Wedding in a Walnut Grove

When Brian first asked me to marry him, I was so excited about planning! I couldn't wait to get started. But it turns out that as soon as people find out you're engaged, they start asking bombard you with questions... What's your color? Did you pick out a dress yet? Where's your wedding? What flowers are you using? Did you pick a date yet?

It was never ending! And then it started to overwhelm me because I started trying to plan everything all at once. Turns out that is next to impossible. So I decided, first things first! We have to find a venue, and then maybe the rest will fall into place.

We started out just touring some local hotels. But I didn't really like how like, EVERYONE could see your wedding. So then we began to look at more specialized locations. I knew I wanted to be outside during the summer. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. Until I started researching it. Weddings by the beach are really pretty and super easy to decorate, but my hair would end up looking absolutely hideous with the ocean mist. I started thinking that a barn wedding would be totally awesome and still somewhat unique. But there aren't that many barns in the LA area. Next, we were on to garden-like settings.

We toured 3 places in all, and it was actually the 2nd one that we all really liked. (And by "we," I mean, me, Brian, my parents, and Brian's parents! That's a serious crowd to please!) The ceremony takes place in a walnut grove and the reception is right next to the ceremony site. It has a fireplace and a huge dance floor, and just enough rustic charm to make it absolutely fantastic in my book. The coordinator there is Michele and she's really cool too. We're even hiring her as our day-of coordinator. 

Walnut Grove at night

Like I said, it was the 2nd place out of 3 that we looked at. We were trying to be realistic and make sure it was definitely the right place for us. By the time I called Michele to tell her we were VERY interested, there weren't any more Saturdays left for the summer of 2011. OH NO!!! But there was one Saturday that a couple hadn't put a deposit down on yet. She was waiting to hear back from them. I got an email from her a few days later saying that that particular date opened up! So we killed 2 birds with one stone- we got a venue and a date. 

I was pretty sure that things would started falling into place... not so much! There has still been a TON of decisions to make, people to interview, research to do, questions to ask, and money to be paid!