Wedding Blog

To get started on the venue search, I turned first to the good old knot.com. Mostly I just get annoyed by the knot’s unhelpful and totally generic advice and outdated “new trends! candy buffets and sparkler sendoff!” tips, but one area that I do think is useful is the local vendors and community sections. Even though I spent my whole life in Maine, there were many beautiful spots that I had never heard of or visited.
Mr. Tiramisu and I had a few requirements when it came to our site:

#1. Must be on/near the ocean or have an ocean view. This was by far the most important to us. So many of our guests are from out of town, and I really wanted to be able to show off the famous rocky Maine coast to them. I was pretty stubborn about this one, and actually refused to visit a few great lakeside recommendations that we were given. I just had to have crashing waves!

#2. Generic hotel ballrooms need not apply. Again, after making people travel so far to our wedding, I really didn’t want to hole them up in a room where they couldn’t tell whether they were in Maine or in the middle of New Jersey (man, why does New Jersey always get such a bad rap? Sorry that was the first non-exciting place to come to mind!).

#3. Must have a wow factor. You know, the je ne sais quoi. Whether it be picture windows, a wrap around porch for the cocktail hour, or grand high ceilings, the things that stuck out to me about the places we visited were the little parts of the venue that I couldn’t wait for my guests to enjoy. It is ridiculous when you start comparing places based on these: “Venue A ceilings vs Venue 2 windows, which do I love more?” Oh the things that come out of your mouth while wedding planning. Insane, I know.

Armed with our trusty GPS and a list of potential wedding hot spots, we hit the road….

The first place that Mr. BP and I visited was in Boothbay Harbor. This town is quintessential Maine. I have great memories of visiting this little seaside town as a child - especially of visiting all the little shops and eating saltwater taffy or homemade ice cream. The first stop was the Spruce Point Inn- oceanside? check! no generic ballroom? check! I was armed with my brand new planning book which had pro/con lists to fill in for all decisions- love this. Here’s what we had to say about our first stop:

Pro: very beautiful and “Maine” town
Con: very long drive to said town (1.5 hours North of my hometown)
Pro: just LOOK at that outdoor ceremony site
Con: very “eh” room for indoor option
Pro: unique all-wood high ceiling ballroom for reception
Con: reception hall about 200 yards from the water = no crashing waves to be heard (I know I’m picky)

The biggest con about the Spruce Point Inn wasn’t discovered until we did our huge and time-consuming spreadsheet a few days later to compare costs of all of the venues we visited (details to come)…. this turned out to be the *most* expensive option that we seriously considered. One of the first things Mr. Tiramisu and I found to be frustrating about the whole budget planning process is how differently places set up their fees. It made it very hard to compare places without a lot of list-making and calculating. Sure $30 a head for dinner sounds great, until you want to charge me $10,000 to rent the room you’re serving us in. We were tricked by this a few times in the early planning stages. Good thing Mr. Tiramisu is so handy with excel- he was able to set us straight right away

While in Boothbay we also checked out the Linekin Bay Resort, which I’m sure is beautiful, but was closed and all boarded up when we visited in May. We weren’t impressed, but judging by the pictures on the website, it does look great once it’s all uncovered!

to be continued…