We found it!

I really enjoyed Thomas and my time in the car together going to look at venues, because I am able to have him all to myself and just talk. I would ask him questions about what he wants and what he will veto. It's a good time to hash out any disagreements we might have on pretty much anything. As much as I was in a hurry to buckle down a place, I was also really trying to enjoy this process. I knew that the place we choose will dictate a lot of decisions for us, and so it had to be right for both of us.

Which is why I liked that Serendipity was about an hour away...On our first trip up, we thought to ourselves that this is a little too far. It would really become a destination wedding in sorts (without the expensive flights). We drove through the town of Oak Glen and Beaumont (next town over) and was getting really nervous. There was NOTHING here!

We drove up the windy hills and finally pulled into the venue. Tara introduced herself and showed us around. It was PERFECT! It was all outside, but we could plan a wedding during the summer. It had a charm to it that was unlike anything I had seen before. I remember thinking, "how is this place a secret?" We stayed about an hour and asked every question we could think of.

On our way back, we both decided that was the place....

It really was Serendipity (an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.)

Wedding Venues Part II

After taking a breather and having a very LARGE glass, I mean bottle, of wine, I was back in the saddle!

I started scouring wedding blogs, wedding websites, and googling "affordable wedding venues in southern California." This really took some serious time. I figured there had to be a lot of people in my shoes that wanted a beautiful wedding with taste, but for a fraction of the cost. I found there are a ton of those people, however a lot of them gave in and drank the cool-aid! I stayed focused on the prize...

Things I knew:
 - I didn't care if it was an open bar with hard alcohol or just beer and wine
 - I did want the ceremony and reception in the same place
 - The venue did have to be in Southern California (Temecula, Santa Barbara, LA, OC, SD)
 - The time had to allow our reception to go past 10pm
 - All inclusive was preferred
 - I wanted a "smaller" wedding
 - I wanted to be able to pay for this without going into ANY debt
 - I wanted to get this venue booked by the end of January (I know I am crazy)

When I pictured my wedding, I thought winery. I really thought it would be the best place to get married. I started looking into weddings in Temecula, but the city of Temecula has a noise ordinance that all events have to be shut down at 10pm!! Uh, I think not. If I am spending serious money and serious time planning this, we are not stopping at 10pm. So that threw out a lot of amazing places. Darn.

Now I am totally loosing steam. I found a chain of venues called Wedgewood that have a bunch of affordable places all over SoCal. I went with Thomas to look at a couple of them and he wasn't sold on any of them. They have a great business plan of just doing weddings and including everything, which I loved, but in the end it just wasn't for us. I went to look at a few other places, but didn't like them either.

I did come across a place called Serendipity on Weddingbee.com. A few people had commented on how great it was and it was affordable too! The down side is it's in Oak Glen, CA, which most people have never heard of. It's in between Palm Springs and Redlands, so inland empire. The the upside was it looked amazing, however I realized I couldn't get my hopes up because pictures can be deceiving. Thomas and I figured it was worth a peek.

Again, to be continued....

Wedding Venues Part 1

If you don't already know, I am engaged to an AM-AZ-ING person, but it order to get married to him (within the next couple years) I needed to find a venue that was perfect but affordable. Once I got that fantastic ring on my finger it was like a baton was handed to me and I was OFF running! (He is probably chuckling right now, because he knows it's so true)

The one thing I knew about this process was how competitive it was to get a venue, since most people book so far in advance, getting engaged in December limited a lot of options. It's also (to me) the most important part of planning the wedding. It sets the vibe and tone of the day. I knew that once this was conquered a lot of pieces would fit together, and I could enjoy being engaged.

Like most to-be brides, I had no idea how crazy this industry is. I mean the minute you mention "wedding" they hike up ANY price by at least 200% (no joke). I started saying family reunion to try and get around the questions. I started by requesting pricing from different places and kept track of them by putting together a spreadsheet which laid out what they offered, pricing, things that would cost extra, etc. I quickly realized hotels would not be an option unless I wanted a minimum food and beverage of 20k. No, thank you :)

Next, I started looking into renting out a mansion and bringing in everything myself. I knew this would require a lot of work on my part and definitely a "day of" wedding planner, so I didn't pull my hair out the day of. After asking a handful of places I found rental fees were around 5k (just for the site, nothing else), so after approximating linens, silverware, plates, tables, chairs, bar, heaters, glasses, caterer, etc etc etc, that wasn't much cheaper AND I would be VERY stressed out. No go.

At this point I called up my fiance and asked to elope. My pitch was we could take the people we love and fly somewhere fun and romantic and still spend less $$ then having a wedding. He brought me back to earth by stating my weakness...he said I couldn't wear a wedding dress if we did that...DARN YOU HAWKSWORTH! I was back at it!

To be continued......