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This past weekend we attended the open house at our venue that I told you about here. The moment we arrived, we were handed a bag full of all kinds of fun information: directional cards to include in our invitations, ideas on how to word our RSVPs, planning information, as well as menus.
After spending our flight back to SFO making pro and con lists for each venue and talking about the possibility of going with the first caterer we met with, we had some decisions…
Our reception would include good beer and a great view of Kansas City! Check out these pictures:
Image via Erica May / Photo by Erica May / Event: Kate & Justin’s Wedding
…sisters, that is! (Forewarning: this post is pic heavy.)
Sweetie Scone’s family goes on a canoe trip just about every July in the Ozarks, and in 2010 we were able to head east to join in on the fun. The whole family was going to be there, including my FSIL. She was still head over heals in love—she and her boyfriend were starting to plan for their Kansas City wedding (pre-engagement) while they were in town, so we decided to do a little multitasking and we checked out venues together with my FFIL.
Now to get the proper idea of what the weekend entailed, there was some drinking on the river, some playing on the river, some more drinking on the river, a quick trip to a beautiful national park, and did I say drinking on the river? Oh yeah, floating in inner tubes and playing in canoes…we also had a couple hours driving down and back. Wanna see?
Although Mr. Woodpecker and I have been engaged since December of 2010, we really didn’t start planning our wedding until…um…October of 2011. Call me crazy, but we both knew, getting engaged, that we would not get married until after I graduated school, and between that and the fact that I’m a full-time “working for free” intern, I didn’t feel like I really had the right to plan an elaborate celebration just yet.
Then came September. I started internship and immediately became overworked between the two jobs I was working, and Mr. Woodpecker and I were barely seeing each other. Mr. Woodpecker was getting to spend lots of time with his family and mine, and apparently everyone was getting ready to have a wedding intervention for me. One day, after I came home from work, Mr. Woodpecker said that he had spoken with his parents, and that they really wanted to talk to us about getting our wedding planning started. They believed that this was really important, and didn’t want it to fall by the wayside for us.
Both Mr. Woodpecker’s and my parents have been very generous in our wedding planning process. Initially, we planned that Mr. Woodpecker and I would handle it all ourselves—from the planning to the paying. Apparently, it’s really not that easy, and when our parents sat us down and told me that, I cried a little, and then I happily accepted their help.
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And we’re gonna get maaaaarried.
Well, we’re definitely not going to the chapel, but after we booked our venue and some of the other vendors we started to think about who would marry us.
I need to take a second here and explain that both Mr. Coyote and I were raised Roman Catholic. The Church has played a very significant role in my life, and we both went to a Catholic college. But the truth is, neither of us has been practicing in quite a few years. Mr. C has a few issues with the Church (which I think are justified and I completely respect), and he didn’t feel comfortable having a Catholic ceremony. And so we decided not to get married in the Church.
This wasn’t a decision that was made lightly. I would have preferred to have a full-on Catholic ceremony, but after many conservations I knew it just wasn’t the right choice for us. I also know that if I had pushed back hard enough Mr. C would have just sucked it up and gone through with it. Because he loves me and he knows it’s important to me. But was that how I wanted our marriage to start? With me pushing him to get married in an environment that he was uncomfortable with? Not exactly.
Last Friday I got home from work to find a beautiful envelope in my mailbox. I quickly opened it to find the most adorable little storybook invitation sent to us from our venue. The invitation is to their open house they are having in just a few short weeks. Invited to this open house are all of the couples getting married there in 2012. At this open house we will be able to taste all of our menu options, hours d’oeuvres, and of course, my favorite part, the cake. We also get to view linen and floral vase options.
In this story book is love quotes, information on the open house, history of the venue…and it is all customized with our names.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
After our whirlwind venue tour, Mr. Coyote and I sat down and talked about the pros and cons of everything we saw. The dude was pretty set with River Stone, but I was wavering a bit. I wanted to see a few more places.
And so in November we packed up our bags (again) and went to see three more venues.
The first one could not really accommodate our large group. The second one was insanely over budget. And the third one was just right.
You know how some girls find a wedding dress and they put it on and they just “know” that it’s the one? That’s how I felt about this venue. I walked into the space and I just “knew.” This was the one. I could picture myself getting married here. I could see us celebrating with all of our friends. It was just pure perfection.
Are you dying to see it??
Well, I won’t hold you in suspense any longer. Here is the world’s (OK, maybe just my) most perfect venue:
Image via Franklin Plaza / Photo by Michael Gallitelli
Can you see me walking down the aisle to meet my wonderful fiance??
Venue Wish List:
With these criteria in mind, I eliminated all hotel ballrooms ($$$, most have space for 250 guests), restaurants (can’t hold 100 people, no breakfast menu), a backyard (too expensive to rent linens, tent, chairs, etc.), and community centers (those close by are in really bad shape). I basically worked myself into a corner with very limited options.
And then…my mind shifted to think of the space where my sister’s prom was held a couple of years ago. It’s a convention center with a couple of different rooms: the big one where my sister’s prom was held (600 guests), another that hold 75 guests, an outdoor plaza for 100 guests, and a room with floor-to-ceiling glass windows for 150 guests.
I made an appointment for that same week, and as soon as I stepped into El Faro Convention Center I loved it. Then I saw “The Glass Room,” the second-floor room that has floor-to-ceiling windows with an incredible view, and my heart dropped. I was sure it would be crazy expensive.
The door
My parents, my fiance, and I visited seven venues before making our decision. While we didn’t downright hate any of the places we visited, they all had their own unique sets of pros and cons.
Image via Knock Knock / Mmmmm, I love me a good pro/con list!
We didn’t have too many “must haves,” but I really wanted to be able to have everything indoors. (Even though Murphy isn’t invited, I’m pretty sure he’s going to crash regardless of what kind of security we have set up.) We also knew that we wanted to have the ceremony and the reception in the same location, so the venue needed to be able to accommodate us there, too. So with that in mind we headed out!
Our first stop was the gorgeous River Stone Manor. The venue is right on the river (obvs) and has a beautiful banquet facility lined with windows that overlook the water.
Right after getting engaged I was on cloud nine. I spent the first month of our engagement skipping around singing, “I’m getting maaaaaaarried!!!!!”, staring at my shiny new ring, and watching about a hundred reruns of Say Yes to the Dress.
Image via TLC / C’mon, Randy, you know you want to help me find my perfect dress!!
To be honest, I didn’t know the first thing about planning a wedding. I have not been to many weddings in my lifetime (which is surprising considering my huge family), and I pretty much thought that planning a wedding consisted of buying a pretty dress, saying “I do,” and dancing the night away with friends and family.
The second most common question people ask you once you get engaged (besides, “Have you set a date yet?”) is “Where are you getting married?”
It really is an important question. As an architecture student, I always had to pay attention to our “site” where we were building and the “context” around it. The reality is that the context of anything, whether it be architecture, an event in history, or an event (like a wedding), plays a huge role in the details of the final product.
The context of a wedding (the wedding date, the wedding location, the season, etc.) should, in my opinion, affect the design of the wedding from day one. We eventually decided on a wedding date early in the spring in Florida. This part of our “context” has allowed us to plan for some parts of the wedding to happen outside. The second part of our wedding context, the venue, has given us rain backup and an awesome ceremony site.
I am continually making choices to fit the wedding I am planning in the venue that we picked. For example, I loved more than one dress, but one was too formal and one had a gorgeous long train…that would be a disaster in an outdoor ceremony. The venue has helped me to determine our color scheme, too. Black and white formal (as much as I love that style) just wouldn’t work there. It’s a more warm, homey, casual kind of venue…so that is the type of wedding we are planning.
So what is our venue?
It’s The Retreat at Bradley’s Pond. It has the outdoor rustic feel that I like with a modern, clean interior space!
This next photo is the indoor reception space—I love how big and neutral it is!
Image via The Retreat at Bradley’s Pond / Photo by Inga Finch Photography
Next is the gorgeous outdoor ceremony site that overlooks a pretty pond.
While reading this post, you may question my choice of title…but stick it out, OK?
It was an average fall day…one of my final summer Fridays* of the year. The sun was shining and there were just over two hours until I planned to spend my afternoon wandering the Philadelphia streets for a bit. (I really wanted a late lunch from the Guapos Taco truck.)
Where my brain was / Image via design-phan
As I was imagining my delicious Mexican snack, my phone buzzed on the desk, listing “Jen from Kimmel Center” as the caller. I picked up and cheerily said, “Hi Jen—happy Friday!” Her response did not seem as peppy, and when she mentioned that her colleague was with her on the call, I got a strange feeling. However, I did not expect what she said to me:
“Miss Turkey, we’re sorry to tell you that we’re no longer going to be able to hold your wedding at the Kimmel Center on May XX, 2012.”
Cue tires screaching, glass breaking, lightning striking…WHAT???
Read more…
It’s difficult planning a wedding in uncertain economic times. Vendors are going out of business and deposits are unfortunately being lost. This past fall, my brother was married at one of Southern Massachusetts’ most popular venues, The Hawthorne Country Club. I can’t tell you how many weddings I’ve attended there. We actually first met our fabulous DJ at a Hawthorne wedding. It’s a beautiful venue and has some of the most reasonable prices in the area. It’s by far the absolute best bang for your buck.
Image via Hawthorne Country Club website
Unfortunately, a little while after my brother’s wedding, the Hawthorne announced it was closing its doors after 40 years. Unless they could find another buyer for the property, they would have to be forced into foreclosure. Everyone locally was mourning the loss of such a great venue. They literally had brides booking two years in advance, how could they go out of business?
Read more…
I told you all that we absolutely fell in love with the online photos of The Lougheed House. It is a downtown venue that is exactly what we were looking for: downtown but secluded, vintage, intimate, and drop.dead.gorgeous.
We arranged to go and see the historic house with the venue’s event coordinator, Cathy Olson. However, it took us over three weeks from when we first contacted her to actually get an appointment time! This place is that popular and that busy. We crossed our fingers that we’d even be able to get something in summer 2012, because on the phone she had said it was already starting to book up fast.
When we finally got the grand tour, our jaws dropped. Literally. I think we were both speechless. See for yourself!
The venue! The venue! It’s all about the venue (at least in my book).
Our venue choice was extremely important to me. It was the first thing I wanted to arrange before even thinking about anything else. Fiancée Eagle was easy: she told me that she would love the venue if I loved it. Done!
I knew that we wanted something different—something unexpected as a wedding venue, but still semi-traditional feeling. And because we won’t be getting married in a church/temple/synagogue, we wanted a venue where we could have the ceremony and reception all in one place. All-inclusive, baby!
First, we considered somewhere simple and beautiful, like The Art Gallery of Calgary. They have a beautiful, modern space that is frequently used for weddings.
Image via Calgary Bride / Photo by The Art Gallery of Calgary
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