Awning ??

We did the same as you, had a practice go on the drive before we used our full awning which came with the caravan 3 years ago. Up till now we had never had it out of the bag. You'll be surprised at how much help it's been just to have that tiny bit of experience.
It will be so worthwhile once it's up. Had we known just how brilliant a full awning is, we'd never have bought our Kampa air pro. Good luck, take your time and no falling out. 

have a practice with the poles to see what goes where before you fit them inside the awning. That's when you can mark them with coloured tape if you wish

Putting up complicated awnings have always been a stress to me, to counter it I bought a Kampa rally 380(if I remember right) it is the 'idiots guide to awnings' simple & quick-20mins tops on my own. It's a holiday-why struggle?, engineer all the probs from your Hols

Strangely, putting up the awning has never been the classic 'divorce in a bag' for us, though we have now just bought a Kampa 400 air awning for our 'new' caravan. So far it's had a practice run on our drive ....... it'll have it's first proper run this week 

I found that putting up an awning for the first (its an air one) was easy until it came to pegging out there were no instructions as to which angle the guy ropes needed to go and there seemed to be three skirts in places that didn't seem to want to go anywhere special, and what are those ladder things all about?

Biggest issue was going three rounds with it tryingto get the thing back in its bag.  Other than that it was great!  Oh almost forgot, the puny tent pegs it came with were a waste of time, got some big ones and big hammer now.

Janey, If I can give a few words of advice. I don't know if you intend in future to use grass or hard standing pitches but we carry two types of pegs. The plastic ones that come with the awning and the same amount of metal pegs (they look like 6" nails)
for hard standings. Purchase a cheap claw hammer, don't bother with the rubber mallet. Best of luck 

Re Packing the awning: May I suggest rather than what seems to be the norm ie duffle bag type for packig it away, look at the long zipped bag Isabella use then it is easy to 'roll' the folded awning into the bag and then zip it away.

Our awning - porch only - just gets stuffed in a bin bag. Job done.

Janey, If I can give a few words of advice. I don't know if you intend in future to use grass or hard standing pitches but we carry two types of pegs. The plastic ones that come with the awning and the same amount of metal pegs (they look like 6" nails)
for hard standings. Purchase a cheap claw hammer, don't bother with the rubber mallet. Best of luck 

Yep. Decent steel claw hammer and also makes removing pegs a a doddle using leverage as when removing nails. I USE 9'' PEGS THOUGH.

Some very useful information can be gleaned from watching Isabella You tube videos. 

Google: "Isabella awning videos" to find the type of awning you need to study. If yours is another make these still give you an insight into the general techniques needed.

With those featuring a centre ridge pole, that with its upright going in first is an important point to note.

I've just booked my first weekend away in my new caravan.  The whole purpose of the weekend is to make sure that I can pitch the van properly. I'm hoping that the weather will be good (i.e. not raining)  so that I can spend the day, practicing setting up
the awning and taking it down again.

We had ideal weather for putting our awning up on Friday after our return fom Chipping Sodbury. It was sunny, reasonably cool with no wind.

I always think the worst weather for putting the awning up is when there's a combination of wind and rain.