Once the decision was made to have a fun, casual, outdoor wedding on May 5th, the next thing we had to decide on was where to have our wedding. We immediately had offers from family and friends of family who graciously offered their homes for our wedding. How generous right?!
Before we went to check out each place in person, we sat down and made a general outline of how we wanted the wedding to go down, from the arrival of our guests, to the our own departure at the end of the night. This gave us a good idea of how we wanted the wedding to look and feel. It also allowed us to see what kind of space we were going to need for each activity/event throughout the wedding. In the end we came up with this list of spaces we needed to make sure the wedding went smoothly:
1. Adequate parking space for our guests.
2. Separate dressing spaces for both Zac and I. (We don't want to see each other before the wedding.)
3. A large lawn area for cocktail hour. (More details about that later :D )
4. Enough flat space to accommodate chairs for the ceremony as well as a separate space for reception seating, tables, and a dance floor.
5. Access to power for outdoor lighting, dj equipment, and any catering equipment that might require power.
6. Bathroom facilities for guests.
7. Adequate space for a catering crew.
8. An interesting backdrop for photo opportunities.
Both places that we were looking at (number one being Zac's paternal grandparents' place and the second one being the Rogers') definitely had #8. Zac's grandparents has an almond orchard on one side of their house and an amazing garden that surrounds the other sides of the home. The Rogers built their home from the ground up and it is quite impressive. The house is right on the water and has an amazing front drive with a big gate....just beautiful.
For both locations we knew that we would have to provide the basic elements necessary for the ceremony and reception. This meant renting chairs for the ceremony area and another set of chairs in addition to tables for the reception area and various tables for the guest book, cake, gifts, etc. Tableclothes and napkin linens would need to be rented for all of the tables, as well as serving ware. We would also have to rent a dance floor.
A benefit to having our wedding at a private residence would be the ability to have an extended period of time to set up and organize the decorations. We would have access to the homes and could take at least a week if needed to start putting up decorations and play with things to see how we would like things to look. We would also have more freedom with what we wanted to use as decorations or vendors, as many locations have restrictions on decorations and who they allow to work on their premises.
In looking at each location, one concern we had was dividing up the space to accomodate all of our needs. Yes each place had a large open lawn space but it was hard for us to imagine that it would be enough space to house seating for the ceremony and a separate seating and dance floor for the reception. It was important to us that these areas be separate. We didn't want people sitting at their reception tables to watch the ceremony. Both locations had a great open space but that space seemed perfect for all of the wedding activities and it obviously wasn't possible to do everything in one spot.
Another thing that we hadn't really thought about was the bathroom situation. Obviously the homes have bathrooms, but not nearly the amount of bathrooms we would need to accomodate 100-120 guests plus bridal party and event staff. Even if they had, we didn't really feel comfortable unleashing 120+ people into the homes of the people who had so graciously offered their yard spaces for our wedding. Our only solution to this problem would be port-a-potties. Zac and I were not super excited about this option. Even though the wedding wasn't going to be super formal, we did want it to be semi-formal, so the idea of people dressed up in nice clothes having to use port-a-potties didn't sit well with us. It felt just a little too casual.
One of the reasons we were really leaning towards having a wedding at the home of someone we knew was that (in addition to having a little more meaning to us, since the place belongs to people we love) we anticipated our costs to be lower than most wedding venues since we would be doing things on our own. As we started to make a list of the things we would need to get and people we would need to hire in order to make our wedding work, we saw that we were mistaken in our assumption. We determined that we would need tables, chairs, tableclothes, chair covers, linen, serving ware, a caterer, a bartendar, outdoor lighting, bug candles/repellent, a dance floor, etc. Then of course we would need to get a photographer, a cake and all the other things that go along with a wedding that we already expected. After looking things up we realized that having our wedding at a venue that was already set up for a wedding would probably be equally or less expensive, and would require less work to organize than setting up the wedding ourselves.
So in the end we decided that perhaps having a backyard style wedding, though casual in atmosphere would be more work and take more effort than we had expected. No doubt we would have family and friends who were willing to help us accomplish the task of setting up and taking down the wedding decorations, as well as coordinate the day's events, but we much prefer that everyone gets to relax a little and have some fun.
We are incredibly grateful to the people who offered their homes and time to host our wedding. It's such an amazing gesture and it has meant a lot to us. Although we have decided not to have our wedding at either of the homes that were offered to us as venues, we have decided that one of them, Zac's grandparents' place, will be the site of our engagement photos in just a few weeks.
Our photo session and a variety of other events are quickly approaching and I have a lot to get done in just a few short weeks......
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