Venue Love

Have I told you that I absolutely love our (hopeful) wedding venue? Finding it was probably one of the easiest parts of the planning process so far. Locking in our reservation has been another story. Last February when we decided that we wanted to get married locally, an internet search for Ojai wedding photos yielded many of the breathtaking photos below.

Source: Jessica Loren Organic Photography

Our favorites were taken at The Dent House, a private estate located in the heart of Matilija Canyon. Now, almost eight months later, we are excited and relieved to be finalizing our venue.  Yesterday, the four page rental agreement arrived in my inbox! Luckily my fiance is a lawyer, so I am hoping that the whole daunting contract process will be more of a breeze.  As we read through the agreement, I am realizing more than ever all of the little details we will need to work out to make sure our special day goes off without a hitch.

Sources: Kurt Boomer Photo, Jessica Loren Organic Photography

With this venue we will need to bring in everything from tables and chairs, to bathrooms and a generator. We know this will be more work than a traditional wedding venue, but it will also allow for endless creative possibilities for all aspects of the wedding.

Sources: Kurt Boomer Photography

With gorgeous natural scenery, another huge perk is that we will be able to take all of our wedding photos on-site.

Sources: Braedon Photography, Kurt Boomer Photo

Do you have any pointers for finalizing a venue rental? What do you think are the most important things to look out for?

Simple Elegance at Holman Ranch

I am going back to Holman Ranch this weekend! I am really anxious to see the space again and see how all my little details and plans are going to fit in. In the mean time, I have been looking at real weddings done at Holman to get an idea of the colors, the florals, the use of space, etc. I found this one over at Style Me Pretty and fell in love. I love so many elements of this weddings but the thing I like best is that she has no "color scheme" and instead added lots of colors together to create her palette. I'm doing the same thing, and I just love it.

Do you ever look up weddings done at your venue??? Do you find that it helps with the inspiration or just narrows your mind to what has been done before?

Venue: CHECK?

UPDATE: Radonich Ranch and Vignette Events turned into a nightmare of a situation and I ended up not booking my wedding there. Read more about that here: {Venue Nightmare} Radonich Ranch and Vignette Events. I went to see the Vignette Vintage Ranch this weekend! It was definitely the majority pick from all of you on Friday. I was thinking that it would be very hard to incorporate my vision and style into this space, but after talking with a few of my bridesmaids, I realized that everything I have been talking about from the keys and the pie favors, to fire-pits and the burlap inspiration are all things that would be perfect in this venue! I guess I never really knew what my inspiration and vision really was!

So, now to take you through the venue :) I will warn you in advance though, there is definitely some good news and some bad news. (PS-these are iPhone pics, so they are not all that good.)

This tree is in the middle right when you walk in. I know that Ian would love to have horseshoes at the wedding as we just got them in our backyard and they are all obsessed! We could use this tree for a bunch of signs pointing all different directions, which would be super cute!

This is the ceremony spot. The backdrop is great, rolling mountains as far as you can see. The spot in front is all grass, which I don't hate and isn't a deal-breaker, but I don't love all that much. I think I could make this alter pretty cute, but it's definitely my least favorite part of the spot.

This is just a picture to give an idea of the amount of space, greenery, picture spots, etc. The ceremony spot is on the left.

You can kind of see the ceremony spot to the right, and this is the bar area. They have really vintage coke freezers, which we could definitely incorporate! Kind of a cute little area over there.

This is the ranch area! Super rustic, but I will tell you that it looks sooo much better in person! This would be the cocktail area. There is an indoor bar, an old vintage furnace, and benches lining the walls! Super cute little area.

Standing on the ranch veranda, you look out on the barn. I love the barn! I was thinking that we could use the space between the ranch and the barn for the fire-pits, s'mores, cigars, etc. At night we can open the barn doors (on the left) and dancing could take place inside while the fire-pits are going outside.  That way everyone is together even if not everyone wants to do the same thing!

This is the inside of the barn. It is just super simple and could offer SO many really amazing decor plans. Literally an empty slate!

So there you have it! The place was quiet and serene and overall amazing! I could see every aspect of the wedding fitting in perfectly here, and I could really picture it all. I could picture the people, the set-up, the decor, everything!

Now for the downside of it all. I was so excited and ready to book. The venue coordinator called me and I told her I was ready to pick a date and send her the deposit immediately. Can you believe it??? I had decided on a venue! I was beyond excited. So what changed? I asked her about fire-pits, and guess what, that's a no. They don't allow fire because of the mountains and greenery. She did say that she would check since she heard how upset I was about that one aspect. So, there is still the possibility especially if I do it in April as there is more rain so the dryness isn't an issue. So, hopefully I'll find out soon!

Otherwise, I have to make the decision if I need the fire-pits that much to find a whole new venue, or if I should just figure out something that would be just as awesome. Any suggestions??

PS: I love that someone agrees with me on the name Brooklyn...and I totally agree about the backyard thing. Thanks for the letter :) I really do totally feel like I totally understand. <3

{Help} Narrowing Down the Venues!

I am about to get amazingly personal with all of you, so I sure hope you’re ready for it! I have been so venue-challenged, and I feel like it is only getting worse. It has been almost 8 months and I swear, if I don’t find one soon, I’m giving up! So, I am going to lay it all out here for all of you with the hope that some feedback is just what I need to pick the right place!I started this wedding planning process with the idea that I could do the wedding for $10,000. Now, that may be a very popular number these days for those budget brides, but I never thought that $10,000 would mean giving up my Vera Wang, my fire pit and lounge areas, or all the other million things I wanted. And let me say this in my defense, I never would have had to. I’m smart, resourceful and very DIY handy. I know it could have been done. So, why am I not doing that? Well, because I woke up to the amount of work it would take and the amount of hours I work in a week (well over 100) and I just realized that I would burn myself to the bone. I don’t have the time like I used to.

So, fine. I got over that and I upped the budget. I let the parents and everyone help out and we came to yet another agreement, which sounded fair enough. The only problem is that I can’t get the REASON behind the $10,000 budget out of my head. That’s a lot of money. Really, it is! So, where do I draw the line? That’s the problem I keep struggling with.

Ok, now onto the venues, I have three solid options at this point. Read my pros and cons and let me know what you think!

1. Ventana Inn

I absolutely love this place (remember when I talked about it before), but it is definitely the most expensive! I would get one terrace for both ceremony and reception. The terrace holds 80 people total. This means I am cutting my guest list by 50! (We both have big families). So let’s say I can cut the guest list, those 80 chosen ones are still going to cost $75 per plate for dinner. This is not a bad number, but adding the drinks on is a whole new story! For 2 hours of open bar, it costs $35. 2 hours! OMG, that’s insane. So unless I want to be tacky and make an announcement that everyone needs to literally stock up, I have to pay $10 per hour per person after those two hours. And what about during dinner, during speeches. My 2 hours includes people not being able to stand because of speeches! Lame.Roughly, I will probably end up spending $150 per head for everything including 30% of random dumb extra charges. So, all in all, this wedding scenario will cost me $14,200 for 80 guests. 20 of which are in the bridal party!

Not to mention all of that, the rooms at this place are about $500 per night! I just can’t make my guests do that. So, I would have to research a cute Inn near by.

This one is definitely the splurge and probably my favorite option, if I had the money for it and was comfortable spending that!

1. Vignette Vintage Ranch

UPDATE: Radonich Ranch and Vignette Events turned into a nightmare of a situation and I ended up taking this option out entirely. Read more about the details: {Venue Nightmare} Radonich Ranch and Vignette Events.

This spot is great, but it’s not 100% my style. I am definitely more a fan of the refined, classy, chic look. It’s a little harder for me to think with rustic, vintage, distressed, and shabby looks. Every wedding I see makes me crave a ranch wedding though, which is why this place is in the running. Only Beer and Wine (but it is BYO meaning I will save literally thousands of dollars!) caterer is $86 per person. It is all inclusive with tables, chairs, linens, taxes, etc. etc. etc. That’s sooooo nice! But, I have a feeling this venue just isn’t the nicest vintage barn. But does that matter?? Chandeliers, lanterns, couches and fire pits should handle that just fine! This one would be about $13,000 for 100 guests including everything. Cheaper and more guests, but definitely not as nice.

Photos: Vignette Website

1. My parent’s backyard

You may have heard me bring this up before. Well, its definitely still in my mind! My thought is that I would do WHATEVER I wanted and go a little psychotic on the details and the décor. Heck, I have months to do all the prep work. I would save so much money finding my own caterer and bringing in my own drinks. It would be half the cost roughly. So, I decided the one thing that could make me fall in love with this idea would be to plexi-glass the pool and make it the dance floor!  It would be the splurge of the event, but it would be INCREDIBLE! I would still be spending under $14,000 to do food and everything including the plexi-glass.

The con is definitely that it is not set up for a wedding, so it makes it far more difficult. I would want to find a place for the ceremony that wasn’t the house. I’ll have to research some places around the area. The other problem is that there are no epic photo spots. I want some great photos and the backyard just won’t provide that for me. This is definitely a huge consideration of mine!

Check this for ALL the pictures of my parents backyard!

So there you have it.

I would LOVE to hear thoughts and suggestions, ideas or even other venues you think I must see! I need some help ehre, and I am turning to the people that have been riding this wedding planning wave with me for the past 7 months! I know you guys know what I want, what a great wedding is, and what the best decision is-so go for it!

Thanks !

My Venue-and the MASSIVE Dilemma

This is the spectacular view of a wedding venue I saw this weekend. After seeing about 20 venues, I had finally found one that I could see myself getting married at, there were no eye sores that would need to be fixed, and no compromising that would need to be done - so I thought!

First of all, let me talk more about this space. The ceremony takes place on the grass, and the reception takes place on the deck. The view (above) is from the deck, and is flawless as far as the eye can see. Also, we would make a weekend out of it as you have to rent the entire Inn for the weekend of the wedding (and the Bride and Groom can stay there up to five times for free before the wedding!). We would invite the parents and family as well as the entire bridal party up on Friday afternoon and we would have a great day before surrounded with our favorite people! The morning after the family and Bridal Party would meet on the deck for an outdoor morning brunch! So cute, right?

These are all different views from the outside!

The above picture is the space where the ceremony would take place.

Ok, now for one downside. We found out they only do daytime weddings which have to end at 6:00 pm. Major sad-face! After going to see another venue, which was not nearly as good, I was very upset. I pretty much thought I would never find a venue and this would just go on forever! It was incredibly discouraging.

We did come up with an idea. We could still rent the Monarch, stay there, and have the ceremony and cocktail hour there. We would then have the "reception" at a place close-by at 6:00pm. It's probably more expensive, and it probably isn't a smart idea, but if you had seen the amazing view, you would have wanted to do the same thing! So now- finding the reception spot, which I will tell you more about tomorrow!

What do you think? Does the space seem worth the extra money/hassle?? I would greatly appreciate the input!