the Venue!

Happy March everybody! Do you know what that means? It means winter is almost over and allergies have already begun. Fun times. Well, it's been a month, but we do have our venue and the contract has been signed as of February. I just never got around on updating this blog... work has been busy and now a days work > blogging. Do you remember back in the day when blogging > work? That's why i make the big bucks now... wait.. that didn't make any sense... okay i'm rambling.. and am "writing" in long run-on sentences. BUT the point is we have the venue! AND it's already MARCH! That means only 5, i repeat 5 more months until i get married. eeek. i don't think it actually hit me until my friend said "after your married" because usually we talk about when you have your wedding.. and talk has been about the wedding.. but marriage wasn't really brought up. I know, it should be one of the same.. but somehow, "wedding" just became a huge expensive event that i am dragging my feet on planning and marriage is like EEEK, holy crap.

So that's where i am... next post, wedding dress! or should i say.. marriage dress!

the Venue Part Deux

Or Part DUH!

So, can I vent a little bit? The last post I was all like, "I got a venue!!!!!!!". Today, I'm like uhh i don't really have a venue, do i have a venue? ::bangs head::

It came down to receiving our quote from our caterer. Remember the budget of fifteen thousand dollars. Well the caterer came out to be fifteen thousand dollars.. so what the?!? I had to rethink... and then all of suddenly i was searching for venues again, i found parks and someone offered up her sister's HUGE 3 acre backyard, and bbq caterers and more restaurants and and and

i thought i was done with this part!

So now I think we're back to the three original choices from before. I am going to talk to my caterer to see what we can knock off the list to lower our costs. I.E. no open bar, not having the ceremony on the pier, etc. etc. I have to decide, really really decide, what type of wedding I want to have. Can a wedding be fun if there's no dancing involved? Is it kind of lame if you just come, eat and mingle, but eat really good food and then just go home? Having a wedding is ultimately about throwing a huge party isn't it? You want your guests to enjoy themselves but you also want to have fun fun fun! Can i eat at a buffet in my wedding dress and enjoy it?! Will i have good pictures?

People always tell the bride to make sure she does what SHE wants on the wedding day. But what happens when she has no idea what she wants?!?

the Venue

Ok. So we got a venue. Writing that down made it sound sooooo easy. But it wasn't. It was hours of surfing the internet, reading reviews, emailing people, searching for photos, typing numbers into excel, opening up calendars, searching, viewing, pulling out hair, quitting and then deciding.

Originally - I wanted a destination wedding. Get married and vacation all at once? hollerz! Also, we loved Mexico the last time we were there... so i started searching and reading forums and then i finally settled on a place. It was a Dreams Resort Cancun Riviera. And I was all like yes! That's it! 3 thousand for the trip, 2.7 thousand for the wedding there, 5 thousand 7 hundred dollars. cheapest wedding ever?

No..... then we had to think about who we probably had to pay for - for them to come too, what we were putting our guests through and who would probably be left out. So we kind of scratched it off the list.

Next we started looking locally. I want to tell you that the best thing i liked out of the whole Mexico thing was that everything was all inclusive and then you buy a wedding package and BAM you're done. In the U.S., you seldom get wedding packages. You find a venue, then you find a caterer and between those two you have to calculate with your fingers that you're not spending way too much on just a room and food and alcohol, because how can my wedding NOT have alcohol??

So when I started searching I wanted to look at venues that already had a food package along with it. I found the Ceresville Mansion which had a good package AND it had discounted prices for December dates. It was an option. Then, we found a place in Manassas, which was weird, because it was part of a plaza.. and the feel of the whole thing was just weird, so i was like ehh...

Then I got kind of depressed because I didn't want the "normal" hotel/venue wedding thing. We looked into restaurants that we could book for a wedding. Maggiano's has awesome wedding packages, Chima's was willing to accommodate but then I was like do i really want a wedding in a restaurant??

Chima was actually going to be awesome. I thought $50 a person for all you can eat Brazilian Steakhouse?! But then I got the package, and yes, it is $50 a person, but add gratuity and tax and drinks on top of that, it was like $90 a person and that doesn't even include a dance floor.. so I had to think if i wanted a dance floor and of COURSE I HAD TO HAVE A DANCE FLOOR!

Okay- do you see where I'm going with this? Every time I kind of thought i had a place. I didn't. Every time i thought i might be getting a real good deal? it all came out to be about the same price... which brings it back to my previous post. Fifteen Thousand Dollars PLUS. I even considered having it at a chinese restaurant --Hello GOOD FOOD =]!! But bad decor =(

I'm not going to bore you with what my little brain went through every time i thought i had THE VENUE. so i will just show you THE VENUE that we've finally decided on the Sunset Room @ the National Harbor.

great.. now i'm craving to eat at a Brazilian Steakhouse AND chinese food.