Wedding Wednesday: The Venue

Selecting the wedding venue was (for me) one of the hardest parts of the wedding planning, second only to picking my wedding dress (that's a story for another time). The similarities between the two (venue & dress) are not lost on me. There are essentially limitless options, plenty of "really nice" choices and the one you ultimately select will set the tone of the rest of the wedding.
As I mentioned before, from the proposal to our walk down the aisle was over sixteen months. People have asked if I recommend having such a long engagement (actually only two people specifically asked, but I have asked myself multiple times). Naturally there are positives and negatives for both a short and long engagement, but I will say this: the longer the engagement, the more time there is to second guess decisions. Maybe you are the kind of person who sticks to your guns. In this case, I was not. Throughout our engagement, and thus the wedding planning process, our idea of how we wanted our wedding to look shifted. In some ways that's good. Our tastes stayed primarily the same, but our vision narrowed and the end result was extremely representative of who we were at the time we said "I do." However, there were plenty of tears (mine) and restless nights (also mine) along the way. Not to mention, making changes typically has a cost involved. Not great for the bottom line. If I had half the time, I probably would have stuck to my initial vision and most likely been pleased with the result. I read somewhere that if at the end of the day, you are married, you have accomplished your goal. The rest is just fluff.
In the beginning we were fairly certain we wanted a non-church ceremony. We imagined our ceremony and reception being held in the same location (ideally different areas on the same property). Ceremony outside and reception in a ballroom. I also had somewhat contrasting visions of a winery wedding. Perhaps a string quartet set among the vines? For whatever reason we decided in the beginning that we were dead set against a beach wedding (we are more winery people than beach people), a hotel (Sean's preference) or any place with wall to wall carpet (again Sean's preference). There are times when I regretted not going the hotel route. There are so many different hotels, surely we could have found one that fit us. (It probably would have been easier!) We narrowed the field a bit more by deciding against a destination wedding. This limited us to Southern California and about a million venues. The wedding planner helped make suggestions, but in the end it was up to us to pull the trigger (and fast). I felt the clock ticking away and wanted to  make a decision, so we could move forward with planning. Everything was a standstill until we had a date and venue locked down.
After researching hundreds of venues online and visiting six or seven, we landed on a historic estate built in the 1890s. It had beautiful gardens for the ceremony, a ballroom for the reception, a grand lobby and salon for the cocktail hour, a ton of character. We picked a date (July 21st) and the signed a contract.
A few months passed and as we imagined saying our vows, things began to shift. I'm not sure exactly how it first came up (there were quite a few parental opinions volunteered) but we came to the decision that we actually did want to be married in a church. I started researching every church within a five mile area of our venue, narrowed it down to those that were actually our religion and went church shopping. I learned that churches book up really far in advance and vary greatly in terms of flexibility. At this point our date wasn't flexible, as we were already under quite a few contracts. I was 100% set on having the ceremony in the late afternoon and continuing straight to the reception. I wouldn't hear of having a morning ceremony or any gap of time between the two. Luckily we managed to find a beautiful church, with an incredible pastor, that would hold a 4:30pm service and was available for our date. The pieces started to come together!
Having two venues changed our vendor list and the schedule significantly. The pastor we hired to orchestrate our non-church ceremony was no longer needed. The church required us to hire their "coordinator" even though we already had our own. Transportation from the ceremony to the reception had to be worked out. And the list went on.
Add in taking photographs and doing our "first look" at the hotel, and our timeline became a carefully orchestrated ballet. Apparently simplicity was not the name of my game.
Looking back, here are a few of the elements that helped us narrow down our reception venue :
-ability to bring in our own caterer. This was tremendously important for keeping us in budget. I was shocked at how the cost of catering varies. Apparently all Chicken Parmesans are not created equal! I may be a foodie most of the time, but oysters and truffles were not in the cards for our wedding day.

-only hosts one event  per day. Guests were free to roam around and explore the estate without running in to another bride and groom.

-allowed hard alcohol. One of  Sean’s top wedding requests was an open bar. We found that most wineries only allowed wine & beer- no hard alcohol, so they were quickly crossed off our list. I have been to weddings without hard alcohol and had a blast. I tend to stick to wine at weddings, so this really wouldn’t have been a big deal for me. However, the tequila shots we took later in the night were fun.

-end time. I was shocked how many venues turn the music off at 9 or 10pm. We were allowed to go until midnight and needed every second of it.

-Character. Completely vague, but it had to have some sort of "wow" factor.
Missing from our list? A HIGH powered, well functioning air conditioner. Buildings in the 1890's weren't known for their air conditioners. The brochure said the ballroom was air conditioned. I can say from personal experience on that balmy July night, it was not.
So what did we end up with?

 

Escort Card Table in the foyer

And the church:

 

 

 

 

 Have I wondered if we picked the right venues? Yes. Does it matter? Nope. We are married. Everyone had a great time. I love our photographs. 

Moral of the story? Worry less, celebrate more!