If I had been smart I would have at least taken the weekend to just enjoy the intense happiness I was experiencing post-proposal. But we both have a habit of spending a bit of time online before turning in for the night and my curiosity got the better of me. I started poking around looking at venue websites.
I mean, is there a girl out there who hasn't at least once imagined what their wedding/commitment ceremony day might look like? I naturally had some ideas of the places that I considered the bees knees. And now that it wasn't just going to be a fantasy, I couldn't help but check out if some of them could be a reality.
And thats when I learned two horrifying facts. 1. Those places are freaking expensive. 2. People apparently book their weddings two years in advance.
It wasn't like I was looking at the Calatrava for goodness sake. I mean I knew that a place like that would be out of my league and much sought after. And it wasn't like I was wishing to be a june bride. Nope. I was looking for mid-september. 16 months from now. And already places which were more moderately priced, and its not my definition of moderate by the way, I just mean they were cheaper than most other places, they were still freaking expensive in my book, were booked through September of 2011.
Suddenly it became clear that we had no time to waste as one by one the places I'd once had a passing thought of getting married in fell by the wayside. We needed to book a place as soon as possible. And before we could do that we needed a guest list so we would know how big of a place we needed.
I informed Catie of all of this and she informed me she had already started working on the song selection. Because, you know, when a wedding is 16 months away, the song list is totally high on the priority list.
After expressing the urgency of the situation to her, she finally got on board. Before the weekend was over we both had spread sheets with our guest lists and determined we needed a place for between 100-150 guests. With that knowledge in hand, the both us started researching possibilities diligently. Well, I started researching diligently. Catie flitted back and forth between that and the song selections.
We immediately came up with two good possibilities and set off to visit them that same weekend. The first, The Lakfefront Brewery Palm Garden, was ultimately too expensive. The second, The South Shore Pavilion was too stinky and apparently gave Catie bad vibes because she had once attended a lesbian Valentines Day dance there and had not had a good time. But it is a beautiful setting. And fairly inexpensive. Now if we could just get rid of the musty smell...
In less then 48 hours I went from being all OMG CATIE ASKED ME TO MARRY HER!!!!! Happiness!!! to omg I have to plan a fucking party for 150 people on a very tight budget stess.
I should have taken a few days to just bask in the joy.
Next Up: The Ring.
Good luck! We do a lot of bridal parties at the salon I worked at and for the last few years Sept/Oct has been busier than June so I'm not too surprised some venues are booked so far ahead. Weddings tend to make people crazy. Friday and Sunday weddings are becoming more popular. Some places are cheaper on Fridays or have a lower minimum count.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jule! I'm not really finding fridays to be all that much cheaper, but they are more available and we are considering that. Sunday is A LOT cheaper, but half my guest list is out of towners, including Catie's parents, so that would really limit the guests who could make it, so I haven't been loving that idea so far in the process. Its interesting that Sept/Oct is becoming as popular as June. But I can understand it. It's nicer weather usually in this part of the country and so pretty.
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