To Have and To Plan...3 Weddings

Hey Hive!

I'm going to dedicate this post to the very beginning of our wedding planning extravaganza. This is where we started. I thought it would be great to look back on eventually to see what decisions we've made, and how we came about arriving at those decisions.

Not even a week after Mr. MissBrittz popped the question, I was searching for venues. We briefly had the discussion of "where" to get married but never really arrived at a final decision. Mr. MB is from Louisville, Kentucky, and I'm from Syracuse, New York. Then, to really throw an extra wrench in there, we currently live in San Francisco, California. I truly wasn't sure what the best option would be. I could see pros and cons for each of the locations. Some of those cons being that no matter what, people were going to have to travel and find accommodations. I hated having to ask that of anyone, but unfortunately we couldn't find a way around it.

I decided the only way to truly know which option to choose, was to make a spreadsheet of potential venues in each location. Good grief, looking back now, I'm not sure if that was a mistake or not, but it was definitely what helped us arrive at our final decision.

In making the spreadsheet, I researched online several different venues in each of the locations and chose my top 3 based on availability, price, and accommodations.

For San Francisco, I had:

1. Jacuzzi Vineyard (where we got engaged)
2. Crooked Vine
3. Concannon Vineyard

Prices ranged (not in order listed above)  from $3,000-$12,000.

For Louisville I had:

1. The Brown Hotel
2. The Gillespie
3. The Galthouse Hotel

Prices ranged (not in order listed above) here from $3,000-$16,000 (wow, just realized my Kentucky option was more expensive than San Francisco!)

For Syracuse, I had:

1. The Genesee Grande Hotel
2. Mirbeau
3. Anyela's Vinyard

Prices ranged (not in order listed above) from $2,500-$10,5000.

Now, to be fair, these prices were a bit different for each of the venues that I called. Some of them cost a decent amount just to rent the room, and others had a very high food and beverage minimum that you were required to meet. Ultimately, what ended up helping us come to our decision in the end was seeing the prices laid out, along with the costs of what bakers in the area would cost, as well as photographers. Our final pick definitely ended up being the most cost effective, and ultimately won out because the venue was priced right and my family was there and offered to help in any way that we needed with the planning.

So, after all was said and done, we narrowed it down and made our final choice: Syracuse.

I would love to hear about how you all went about choosing your venues! Did you have difficulty doing so, or was it fairly easy?

XoXo,
MissBrittz