Weddingbee Blog

The most work I think I’ve done on this whole entire shindig had to be the weeks I spent looking for an appropriate place to house everyone the weekend of the wedding. While my parents do have a nice cabin within 10 minutes of the venue, the two bedrooms weren’t going to cut it.

Photo from my mom of my parents’ cabin

Not to mention she already had plans for other people to stay with her the night before the wedding.

So then I called one of our neighbors about his cabin. He owns the largest privately owned waterfall in Georgia, and it is beautiful. The cabin was super nice as well and the price he offered was really good, but I was really hoping that the groom’s party and bridal party could be fairly close to each other, and he only has one cabin besides his own home on the property.

Next up was a family that owns several cabins within the same loop of road near our venue. The first time I talked with the mother, I told her I needed to put her on hold for just a second to take a work-related call, but she didn’t stop talking so I finally put her on hold anyway. When I came back to the line several minutes later, she was still talking and didn’t seem to even notice that I hadn’t been on the line! I’ve met some talkers in my life, but this one took the cake. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and went up to visit the place, but overall the cabins were kinda shoddy. They didn’t afford any good views or special amenities. I called back to find out pricing anyway, and this time I got the father. Talkin’ your ear off must be a family trait. After he told me the ridiculously high rental rates, I ended up having to just hang up on the poor guy ’cause I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

Next I checked out a spa/resort-type thing nearby. It was beautiful, offered daily yoga, and included a really nice breakfast. Unfortunately, to comfortably house all of my bridal party, we were going to have to rent out two cottage suites and, because our wedding is still in prime “leaf viewing” season, we’d pay higher prices. That would mean over $500 per night for just the bridal party. And after seeing this place, the mister wasn’t so sure it was quite the type of place he could kick back and enjoy a few brewskies with the guys the night before.

Image via R&R Resorts

They host different retreats, weddings, and other events all the time. While it wasn’t the perfect fit for this occasion, I’m hoping I can finagle a first-anniversary trip to this gorgeous spa and resort.

Next up, I decided to look into VRBO.com. In case you’ve never checked it out, VRBO stands for “vacation rental by owner.” It’s a cool little tool to use to find vacation homes, and in our case I was hoping to find a large enough cabin to not only accommodate the bridal party but also the groom’s party. I’m not planning on getting dressed until I get to the venue anyway, so I wasn’t too worried about him seeing me the morning of, and I thought it’d be nice to have a big enough place where we could even host the rehearsal dinner. I ended up only finding one that was large enough for just us.

Image via VRBO

We thought we would book it, too. Until I decided to negotiate with the owner. I made an offer, but he was most certainly not interested in negotiating. This place was going to run us up into the couple of thousands for just two nights. Again we got the “prime leaf season” excuse. Uh, duh! That’s part of the reason I chose that wedding date. But seriously, are there still people out there in this economy who have $2,000 to blow to go watch leaves for the weekend?

Feeling pretty frustrated, I was starting to get worried that my perfect accommodations didn’t exist. I wanted to spend around $1,000 for two nights for enough room for both the bridal party and the groom’s party (about 10 people), for somewhere with a nice view, and if we had to be separated I wanted the the cabins to be fairly close together so we could still hang out the night before. I needed it to be just right.

Enter Cavender Creek. It’s a small cabin resort situated just south of the venue. We visited the cabins, and they were not only clean but super-duper cute, and some even had hot tubs on the porch. Best of all, there are 11 cabins. Enough for the bridal party, groom’s party, and any family or friends that might want to come up. But what about pricing? How about under $800 for two cabins (they can sleep six to eight people) both nights? It was perfect. Need some visual convincing?

Image via Cavender Creek

Image via Cavender Creek

Did you have a hard time looking for wedding-party accommodations?