David & I originally envisioned a lovely, outdoor/indoor wedding (outdoor ceremony at sunset + indoor respite from the heat), somehow natural & glamorous at the same time. But I couldn't find too many outdoor/indoor venues, and the one I thought was the most beautiful is way too expensive ($9,000 minimum--for a weeknight!).
So we settled, and found a nice new ballroom just south of the city. They hadn't done too many weddings yet, but it was a great looking space and we certainly would have been happy.
Until it was time for the contract. This place has an incredibly vague contract which doesn't spell out ANYTHING. What time is the event? Will the staff help set up, and how far in advance? When can my vendors come in? What is included in the price? Believe it or not, all of this was left out of the contract and when we asked questions, we were rebuffed or told, "What do you mean? It's in the contract!" Unfortunately, I think the nice girl that worked there just doesn't understand contracts well, or didn't understand why we'd want these things spelled out.
Then there was the food. We went to a tasting there, and didn't like it. We realized we had a problem when we started joking about making sure the guests didn't get food poisoning at our wedding. So we've started looking again!
And, since we were given an opportunity, I decided to go back to the very beginning of wedding planning, when we came up with our indoor/outdoor summer wedding vision, and decided to look hard to find it. In the meantime, I came up with a picture that we love and find inspiring:
Of course, I don't want to get married in a stable (unless it's a particularly beautiful one), but I do love the idea of something glamorous in a rustic setting. I told my fiancé that this seems like the perfect combination of us -- he loves the outdoors ("being in the dirt," I call it) and I love things that are glamorous and pretty and maybe even a little sparkly. He liked this and so do I, and it feels like "us."
I went to the website of the above stable to see if they actually had any places onsite to host a wedding. I never got an answer, but if I ever get the courage to try horseback riding, maybe I'd have a chance to visit. It's a beautiful facility! The magazine article also featured this picture:
I certainly like the first table setting better, but this certainly looks like a nice indoor/outdoor setting, with the old building in the background. A little digging around showed that this is the church at Old City Park. And yes, they do have weddings! They have a lawn for the wedding and a nice pavilion for the reception. Could this be the facility for us?
For more inspiration, I found this beautiful California barn wedding that wonderfully embodies this "rustic glam" idea. I hate design clichés, but this one really seems to describe us.
There's even more indoor/outdoor wedding inspiration in this week's Wedding Wednesday post...
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