through Germany and Austria (Berlin – Dresden – Bayreuth – Nuremberg – Regensburg – Munich – Mittenwald – Innsbruck)

[Report] I spent 2 weeks city hopping through Germany and Austria (Berlin – Dresden – Bayreuth – Nuremberg – Regensburg – Munich – Mittenwald – Innsbruck)

Wedding reflections from an April bride - with budget where I know it

[Not Switzerland] I spent 2 weeks city hopping through Germany and Austria (Berlin – Dresden – Bayreuth – Nuremberg – Regensburg – Munich – Mittenwald – Innsbruck)

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