The Nitty-Gritty - How we Decided on Our Venue

I can't believe it's been over a month since I first hinted about our wedding location to you.  Moreover, I can't believe it too us that long to come to a decision and sign a contract with our venue.  For some reason I thought we'd see the perfect site and sign within a week.  Well, we knew within moments of seeing the site that "this was it", but like M and I's relationship in general, we waited an appropriate amount of time to get serious.*

To be honest, I love our location, as you could probably tell from my last post, but I think it's worth talking about the process of deciding and how we became sure that Old House Vineyards was the right place for us.

Our first visit to the venue was on the same cold, rainy day we visited Bristow Manor.  While I was planning out our day, I noticed we'd only be about 30 minutes from a venue I'd seen online and dreamed about, and since we didn't make it that far south very often, I jumped on the opportunity.  So our first impression of the venue was this:

Rainy, wet, gloomy, and yet still gorgeous.

We couldn't even make it out to see the island or reception pavilion that day, it was raining too hard!  But we did meet with the owner and liked her right away, and and got to taste their wines (yum!).

My favorite - Rosie's Red

We had our misgivings about how far out from Northern Virginia the vineyard was, and of course, the price tag.  The rates she quoted us were nearly double our venue budget, and we even though we knew it was the most unique and beautiful location we'd seen so far, I didn't really think we could afford it.  But I couldn't give up just yet.  Since the Vineyard didn't have an in-house caterer, I started looking up catering costs in Culpeper, and found that it was significantly cheaper than all the venues we'd seen so far.  My budget was based on spending $50pp on food (a reasonable rate at the country clubs and historic manors we'd visited so far), but in this small town, catering could be had for closer to $20-$30 a head (and at some places for just $15!).  I re-ran the numbers and figured out that if we pinched our budget a little, we could afford this gorgeous location.

But even with that settled, I started to worry that we were crazy for putting this place on the top of our list.  It was expensive and we hadn't even been to the reception location or the island.  Another trip was scheduled only two weeks after the first, this time with FMIL Toshella to give her stamp of approval.  She loved it, the site was even more lovely up close, we got a detailed tour, and had figured out we could afford it.  Old House Vineyard could be ours!

But... was it worth it?  Requiring our OOT friends and family to rent a car and travel an extra hour away from the airport?  Asking all of our local friends to rent a room for the night since it was too far away to drive home?  We deliberated, and began asking friends and family what they thought.  Much to our relief, our friends were excited about the vineyard wedding and were completely willing to stay the night in Culpeper to party with us.  My mom and cousin reassured me that most of our family would rent cars or caravan down, and an extra hour of driving wasn't a huge deal.  We breathed a huge sigh of relief.

M had one more requirement before we signed - find 3 caterers in our price range.  He wanted to be sure that we had options if one or two caterers didn't work out or if we didn't like the food.  It took some creative budget finagling, but I was able to come up with three reasonably priced options that would give us the wedding food we wanted - more on that another day.

With all systems a go, we contacted the owner and told her we were ready to sign.  This began another three weeks of emails back and forth about the contract terms , where we considered just driving back down to Culpeper to sign in person (this got veto-ed when Matt's schedule changed unexpectedly).  The owner was really nice to work with though, and took my crazy emails in stride.  She was willing to change the contract to specify some of the things she'd said she could change in person (like the ending time for the reception), and finally we were comfortable mailing her our signed contract and deposit.

Assuming there are no more bumps along the road (cross your fingers for us!) we are locked in at our venue and date, and couldn't be happier!  Standing on the island where we're going to be married with Matt was one of my favorite moments in this journey so far, and I can't wait until 1 year, 6 weeks, and 5 days** from now when we're standing there for real.  :)

Okay, mostly we just look tired, but I promise, we're happy!

* Okay, not really.  We moved in together only 3 months after we started dating, and if it were up to me, we'd have been engaged about a month in. 

** Thank you, wedding countdown ticker!

All personal photos.

Sale Alert: Dressing up the guys!

In preparation for buying a suit for M and finding suits for his groomsmen, I started signing up for sale alerts to suit retailers that I knew offer some good specials.  We're still a few months away from needing to buy, but I wanted to know what kind of discounts I should be expecting.  I was looking for a nice Buy 1 Get 1 Free offer, but today's works just as well:

Shop JoA. A. Bank Clothiers

If you haven't bought big day clothes for your man (or 'men) yet, this would be a great opportunity.  Two day sale for 50% off everything, including suits, dress shirts, tuxedos, ties, and all accessories.  Happy shopping!

I am in no way being compensated for this post by JoS A Bank Clothiers.  I see a sale, I share.  ;)

Crunching the Numbers

One of these days I'll talk in depth about how we created our wedding budget... but today is not that day.

Instead, we're talking more about the never-ending venue search.  When M and I first started planning this wedding, we didn't realize how hard this would be.  Even after we wrote and revised our wedding goals, and came up with a budget, we thought it would be as simple as "This place is pretty and fits our budget - let's do it!"  How silly we were.

Maybe for some couples it really is that easy - and maybe we'll still stumble across a gorgeous location that is airport accessible, runs a free shuttle to hotels, and is a little under our budget.  But probably not.  I think one of the reasons for this is that our "budget" isn't as straight forward as we thought it was.  We've been basing our estimates off the big ticket items - site rental fees and catering.  Our spreadsheet has things like flowers, my dress, his tux, centerpeices, hotel rooms, etc factored in, but wedding sites are complicated - sometimes they include hotel rooms, sometimes they include linens, sometimes you have to pay extra for a tent.  Trying to keep all that in your head will drive you crazy.

Not me, but close

So I've started copying out my wedding budget onto multiple tabs and filling in each promising looking venue.  That way I can see what the end cost of site A over site B will be and take into account all those multiple factors. 

My other organization tip, is that is you haven't already, keep all your wedding emails in one place!  I have a label called "wedding" in gmail that I use to file every single contact with venues.  That was all that information is saved and easy to find.  It also helps to email yourself a description of why you're ruling them out if they don't fit into your budget or they don't have the amenities you need.  That way you don't waste time trying to remember if you've contacted a venue and tracking down their information all over again.

What are your tried and true methods for keeping track of wedding information?  Have you gone into data-overload mode yet?

Dreams vs. Reality

I was never the kind of little girl who dreamed about her wedding.  I went to relatively few weddings as a kid, and even when I hit college and my cousin and sister got married, I was happy to be a bridesmaid, but the planning gears didn't start turning.  I think, in my heart, I didn't want to become fixated on a certain color or a certain aspect of the wedding and then not be able to do it.  All this changed about a year ago, when I'd been dating Mr. Toshella for about six months and began to realize he was truly my "one".  One night we were lying in bed, and for some reason started talking about wedding colors.  The next day, it was like a lightbulb turned on.  I trolled the Knot for purple and gold weddings and built up an imaginary wedding scrapbook on Evernote.  I didn't tell M about this (he already said I was pressuring him!), but in my mind I began to plan out my perfect wedding.

I knew I wanted an ourdoor ceremony, preferably overlooking water or maybe next to a gazebo.  The reception would be outdoor as well, on a patio or under a tent, though I was willing to fantasize about that perfect barn reception.  I wanted cute details to ensure that my guests had a good time - like complimentary parasols and flip-flops.  And above all, I wanted to have it at a winery - one of M and I's first dates was at a winery, and we enjoy spending our summer weekends sipping wine on the patio of our favorite spots.

At the time, I didn't think there was any harm.  With wedding colors already picked out, and knowing M's style as well as I do, I planned my modern, vineyard wedding.  My (impeccable) taste was validated just last week, when I finally got to show M everything I'd been planning.  Of course, he didn't agree with everything, but he love the idea of an outdoor wedding, and we agreed on enough to move forward.

So what's the problem?  Budget.  I thought I would be okay; I'd been saving for my wedding for a year, and the vineyards I was looking at were so far from DC I figured the prices wouldn't be inflated too much.  But I severely underestimated what a vineyard wedding- or even an outdoor wedding! - costs.  Last weekend we put together a budget spreadsheet, and I almost cried.  I knew immediately we couldn't afford the vineyards I'd been looking at.  At this rate, even a tented reception at a cheaper venue was very likely out of our budget.

All week I've been gathering alternate reception sites and my mindset has adapted.  I realize now we might end up with an indoor reception, or a less picturesque ceremony.  Or we might just bite the bullet and put more money into this shindig than we'd originally planned.  I'll share some of our possible venues, as well as the cheapest places we've found in the NoVA area later this week.

Stone Mansion, Arlington, VA

I'd love to have your opinion - have you had any pre-wedding dreams fall through?  How did you cope?  Is there anything you refused to compromise on?