Weddingbee Blog

Ok, OK, it’s only the Seattle Parks Department reservation lottery, but hey, it’s pretty important to making Mr Pretzel’s rehearsal dinner dreams come true!

Mad Microsoft clip art skills, I tell you!

With a recommendation from Mrs Joey we settled the first part of Mr Pretzel’s vision—a Pacific Northwest menu—but the second part, a location outdoors on Puget Sound was yet to be determined. So, we started to look at different Seattle Parks located on the Sound. We found the perfect location, which I will tell you more about in a second, but we also learned that Seattle Parks have an annual lottery to reserve shelters at their parks. Since Seattle only enjoys on average 71 sunny days a year, you can imagine that there is a lot of competition to reserve park facilities during the summer (the sunny season).

To be fair, Seattle Parks has an application date in February for the following summer. The application allows you to specify your top three shelter choices and the date/time for reservation. In March, applications are drawn at random and bookings are penciled in. I have no idea where we landed in the lottery but I was ecstatic when Lynn emailed me to tell me we had “won” our first choice location.

Woo hoo!

There was no plan B so I am not sure what we would have done if we hadn’t gotten the park reservation. In all I think it cost us $160 to book a shelter in the park. In addition to the covered shelter area, Lake Street Catering will also provide covered areas in case the weather doesn’t cooperate.

So,without further ado meet our rehearsal dinner location:

Golden Gardens Park

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*Little confession I has actually never been to Golden Gardens park—although Mr Pretzel has—so I booking this whole rehearsal dinner thing sight unseen.

You know you are busy when you can’t drive 20 minutes to check out a location before pulling the trigger on making reservations. *Pretzel looks guilty*

Because I personally had not visited this park, I was sure to talk with everyone I could about the park, especially Seattle natives. I also turned online to learn more.

Golden Gardens is a little park on Shilshole Bay that screams everything about what makes Seattle Seattle: water, boats, mountains, seashore and humanity in all its colorful manifestations. It has been loved by generations of thumping-music cruisers, disc flippers, kite fliers, soccer players, dog walkers, beach strollers, picnickers, volleyball spikers, sunbathers, teen queens and pickup kings.  Greg Johnston

Uniquely Seattle? Yes please!

I think I read every review of the park, and looked at hundreds of photos. With confidence I can tell you that the sunsets at the park are amazing. I did a little searching and found out that sunset on our rehearsal date is at 9:00. We may or may not have actually planned our rehearsal dinner time around that little factoid.

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One thing that makes Golden Gardens unique is that the beach has fire pits for bonfires. After hearing about Miss Trail Mix’s plans for a bonfire I put bonfire on my list of “gosh I would love to have one if it worked out” list and tucked the idea away. I was happy to find out that the pits are available on a first come first serve basis but I am really hoping we can gather around the fire after filling our bellies with yummy seafood. I’ve already added “purchase firewood” to the list of wedding week tasks.

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photo by Erika Schultz

photo by Erika Schultz

The only downside to this location is that we won’t be able to serve alcohol. For a beer themed wedding that felt pretty lame at first, but in reality we are sure that our guests will enjoy themselves without liquid lubrication. It’s not like the rest of the week isn’t going to be filled with yummy hoppy goodness.

With luck on our side we secured a killer location for our rehearsal dinner. Mr P and I are feeling pretty good. Coming up next, we actually get a taste of what’s to come.

Did you leave any of your wedding arrangements up to the luck of the draw?