Weddingbee Blog

We were engaged… we had our wedding colors all picked out… now what? Well, for me, the most important thing to do next was choose a venue. I really felt like I wasn’t going to be able to do anything else until that was decided on. The venue sets the mood for the entire day—will it be formal or casual? Indoors or outdoors? Gorgeous or hideous? (Just kidding on that last one.)

If we’re being completely honest here, I had a venue in mind for about a month before we even got engaged. This venue was the epitome of the perfect wedding to me… it was everything I had ever dreamed of. Absolute perfection. It is the venue I pictured in my head every time I thought about my wedding, and the only place I could possibly visualize for Mr. C and myself to get married at.

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Stunning, no?

That, my friends, is the Barr Mansion. Sadly, this venue recently burned down (rather, part of it did), but it is still an amazing venue and will hopefully be back on its feet soon. I actually found out about Barr Mansion through Mrs. Mouse’s posts, and I fell head over heels in love with this place. I had a sneaking suspicion that it was going to be way out of our budget, but for some reason I held onto hope that it would work out. I refused to let myself email them to ask for a price sheet until I was officially engaged, and so as soon as I could reach a computer after that ring was on my finger, I sent off an email asking for more information. Of course, I was right, and there was no way we would be able to afford it. So, it was back to the drawing board for me. Once I got over the sadness of losing my “dream” venue, I pulled out my trusty MacBook and started Googling like crazy! I researched (obsessively) for weeks, trying to find the best place possible for the best price possible. Since this is technically a destination wedding for Mr. Cardigan and me, I wanted to make this as easy as possible for us – I wanted to make sure that I narrowed down the list as far as possible before we visited any places. We would have to make a weekend trip to Austin every time we wanted to visit venues, so I honestly wanted to visit as few as possible.

After a couple of weeks of researching, I felt like I had seen every single wedding venue that existed in Austin. Twice. Maybe even three times. I had a few top contenders, but I just couldn’t decide between them all – they were all so pretty! Soon enough, I had it narrowed down to just a few different choices.

1: Bella Notte on Main

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This place is seriously gorgeous. Of all the places I looked at, Bella Notte located most conveniently, and I really loved that. It’s located in Round Rock, which is in North Austin, and much closer to where my family lives than a lot of the other places. Their packages come with all of the linens and some very pretty place settings, but they do not have an in-house caterer, which was something that was important to me. I have enough decisions to stress over, I didn’t want to add a caterer to the list! Another thing I loved was that this place has so much natural beauty, you don’t really need many decorations!

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2: Angel Springs Event Center

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LOVE THIS PLACE! Angel Springs is also located pretty conveniently, in a smaller town in North Austin. It’s in a more secluded area and is surrounded by tons of trees and beautiful hills (we are in the Hill Country, after all!). My absolute favorite thing about Angel Springs was how inclusive it is and the amount of options you have. They have packages for cake, flowers, photography, videography, a coordinator, and tons more. You can choose any or all of them, and you aren’t obligated to go with their photographer, etc. if you don’t want to. Within the different categories, you can choose from a “Sapphire”, “Emerald”, or “Diamond” package, each of which offers a little bit more than the last. It’s a really nice setup, and I loved the convenience of it – especially with how bad I am at making decisions! Plus, this place couldn’t get any more gorgeous:

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I really loved that this place completely showcases the beauty of the hills and greenery in Austin – many people who come visit only see the city, and then end up missing out on all the really gorgeous stuff. The only problem with this venue? $$$$$$$. When I emailed to get pricing on their packages, I almost fell out of my chair. It was not quite as pricey as Barr Mansion, but still way out of my price range! But, with all they offered, they were still on the list – I had to remind myself that the price I was seeing was for almost EVERYTHING!

3: Villa Antonia

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DROOL. Villa Antonia is the epitome of a Hill Country wedding venue. It’s actually located about 10 minutes away from my parents’ house, on the side of a huge hill. It overlooks the lake, and it is so incredibly, breathtakingly gorgeous. Wanna see more? (Note: All of the following images are from Villa Antonia’s website)

This venue is so incredibly gorgeous, and it showcases all of my favorite parts of “my” side of Austin: the hills, the greenery, and the lake. So beautiful! The only problem? They don’t include much of anything with their package, and they ain’t cheap. Sigh.

4: Vintage Villas (NOTE: Unless otherwise indicated, photos taken from their website)

Ohhh, Vintage Villas. Y’all, this place is so gorgeous it makes my heart skip a beat. I’m serious. Want to see the view?

Yeah. That’s my lake. And the hills! Now, this venue is the furthest away of all of them, as it’s actually located on the opposite side of the lake from where I grew up. This is the one venue on my list that strays from what I consider “my” part of Austin, and goes much closer to the actual city. But it’s still amazing to me that you can be so close to the city itself, and still have these amazing views. For those of you familiar with Austin, this venue is located just down the street from The Oasis and Iguana Grill, two restaurants that are famous for their amazing views of the lake and the sunset. This place had all the natural beauty that I wanted, AND on-site catering. And the inside is just as pretty as the outside:

It sounds cheesy, but the second we stepped onto the property I KNEW I had to get married here. Want to see?

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Yeah, I love this place. I had them send me over some more information, and their packages include a ridiculous amount of extras (like the cake cutting fee, some great free decorations, and all the linens!) and the food descriptions on their menu options made me drool. They have three different areas where you could choose to get married, and I loved them all. The one downside? They don’t have a “One Wedding a Day” policy, so there is a possibility that someone else could be getting married at one of their other areas. I wasn’t a fan of that, but they’re all nicely separated, so it wouldn’t be too huge of a deal.

In the end, the only venue that we ended up visiting was Vintage Villas. And the second we stepped onto the property, I knew this was where Mr. Cardigan and I would be getting married. The area that we chose to get married in is the largest of all the options (and the one where all of the above photos are from) and is fenced off from the other areas, so it also has the most privacy. We have the option of getting married outdoors, which I think would be gorgeous, but since the wedding is in January and I have zero tolerance for cold weather (I grew up in Texas. We don’t do cold.) we chose to get married indoors in what they call the “Sunset Room” (the second photo from the bottom on the above photos). Those huge windows you see overlook the lake and they time the ceremony so it coordinates with the sunset – so while you’re getting married, there is a spectacular view behind you.

I am so incredibly happy with our choice, even if it wasn’t what we originally thought we wanted. In the end, we got a great deal on our venue, and even though it’s closer to downtown Austin than the others, it still really shows off the beauty of my favorite place in the world. When we first started looking, I didn’t realize that having a view of the hills and the lake was all that important to me, but it actually ended up being a huge deciding factor!

How many venues did you visit before finding “The One”?