Our Vendors

In efforts of getting the majority of our wedding planning done as soon as possible (both to give us a sense of where our budget stands as well as to make things easier on us in the long run) Zac and I have been working to book all of our major vendors. For the last few weeks we have called several vendors, compared prices, and set up appointments. Attending the Premier Bridal Showplace Bridal Fair last Sunday was a great opportunity for us to meet vendors, see sample work, and get price listings. As of Friday, we now have all of our major vendors booked and can now focus on the smaller details of the wedding, like table decorations, ceremony programs, etc.

So here's a little roundup of the vendors we've booked. We're happy with our selections and we're excited to be working with all of these amazing people.

Venue: Wolf Lakes Park

Earlier this year Zac and I picked our date and chose a venue. Wolf Lakes Park is a beautiful venue with a view of the lake and well manicured landscaping. In addition to the atmosphere, the location also takes care of the set up and clean up, offers catering, and provides help with questions and planning as well as a coordinator the day of the event. After we reserved our date, Wolf Lakes provided us with a list of vendors that proved to be helpful in our planning process.

Photographer: Van's Photography

Before we selected a venue, we had decided on our photographer. Van's photography does amazing work, and having been in two weddings in which Van and Tess have taken photos, we felt comfortable with our decision to book them for our own big day. After seeing our engagement photos we're excited to see what images these two photographers will capture at our wedding.

 

DJ: Haro's Entertainment

As I mentioned just recently in this post, we hired Haro Entertainment to dj at our wedding. Adam Haro has great reviews and having worked with our venue on many occassions we are confident that he will help keep our wedding running smoothly and make the night a fun one for our guests. Planning the music for the evening has been fun and we look forward to dancing the night away after saying 'I do'.

Florist: Brown Bunny Flowers

Originally we weren't planning on having a florist take care of our flowers. For Sarah and Donnie's fall wedding we got sunflowers from the grocery store and created some beautiful bouquets with black ribbon and pearl pins. Since our wedding is in the spring we were sure that we could find some flowers in our color scheme and make bouquets for all the girls. My mom was less than enthusiastic about the idea. She was a little worried that we were leaving this detail to chance too close to the wedding and we wouldn't be able to find the right flowers in time. We started looking around for florists and Brown Bunny Flowers came highly recommended. After talking with the owner, Amy, we could see why. She is such a sweet lady. We emailed back and forth for a little while before meeting in person at the Premier Bride Showplace. After going over our color scheme, and our favorite flowers, Amy came up with a few different bouquets. I'm looking forward to see how they turn out.

Bakery: Barb's Cakery

 Zac and I really want to have variety for our guests when it comes to cake and dessert. We thought that the perfect way to have this would be to create a dessert table with several flavors of cupcakes, brownies, cookies, etc. We found a place that would be able to create a dessert table for our guests with the variety we were looking for but unfortunately not for the price we were hoping for. So, we're planning on creating the table ourselves with help from family and friends. In addition to the dessert buffet, we wanted to have a little something for the traditional cake cutting. At first we were thinking that we would pick up a 7" Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory and call it a day. We both love that cake, I get an employee discount, and our guests will have plenty of other dessert options with the table of treats. According to some people however, "a wedding cake is not a wedding cake unless it has more than one tier". So, Zac and I started looking for a bakery to get ourselves a "wedding cake". We didn't have to look far. Both Sarah and Donnie as well as Scott and Amy used Barb's Cakery for their weddings and we loved the way their cakes looked (Sarah and Donnie's cake is pictured on the left, Scott and Amy's on the right), and even more importantly how they tasted. I started looking at pictures of wedding cake designs with our color scheme and found something that I really liked. On Friday, my mom and I went to Barb's Cakery to talk details and put a deposit down on the cake.

Hair and Makeup: Hair and Makeup By Emily Johnson

The Premier Bridal Showplace was a great way of seeing what hair and makup artists are out there. Our vendor list from Wolf Lakes included a few hair and makeup artists on it's list, but nothing like what we saw on the vendor list for the bridal show. After walking around and picking up fliers here and there, we came across Emily Johnson's hair and makeup booth. After looking over her price listing and checking out photos of her work via her Facebook page, we booked Emily to do my hair and makeup the day of the wedding.

Transportation: Royal Coach Limos

Back in April, Zac and I went to check out a car to take us from the wedding to our hotel at the end of the night. We found a 1961 Jaguar at Royal Coach Limos that we loved. I'm planning on having a bridesmaid sleepover at my house the night before the wedding. In the morning, the car will come to pick me and my bridesmaids up and take us to the venue to begin setting up and get ready. At the end of the night the car will return and Zac and I will have a few pictures with the car before taking off to our hotel.

So there you have it! We are relieved to have our major vendors decided on and booked. It's nice to know that these details are taken care of and we can focus our attention on the smaller details. The next project will be working on our save the dates. I just received a reminder from Project Wedding (the host of our wedding website) saying that the save the dates should be going out by the beginning of October. I already have a design in mind for these announcements so hopefully it won't be too difficult to create. More details later...

Ahwahnee Films

A while back, Zac and I started discussing the idea of hiring a videographer to capture our wedding. (Read all about that here.) On our search for the right videographer we've seen a lot of good work. There are some really talented people out there who make some fantastic wedding videos.

Unfortunately, the cost of most of the videographers we have looked at is more than we are willing to pay and certainly more than our budget will allow. It makes sense that high quality videos would have a higher price tag, but some of these videographers have left us with a little bit of sticker shock. As much as we would love to have video of our ceremony and reception we don't want to go broke in the process. Taking such a huge chunk out of our budget to pay for a videographer would mean that we would have to give up some of the more fun guest related projects as well as decorations and that just doesn't make sense. So we've been on the hunt for a less expensive option.

Recently we've come across Ahwahnee Films, a production company based in Orange County. We learned about this company after an old friend and ex coworker of ours was in a wedding in which the bride and groom hired Ahwahnee Films to capture their big day on film. This is the sneak peek highlights clip from Brooke and John's wedding:

Brooke+John Highlights from Aaron Mendez (Ahwahnee Films) on Vimeo.

We loved the quality of the video and were definitely interested in learning more about Ahwahnee Films. After looking through their website and coming across a price listing, Zac and I were surprised to see that the listed cost of filming a wedding was about $2000 less than a few of the other companys we've looked at. We've emailed the company to get some more information. In the meantime we're continuing to look around and compare prices. It's good to know that there is at least one less expensive option out there.

Here are a few more wedding highlight videos done by Ahwahnee Films:

Christy+Michael Wedding Highlights from Aaron Mendez (Ahwahnee Films) on Vimeo.

Sarah+Chris Wedding Highlights from Aaron Mendez (Ahwahnee Films) on Vimeo.

Erica+Jason Highlights from Aaron Mendez (Ahwahnee Films) on Vimeo.

Location, Location, Location

So, plans had changed once again and Zac and I were headed in a different wedding planning direction. After deciding to have our wedding at a venue set up for events, in order to minimize stress and maximize relaxation for ourselves and our families, the search was on for a location.

Having gone location shopping with Sarah two years ago (I can't believe it's already been two years!) I was a little familiar with the list of possible venues in our area. Zac and I decided that staying in town, or at least within a short driving distance of town, would be the best decision. Any out of town venue that required a hotel stay for us and our family would just complicate things and create unnecessary issues.

As a way of finding locations that we perhaps hadn't thought of (or even hadn't heard of) I checked out some wedding photographer websites. I figured that if the photos of the location look good perhaps they were worth checking out. We made a list of locations to check out, called and made appropriate appointments and got ready to go on some tours. Before heading out we reviewed our list of necessary spaces. Zac made the point that no location was going to be 100% what we needed. Each place was going to have it's own set of benefits and compromises. We needed to decide what compromises we were okay with making and what things we weren't willing to budge on. With that in mind, we began the search.

1. Engelmann Cellars

After seeing photos of this wedding at Engelmann Cellars taken by photographer Ken Keinow, we decided that checking out the location was definitely worth it. The winery is located in Fresno, west of 99 on Rolinda. They have wine tasting on the weekend and during the summer they have movie nights out on their expansive lawn. People can bring blankets and enjoy some wine and a movie. How fun, right?!

From the pictures we could see that there were photo opportunities in the vineyard...

...orchard...

...and barrel room.

The wedding would be outside on the lawn in front of a backdrop of wine barrels.

We also noticed that we could have access to the large screen used for movie nights to play a slideshow or video during the reception.

With the outdoor lighting we could achieve the fun, casual, somewhat whimsical look we were going for.

The information for holding a special event at Engelmann Cellars was as follows:

- Rather than a rental fee for the facility, the winery asked for a minimum wine purchase.

- The minimum purchase for an event our size was 10 cases of wine (which ended up being $1680.00)

- They offered minimal chairs and tables (the number wasn't specified) that could be rented at a competitive price. (We could also choose to forgo their rental and rent seating from another company.)

- We would need to bring in our own caterer, dj or band, etc.

Zac and I thought it sounded good, so we made the drive to check it out. After arriving Zac spotted something that was a deal breaker. Right by the patio which connected to the tasting room was a nice, big, green port-a-potty. The had constructed a really cool sink out of a wine barrel that was right next to the facility, but Zac and I were still turned off by the port-a-potty. We looked around for a minute or so but it seemed kind of pointless. We both knew this wasn't the place.

Benefits:

-Wide open lawn space with plenty of room for separate ceremony and reception seating not to mention space for our game time cocktail hour.

-Freedom to decorate and accessorize the venue

Compromises:

-Completely open space provides little depth for photo opportunities (with the exception of the surrounding vineyard).

-Guests would have to use a port-a-potty,

- We would be spending more money on wine than we probably wanted to.

In the end we realized that it was very similar to having the wedding at someone's house but with less benefits.

2. The Grove

The next site on our list was Hobb's Grove. We saw photos of this wedding taken by photographer Ryan C. Jones. From the photos we could see that the space was nice and open but there were a lot of trees that added some interest and depth.

After contacting the venue we received an email with the following information:

-The rental fee would be $2950.

- We would have access to the location from 8am - midnight the day of the wedding. All music had to end by 11:pm and the grounds would have to be cleared by midnight.

-We would have access to the facility for 1 hour for rehearsal the day prior to the wedding.

-The venue offered chairs, tables, and linen (with limited color options) for up to 200 guests.

-They offered a large bridal room and groom's room, each of which had air conditioning and their own restrooms.

-An event coordinator would be available for the set up as well as the ceremony and reception.

-There is a large parking area that is well lit.

-The venue would be responsible for trash disposal after the event.

After going through the list and discussing the set up of the venue and everything they had to offer, we weighed the benefits and compromises.

Benefits:

-Being a venue that regularly accomodates a large number of people for a variety of events the place provided plenty of available parking space, not to mention bathroom facilities for our guests.

-We had freedom to decorate the venue with limited restrictions.

-They offered a coordinator who would assist and be available for any questions or concerns through the day of the wedding. (This was a big deal for us as we would really love a coordinator who is familiar with the venue. We would feel bad asking one of our family members or friends to play the role as they would be missing out on the fun of the wedding.)

-The rental of the location included the tables, chairs, and linens.

-We would have access to the facility from 8am to midnight the day of the wedding.

Compromises:

- The $3000 rental fee did not include a caterer or alcohol. Not that we expected to get away with food, drinks and location for $3000 but the cost of food and drinks in addition to the rental fee would be more than some places that offered all of these things.

Realizing that the rental fee would only be a good deal for us if we were having a large wedding, we continued on our search for a place that was less expensive or at least offered more for the price they were asking.

Other places that were suggested to us:

Fig Garden Swim and Racquet Club

Copper River Country Club

-Appellation California

-Wonder Valley Ranch Resort

-White Horse Inn River Terrace

-Banker's Ballroom

-Holland Park West

-The Grand 1401

Hmm...We Hadn't Thought Of That

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......

Fairytale Wedding?

Years before Zac popped the big question, we had taken a trip to Paso Robles with family to see Daughtry perform at the Mid State Fair. Before heading to the concert, we went wine tasting at a few of the wineries in the area. One of the stops we made on our winery crawl was Eagle Castle Winery.

I fell in love with this place. The rolling hills, the big gate entrance, the moat surrounding the building, and its large wooden doors. It was beautiful. While looking around I noticed a table with a wedding photo album and some pamphlets with contact information. They host weddings?! Amazing. From that day on when I envisioned our wedding, I pictured Eagle Castle.

I had looked at photos of Eagle Castle Winery weddings online and they looked really beautiful. So after we got engaged, I decided to contact Eagle Castle Winery and get some information about booking the winery for our wedding. We wanted to have a spring wedding so we asked to get details for a May wedding on the rooftop terrace for about 100-120 people.

A few days later I received an email from their events coordinator with the details. To have the wedding on a Saturday in May, we were looking to spend about $90 a person. This was for a limited menu, a no host bar and did not include the price of a coordinator the day of the wedding. Unfortunately for the items we would want/need to add on, it was just going to be too expensive.

Zac thought for sure that I would insist that we find a way to make it work, since I had talked about it for so long. I guess he thought that my heart was set on it. Afer reading the details of the email I just laughed. It was obviously out of our price range. It definitely made me stop and think about why I liked that venue so much in the first place. No doubt it is a beautiful location....but really, that's all it is.

While it is certianly a pretty place, a fairytale wedding was not really what I had pictured. I have never been the girl who wanted to be in a ball gown wearing a tiara on my wedding day. Also, the atmosphere calls for a more formal affair and that really doesn't reflect the relationship that Zac and I have. We are silly and carefree and our wedding should mirror that. The wedding is about us, not the location.We both agree that we want our guests to feel comfortable and enjoy themselves instead of feeling too formal or awkward.

So, while we will still enjoy visiting Eagle Castle for some wine tasting, we've decided to find another location for our big day.