Emily and I began the process of putting the wedding together this weekend. Yes, we’d talked about a few things and made a few lists. We created a spreadsheet a few weeks ago listing possible guests, events like showers and post-wedding meetings, and things like that, but we hadn’t actually done anything outside of discussion to get the ball rolling. This weekend, we did.
Being on the tail end of our generation of friends to get married is a mixed blessing. On one hand, we have a lot of experiences to draw on and think, “We liked that aspect of that wedding, but not so much that other aspect of that other wedding.” We feel that will make the planning a little easier. On the other hand, we have so many offers of, “If you need any help, just let us know,” that we occasionally feel rude turning people down because so many people are offering help. That’s probably a good problem to have, actually. One of the first things that people have offered to help with is finding a location. Less than a day after announcing our engagement, we had emails from friends with lists of potential wedding places in the greater Houston area. Yesterday was the first time we actually got to look at any.
I’m not going to name places by name, because we haven’t made any decisions yet. There are still more places to look at. If you recognize a place from the description, that’s fine. Don’t spoil the surprise. 😉
The first place we looked at was from an emailed suggestion. It’s a wedding venue off the beaten path a bit. By which I mean we really should have read the directions to get there completely before heading there. There were U-turns involved. Once you got there, however, the landscaping was fantastic, it’s quite secluded, even though it’s not far from a major highway. Rather than “Keep off the grass” signs, they have “Please park on grass” signs. It seemed a little odd, until I realized that the parking lot could realistically hold maybe 75 or so cars.
75 cars sounds like a lot, but if you have 2 people per car (a fair number, given singles, couples and families that would attend a wedding), that’s enough for a 150-175 person wedding. Since they were actively encouraging people to park on the grass, I got the suspicion that they regularly handled more than that. We’re looking at having a small wedding, and our biggest fear for venue is that we’ll be a tiny ceremony in a giant space. A place that seems to regularly host 150+ might not have facilities for a wedding of less than 50.
When we went inside to look around, our fears were founded. The place was amazing. It was bright, had large windows, felt nice…. and was huge. Far too big for a small wedding. We took a look at the reception area, too. It looked like the reception area could be partitioned off into smaller sections, but the area that looked like it would be a decent size also had the bar attached. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I’m not sure I want a bar in the ceremony space.
Leaving, we ran into another issue of parking. The parking lot is laid out oddly. While it is clearly marked, it suffers a bit from too many markings close together, and we had a little trouble figure out the proper way to exit. I don’t think we’ll be using that venue.
The second venue left us feeling apprehensive from the start. Primarily because we couldn’t see any place to park. There was a pull-through driveway that looked appropriate for a limousine to pick up or drop off, and a couple slots in front of the office, but I couldn’t see anywhere for guests to park. There was an empty lot across the street  from the place that looked like it might have been used for parking, given its bare appearance, but it wasn’t marked or referred to in any way by any signs that we could see.
This venue’s chapel was smaller than the previous venue, but no less spectacular. I loved the stained glass in the chapel. However, it was also still far too big. The venue does have smaller spaces available, though, but they are outdoors. We’ve been looking at an August wedding, and if you’re at all familiar with the greater Houston area, you know that being outdoors in August is best left to t-shirts and shorts. Not bridal dresses and tuxedos.
We walked around the remainder of the venue looking at the various photo op locations (there are a lot, and they’re all superb), gathering areas, etc., and I did notice something. The chapel and reception areas are immaculate. The rest of the property feels a little less well kept. I’m not sure why, but the idea that they’re letting the support structures languish a little while keeping the wedding areas looking amazing left me a little sad. Combined with the lack of obvious parking, we decided that this venue would probably not do for us either.
When we had left the house that morning, we only had the two venues to look at. Being a nerdy sort of fellow, I decided to use Google to see if there were any other venues in the nearby area we could check. There were a couple, so I called one to check if they were available for us to look at that morning. It was, so we headed over.
The first thing that struck me is that I completely missed their parking lot entrance. They had a second entrance that I did see, though, and it was quite simple to get back to the parking lot. Lots of parking available next to a large chapel building. Frankly, it looked larger than the chapels at the other two venues. That wasn’t a good sign. It looked wonderful, though.
We went to the main building where we assumed receptions and such were held, and spoke to the venue’s onsite coordinator. It turns out that this smaller building was not only for receptions, but also smaller weddings. They could easily accommodate a wedding of 35, 50 or 70 in that building (though I think 70 might start feeling little crowded). We got a quick tour of “here’s where the ceremony would be, here’s the reception, here’s where the DJ would go, catering would set up over there,” etc. as well a pointing out photo op locations and such. For smaller weddings, they have an outdoor location that, frankly, blew me away. But again, August. Houston. Outdoor bad.
Still, we were both very, very favorably impressed with that venue. If we had to pick a venue *right now* and stick with it, I’m pretty sure this third would be the one we pick.
There are many places to have weddings, though, so we found another venue nearby and drove past it. We didn’t stop to look for a couple reasons.
- There was a motorcyclist tailgating me, and I didn’t want to slam on my brakes to make the sudden turn (the entrance was hard to see).
- It was lunch time by then, and we were both hungry.
- The place looked amazingly shady, due to all of the oak trees. Me + oak = allergy nightmare.
We decided we weren’t interested in that one. So we got lunch and went home.
Emily called her mother to update her on our plans and thoughts on venues. Her mother had previously emailed us a venue north of San Antonio, so we felt we should keep her in the loop on the venue front. We explained where we’d gone and what our opinions were. We mentioned that we’d liked the third place enough that we’d like to take Emily’s mother to look at it.
One thing during the conversation brought up, though, was a concern that August was a bit quick to hold a wedding. This wasn’t the first time this had been mentioned to us, so Emily inquired about details of why 6 months would be considered quick. Turns out several things. Dresses can take 3 or more months to get made if custom ordered or even if just needing custom tailoring to better fit off-the-rack dresses. Caterers, DJs, travel and other things are easier done if a date is set further out.
Emily and I talked it over later, and we agreed that perhaps later would be better. We both work in places where time off is accrued rather than granted as a lump. For our August plans, we’d have just enough leave available. Moving the wedding back would give us more time to accrue leave. That would make it easier to handle wedding preparations, last-minute emergencies and, of course, give us flexibility for a longer honeymoon. With all of this in mind, we decided to push the wedding back to February of 2014. It will NOT be Feb. 14. We’ll let you know when we’ve set the date.
-Michael