Where Our "Happily Ever After" Starts

Back in October, Ellie and I took a ride to visit friends, and stopped by the hotel where we're having the wedding to get a better look at the ceremony space (it was under about 3 feet of snow when we selected it!!) and to see what it would look like when we got married. Of course, we took pictures!!

This is from the back of the seating area looking at the pergola we'll be standing under--we'll stand on the first landing, and our officiant, who is shorter than us, will be at the top. The hotel is behind me.

The pergola is to my right in this picture. I'll walk out of the hotel & come down this walkway.

I'm standing at the top of the steps under the pergola in this shot. Ellie and I are going to meet under the tree and walk down the main aisle together.

Just another shot of the ceremony space--needed the full 360 effect. In the right hand corner is a firepit! How awesome are the nighttime photos near that going to be?!

Of Dinosaurs and Petting Zoos

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I have no other category for this post than "Humor?" How are Dinosaurs and Petting Zoos related to the wedding? Well, they aren't really--and I have no idea where I'm going with this, but my loved ones asked, so here goes (remind me to never ask questions on Facebook again).

Something that has struck me as I read my favorite wedding blogs (particularly Offbeat Bride and Weddingbee) is just how creative some couples are in choosing their venue. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVELOVELOVE The Doubletree, and it has unique elements that make it perfectly suited for our wants and need, but no one will ever say it's creative. And some of the venue ideas that other brides are talking about are completely ridiculous (like having a "Camping Weekend" wedding  at the wrong time of year AND in fancy clothes) or just aren't suited to us and our needs (like a family member's backyard garden).

This whole thing started when I asked on Facebook what people wanted me to write about because I was bored at work. The conversation QUICKLY descended into anarchy and here we are. When I started this post almost an hour ago, I started by searching "dinosaur petting zoo" on Google--go ahead and click the link, I'll wait (I can't find any non-copyright images). I replied to a comment with "Who DOESN'T like dinosaurs? I wonder if i can get back my venue deposit & move the entire wedding to the Museum of Science?"

Now, for science geeks (which many of our friends and family are), and those with lots of money, the MOS or New England Aquarium would be super cool places to have a wedding!! But Boston is EXPENSIVE (venues, guest accommodations and getting around for out-of-towners), hard to navigate, and couldn't give us the outdoor experience we both so very much wanted.

Then there were the more natural venue ideas, like Nashoba Valley Winery. These types of places, while gorgeous, have limitations--most only have tents or pavilions for seating, which can be problematic in inclement weather--and we're in New England, the chances for inclement weather are pretty good--or they couldn't fit our guest list, or the legwork we'd have to do to get rentals and catering and everything was way more work than either of us wanted to do. There are some zoos in the Metro Boston area, but I never even researched them because I didn't think of them as viable options, but I imagine they would have many of the same limitations as other outdoor venues, with the added stink factor (I don't mind it, but my guests might while they're eating fancy food while wearing fancy clothes). Plus, the best zoo in MA is really too far away from major highways to be convenient--and they don't do weddings anyway (I just looked!).

The third grouping of "unique" venues are museums outside of Boston, estates, things like that. They however have many of the same difficulties with price, workload and location that the others did. Then we thought about a requirement that none of these places had--accommodations for our guests, 70% of whom are coming from out of state. That's a huge number of people that need rooms. The only sensible option for us was a hotel, so that's what we looked at, keeping in mind all of the things we wanted: an outdoor area for the ceremony & guest enjoyment; a dinner/dancing space that had a comfortable feeling, not too big, small or boring; the hotel itself had to look nice but not unfeeling or cold; and a price that was fairly reasonable for us and our guests.

So that's how a request to talk about dinosaurs and petting zoos became a discussion on how Ellie and I came to decide on a hotel as our venue. We've already talked about why we chose Doubletree, but feel free to read it again, especially those of you who are new around here.

Two Birds, One Week

Holy crap, I have a dress AND venue!! Here's the story in a nutshell:

Last weekend, was the "dress looking" trip to NYC. I was NOT getting a dress. The plan was to get to the city, find our hotel, then come back into Manhattan to eat & putz around until Carrie got into town. Well, RK Bridal, the dress shop that was highly recommended to Jere, was actually right around the corner from where we got off the bus, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to go over.

Gilda was the 70-year old Jewish grandmother every girl needs--she heard my street size, told me I was in "The Diva Collection" and we started shopping. I was happy that part of our shopping included a tour of the discounted racks, since that's about my price range. All in all, I tried on about 9 dresses, most with some color, which was a requirement. The second dress I tried was an Alfred Angelo (actually, most were by him, which was convenient since most of the dresses I've loved were his designs). I fell in love instantly. The fact that it had come from the discount rack made it even MORE appealing (can you say 70% off?? I know you can.), but I kept trying dresses just in case. There was another dress I loved (also by Alfred Angelo), but it wasn't as perfect.

Needless to say, I bought the dress. Yes, you read right, I bought the 2nd dress I ever tried on, on a trip where I wasn't supposed to be buying dresses--and I had to tote it home on the bus!! But it is safely sitting in Jere's office closet waiting for me to find a good seamstress to take it in and make the alterations I want. No, my dress isn't available on the website, so don't think you've found it if you go perusing--it was a discontinued model, and I got the floor sample.

The Venue...as you all know, we were in a pickle about where to have the wedding. Mostly because it was Ellie's preference, partly because there were some details about H that we couldn't overlook, we went with the Doubletree Bedford Glen. We would be happy at either venue, but after going over the good, bad and mediocre between ourselves and getting feedback from former brides, we went with the place that was able to best give us exactly what we needed. I'm super pumped, we have a few days to sign the contract and put in the deposit, then it's REALLY ours!

Now to look into Save-The-Dates...

Making it Harder on Ourselves

Saturday, we went to visit D, which is a venue we had been thinking about for some time, but because it's slightly north of Boston, was a little lower on our to-see list. However, the single picture on their site made it too good to pass up, so it became the 3rd location we have looked at.

Holy bananas!! Honestly, we are highly unlikely to look at any other places and are actually wracking our brains trying to decide between D and H. D is amazing--the ceremony space is gorgeous and can double as extra space for the cocktail hour, the hall is big enough that we won't feel cramped, but I also don't see us getting swallowed up in some grand ballroom built for 400. There are a few other intriguing features that I'm not going to discuss until we've made a decision, but they just work so perfectly for who we are and who our guests will be.

I feel confident to say that Ellie prefers D and would book it tomorrow if I wasn't slightly hesitant. It's more expensive (although not by a whole lot), and I feel blasé about the hors d'oeuvres and dinner selection at D compared to H. And I prefer that the ceremony space is a lawn with trees instead of stone--unfortunately it seems to be set up weird and the pictures we've look at don't give a very good visual.

So we're in a small conundrum and are going to have to seriously sit down and decide...hell, it might come down to drawing a name out of a hat ☺We'll see.

Looky-Loo

This past Tuesday was Ellie's day off, and we spent the first half of it looking at a couple of potential venues.

The first place, which I'll call S, was nice but it was easy to see why the prices were so low. The outside of the building was obviously older, although the inside had been nicely remodeled in recent years. Based on our intended guest count, the wedding coordinator showed us a function room that was gorgeous,with marble and a glass wall that could be uplit in any number of colors, but was rather small. It maxes out at 125, which is about where we are estimating where our guest list will be--this means a TIGHT reception and the potential to have to really limit the number of invitations we send. The space also had some limitations because it was rectangular and had 4 large columns, which I know will limit visibility. If we were to use the ballroom, we'd either get lost in the 450-person capacity or have to split the room and have a function next door--yeah, that's not going to happen. Finally, they have no outdoor space to have a ceremony--the room we were shown had whiteboards along the main wall and I am assuming they don't have curtains to hide them because the coordinator said, "and we'll face all the chairs towards the windows so the guests see the trees; they won't remember the back wall." That was a serious - for this location, that they didn't even have a semi-nice room to have the ceremony. However, based on price and options within the packages, S is still an option; we'd just have to find another place to have the ceremony and tighten up the guest list.

H is gorgeous!! Unfortunately the catering manger had a personal emergency so wasn't able to meet us; he did have someone show us around for about 15 minutes and give us their materials. She showed us the outdoor area where ceremonies usually take place--unfortunately the 10 feet of snow that covered it prevented us from really seeing the space and visualizing how it would be actually set up (and pics online aren't terribly helpful). The ballroom was amazing, even only seeing half of the space--the only thing that would have made it better is chandeliers. We were able to get a few questions answered, but not many, so will definitely be meeting with the catering manager in the future. Our only problem is price: H is pretty expensive and doesn't have quite as many options.

There are a couple of other venues we're interested in seeing, so will hopefully be scheduling those soon.

Getting excited...

Wow time really flies, it's crazy to think a year ago I was sending back the first ring that I did not think was right to put on Jessi's finger. I remember because it came in the weekend of V-day and the place was mobbed. Now we are 20 months away from our wedding. YIKEs!!! and Yay!!! I am very excited because on Tuesday Jessi and I will be visiting 2 possible places for our reception. We have temporarily limited the reception area to around 7. So hopefully one of these will pan out. Once we have the reception hall figured out we can start the wheels moving with everything else. It seems so far away but in the same breath it's just around the corner. I hope by the end of this month or beginning of next month to have figured out which reception hall we want and to book the place for our date. :-)

Getting My Feet Wet

I didn't discuss this earlier, but I attended my first Wedding Expo a couple of weeks ago, hosted by The Original Wedding Expo by Chevaller Associates in Marlborough, MA. I was lucky enough to get a free ticket from Jeremy at 241South Studios, who is thinking about exhibiting at a future expo (you can see his review here).

It was fun. Most of the reception sites are outside of my search area--we don't want people who are coming from out of state to have to travel too far from the airport or major roadway. Because the Expo was in Central MA, many of the vendors were a little too far west to be a real contender. But I was able to find a possible vendor for Ellie's outfit, got to meet a LOT of photographers (it's what Jeremy does, we spent quite a bit of time at all of the photographer booths). I was a little put off by the number of vendors that were really aggressive, but I hear that's just what they do. I did find one vendor that works in silk flowers that looked very real, so that was a positive. It gave me an idea of what to expect when Ellie and I go to shows in the future.

Having Recently Been to a Wedding...

I now have something fresh to go by in my planning. I'm not saying that J & E's wedding will determine how we do ours, but it's been several years since I've been to a wedding and having one fresh in my mind makes it more active and clear. Plus, it's gotten me really excited because we had a ton of fun and I'm looking forward to actually making plans and bringing this whole thing to life.

I need to start actually jotting down notes in my organizer. AND I need to stop stressing about everything--it's further away than I want it to be and I really do need to worry about Christmas first. After the holidays Ellie and I will start physically looking at venues--I would really like one booked before the summer, just to ease my anxiety and allow me to take my time finding that damn elusive dress!! Honestly, booking the venue will actually move a lot of things forward because we'll know when/where, if we need a second site and/or hotel, and the food/beverage situation won't be as much of a mystery. Plus, it'll guide our theme and we can start with all the DIY that will need to be done (I'm really looking forward to the DIY stuff actually; I'm such a geek).

Date? DATE!!

First of all, I'd like to direct you all to our "About Us" page (click there or on the tab above)--we've both finally updated it!

So, I think we have settled on a couple of dates so we can start looking at venues after the New Year! I finally pulled up a 2012 calendar and noticed that the New and Full Moons are both on Saturdays in September, 2012. The New Moon is a very auspicious time for new beginnings, and the Full Moon will be a gorgeous touch to an evening reception.

Having our wedding in September may create some difficulties with my career being in Higher Ed and it being the beginning of the new academic year and all, but I'll have been working for a year and it should be fine as long as I have gotten things settled, under some control and have people in place to take care of whatever it is that may come up while I'm gone--this is a one-time thing and I don't see my supervisor being terribly against it when the time comes.

So, yeah. Unless our favorite venues ALL have weddings booked one those two dates, I'm feeling pretty confident that we have them settled!

Party of the Year?

We hope so, at least as far as our friends and families are concerned. As many of you know, Ellie and I like to entertain--we LOVE to entertain, and we want to ensure that our reception reflects that love. This means it's going to probably be the biggest expense we have. We've been looking at places online, and it's crazy overwhelming. I had no idea there was so much involved.

Venue: Do we have the entire thing in a hotel? We're having a LOT of out-of-town guests from several states, so this makes the most sense (not to mention it allows people to drink without having to worry about a DD), but non-hotel venues have way better grounds. We obviously have the option to have the ceremony at one place and the reception in a hotel, but that's honestly a pain in the arse.

Food: Plated dinner or buffet? We both prefer the plated dinner, but it's pricier than a buffet. Then again, from the prices we HAVE been able to find, the savings aren't THAT different. However, the savings would still help a lot.

Alcohol: We want an open bar for at least most of the reception, but that is SUPER expensive!! I'd love to do some kind of "Open Bar to a Set $$ Amount" but haven't seen price estimates for that option. Also, if we're not at a hotel, we really have to face the issue of DD's and ensuring our guests get "home" safely.

Music: We're in agreement about getting a DJ rather than a band--DJ's just have better selection and it's only one mouth to feed rather than four or five.

I looked at a place (a hotel) on Tuesday; it's down the street from a friend's place and I was over there for a photoshoot, so we had lunch and looked around. There are some flaws, like the really pretty patio having the pool located on one end and rooms overlooking the area. It's probably still going to be on the short list, and we haven't spoken to anyone, which is a definite for any venue we look at. I know there is still plenty of time, but it's all stuff that needs to be thought of and I don't want to put it off too long without at least thinking about it all--the more decisions that can be made early, the better.