Adventures in Venueland

The last few days have been filled with ups and downs as I've tried to make progress on booking our wedding venues. When I originally visited these places in December, I was told by each venue that I couldn't book them until at maximum one year out. When I checked back this week to try to book them, I was told by almost every venue (including the one that we had pretty much set on for our reception) that they were already booked. And making a difficult situation even more confusing, Tim and I decided not to have a Catholic wedding. When it came down to it, I wasn't comfortable with Tim going through the motions of all the red tape knowing that his heart wasn't in it and he was solely doing it because I wanted him to. I appreciate the effort on his part, but I would rather start our marriage off with a ceremony with which we are both happy and comfortable. Overall, it's been more difficult to find a venue for our ceremony than one for our reception; at least, with the reception we have more options. After dragging my mom around town for a couple of days, pep talks from Tim, Clara, Kate, and Jessica, and seemingly endless hours online searching for venue options, I feel like we know exactly what we're looking for. I want a more intimate feeling for the ceremony (which is my main concern, seeing how it's the entire point of the whole event) and my parents want something more elaborate for... well, everything.. but we're working on this whole "compromise" thing.


One thing that I realized was that I was trading off little bits of what I wanted at a time and was ending up heading toward a situation that I really didn't want. It's hard when everyone involved wants something different. I've been trying to find some common ground with my parents about it (and we did succeed in agreeing on the reception venue), but I think I really need to be more strong about what I want for the ceremony. When I think of my wedding, I picture myself getting married - actually standing there, surrounded by light, looking at Tim. Sometimes I feel like when my parents think of my wedding they picture the veil, the cake and dancing. I want to have a beautiful reception in which everyone enjoys him/herself, but I want to walk away from the day remembering the ceremony the most. My mom and I were able to narrow down our top choices for the reception venue (just waiting to hear back from one to see if it's available), and I think I even sold her on my ceremony venue idea. Now let's just see if we can get my dad on board....


Tim's taking a few of days off of work in the next week, so I plan on taking him to see the venues that my mom and I liked the most to get his take on them. Of course he's been updated with picture messages throughout our escapades, but you really get a sense for a location when you visit it in person. I really hope what we have in mind works out!