Going to the Lakeside and We're Gonna Get Married!

After going through all of our options, weighing the pros and cons of each venue, and referring back to our budget, Zac and I decided on a location:

Wolf Lakes Park

Located in Sanger, Wolf lakes has two equally beautiful sites to choose from:

The English Garden:

And Lakeside:

While both sites were beautiful and offered the same ammenities, the Lakeside appealed to us just a little bit more. The lakeside was spread out on a flat space. You can pretty much see each area of the venue from any location that you're standing at and we thought that it would prevent people from feeling separated from other members of the group. The big sell to us was the large lawn space just to the right of the newly built in buffet. While on the tour of the facility we asked if we would be able to use the lawn for our game time cocktail hour and were so happy to hear that it wouldn't be a problem. We would have to be sure to include games that could easily be set up and removed and that wouldn't harm the lawn. We were so excited! It was really important for us to keep this aspect of the wedding. So to find a venue that was already set up for weddings, provided all the things that we needed, added a bit of formality in atmosphere while still allowing us to have a bit of fun casual-ness, that is also allowing us to sett up an area for games was too perfect to be true. We continued the rest of the tour and were amazed by the beauty of the space.

As is suggested by the name, the venue is right on the lake. Throughout the reception (providing that the weather is accommodating, though I don't think that we will have a problem in May) guests can go for boat rides around the lake. At Scott and Amy's wedding we brought pirate patches and wore them on the boat ride. Super silly, but very us.

As part of the lakeside wedding processional, Zac and his groomsmen will arrive at the alter via boat. The boat will take them out to a little island in the middle of the lake about 20 minutes or so before the wedding begins. They have some pictures taken before getting back on the boat and taking the 5 minute ride to the alter. At first Zac was hesitant about this aspect of the wedding but soon he seemed to be excited. I think he's just nervous about having all eyes on him.

I will be walking down an aisle covered with greenary. In springtime the plant life should be as full as the photo above. :) The lakeside also has a newly renovated bridal room that is twice the size that it used to be and has it's own bathroom. This was definitely an unexpected bonus!

The reception area is covered but the sides are open, allowing the guests to enjoy the whole venue. If for some reason the weather is not cooperating and we have to deal with rain or crazy wind (knock on wood) the sides of the reception area can be rolled down to make a more comfortable space for our guests. I really hope that we don't have to deal with this but it's nice to know that it's an option. It's definitely something we wouldn't be able to replicate if we did the wedding ourselves.

Above the reception dance floor are these beautiful star shaped light fixtures. Zac and I are in love with them. We actually almost bought some very similar (obviously smaller version) light fixtures last summer at Ross for Less. We thought that they would look great in our backyard hanging from the tree, but since we're still working on the backyard, we thought we should wait. Looking at them hanging from the ceiling of the reception space, we totally should have gotten them.

The venue has some amazing spots for beautiful photos. Our photographer has already mentioned a willow tree that would be great for some post weding shots. She says that the lighting is amazing. We found a photo online from another photographer and we have to say that we totally agree with her:

If the lighting on the day of our wedding is anything like the picture above....words can't describe how excited I am!

Benefits:

-Price per guest includes food, tables and chairs

-Venue is set up for weddings so they have answers to questions we haven't even come up with

-Venue takes care of set up and clean up

-Coordinator is available for questions and concerns from the time we book the wedding through the actual wedding day

-Venue includes all necessary accomodations: bathroom facilities, large bride and groom rooms, enough parking for all of our guests, on site catering and bartending,

-Access to the facility the Thursday before the wedding for up to one hour for rehearsal with a coordinator to assist us.

-Invitations to open house event where we will be able to speak with vendors as well as taste test food and alcohol before selecting our menu options.

-Large lawn area that we would be able to use for our game time cocktail hour

Compromises:

-Once we were sold on the venue we decided that we should inquire about our hopeful date of May 5 to see if it was available. Being so far in advance we thought for sure that the day was open for our wedding. Unfortunately, we were wrong. May is a big month for weddings, but it's also a big month for high school proms. We found out that Wolf Lakes shuts down both venue sites for proms and they already had reservations for proms on Saturday May 5 and Sunday May 6. We were slightly bummed that our Cinco de Mayo wedding date wasn't available, but the venue was worth more to us than the date. Plus, we've figured out a way to use all of our Cinco de Mayo themed ideas for another wedding related event. But more on that later.

In the end we decided to book the Lakeside Venue for Friday May 4, 2012.

Setting a Date & Choosing a Theme

Now that Eagle Castle was out of the picture, Zac and I had a clean slate to work with. We began discussing what we both thought our wedding should look like and it was wonderful to realize that we had the same picture in our heads. We agreed that we wanted it to be an outdoor, casual, fun affair. Still an elegant wedding but nothing too fancy. We are both very hands on when it comes to creating things for our house and decorating it to best fit our style. Our wedding is going to be no different. We plan to create some things for the event and incorporate some items that already exist in our home to make the wedding feel like "us".

We also both thought that a smaller wedding would be great. Not that we were thrilled at the idea of leaving anyone out, but just that we wanted to keep the wedding intimate and share the day with a close group of family and friends.


The first thing we had to decide on was a date, or at least a general idea of what we hoped the date would be. Getting engaged in January and wanting a spring wedding meant a short engagement if we wanted to get married this year. Unfortunately with my school schedule and preparing for graduation this May, the thought of planning a wedding on top of all of this made me feel pretty overwhelmed. Waiting over a year to get married did not seem ideal but in the end it was the right decision. Not only would I be able to concentrate on school work and then give full attention to planning the wedding once graduation is over, but a year engagement would also give us plenty of time to organize our ideas and save for the big day.

Once we decided on spring of 2012 we started looking at the calendar to determine which Saturday would be the best day. The one problem with an outdoor wedding is trying to predict the weather. Rainy spring days makes it even more difficult. The hot Fresno weather adds an additional complication. In order to avoid higher chances of rain we wanted to avoid a Saturday that was too early in April. It was also important not to pick a day too late in May because the heat would begin to be unbearable for an outdoor ceremony and reception. The first Saturday in May seemed to be the perfect solution. Funny enough it happened to land on May 5...Cinco de Mayo.

Rather than cringing at the idea of a Cinco de Mayo wedding, we decided to run with it. How fun would it be to have pinatas and a taco truck during the cocktail hour?

Or a churro station for dessert?

Margarita cupcakes?

We felt confident that we could incorporate these ideas without making it feel too much like a backyard barbeque and not enough like a wedding. It is definitley possible to make things elegant, chic and fun.

We weren't planning on really have a theme for the wedding but once we decided on the date, the theme kind of found us.