Disappointment

So I just found out today that the people who own the house I've fallen in love with don't allow weddings. I don't know if I can explain to you how much I love that house and how great it would have been to have our wedding there.

The house is by Lake Conroe and is on a gorgeous property. It would have been great.

I don't even know what else to say. I have to keep looking I guess.

The new plan

After a lot of thought and reflection, well, actually after a suggestion from the fiance's mom, I became inspired. His mom had seen a billboard for a ranch that hosted events and weddings. Brilliant! Surely, we can rent a ranch for a weekend, right? And then the wedding could almost be like a big family reunion. We'll do a cookout Friday night; chill together Saturday before the wedding that night, and do a brunch Sunday before everyone drives home.

I'm thinking it will be a lot more laid back than originally planned. Like, I could maybe pull off a dress like this one from Casablanca Bridal:

Since we've had this brainstorm, I've been incredibly inspired looking at other ranch weddings. I wish I had saved the picture, but one of the ideas that I loved was actually planting flowers down the little walkway leading to the arch in the middle of the field. Awesome!

And I haven't figured out how, yet, but I am determined to incorporate newspapers somehow into the wedding.

Here's one of the properties I love. It's huge! We could fit half the wedding party there for goodness sakes.

And I love this one almost solely because of how much I love the Hill Country.

OK, OK, that's enough for now. I have all weekend to obsess more.

Finally!!!

It has taken me forever to post this blog, and I have no idea why other than the fiance was my photographer and had all the pictures. In March, the fiance, his mother and I took a trip to San Antonio to check out potential wedding sites. We had it narrowed down to four.

We actually only looked at three because when we drove to the other one, I told his mom to keep on driving because it looked a lot better online than in person.

The first facility we looked at was Castle Avalon, which just looks really storybook fairytaleish. (Yes, I just made up a phrase.)

The ballroom is really pretty as was the garden outside.

While the property is great, I realized as we were touring it, that it really isn't mine or my fiance's taste. Here are more pictures:



Our next stop was the Doubletree Hotel. My favorite feature of this location was a glass elevator where the bride can come down. I liked the overall feel of the hotel. The only thing here was that the staff seemed a tad unorganized.

This is a part of the ballroom where we would host the reception:

This is the courtyard where the ceremony would take place:

And this is the aforementioned glass elevator:

Our last stop was the Hilton Palacio del Rio and the Little Church at La Villita (which is right next door). I loved both. We had several options. First, for the ceremony, we could do it at the Little Church or we could do it on the rooftop terrace at the Palacio. I had reservations about doing it on the rooftop because we're planning to get married in July and I worried about it getting too hot.

Pictures of La Villita:




And a shot of the rooftop terrace:


There are also two options for the reception. One is the Mirador-Condesa Room, which features windows stretching from the ceilling to the floor and a fantastic view of San Antonio.


The other option is the Stetson Room, which is on the same level as the Riverwalk. A glass wall allows for a great view of the boats floating by. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo, but you can see it on the virtual tour through the link above.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our options because right now it looks like we're not going to do ANY of them! We are totally rethinking the concept of the wedding and I'll tell you more about it later. Just know that I am very excited!

Making a decision

Everyone keeps asking me how the wedding planning is going and I haven't really been able to figure out an answer. I thought we were pretty set on where the event would take place (I keep meaning to post pictures of our trip to San Antonio to check out venues), but now there are questions as to what exactly we want to do.

The fiance has now changed the direction of where we are heading. He has suggested we keep things simpler than the elegant ceremony/reception in downtown San Antonio that I had been planning on. He would rather have a nice, quiet church wedding and use the extra money to save up for a down-payment on a house. He has a point. But I'm not going to lie. I'm a tad disappointed.

On the one hand, it does seem ridiculous to spend so much money on a single day, even if that day only happens once in a girl's lifetime. On the other hand, if we're going to do it, I want do it right and have no regrets.

Besides the fact, we've yet to find a church we both like in Laredo or anywhere else for that matter. Where in the world would this nice, quiet church wedding be at? And then, what do we do with everyone afterward? I firmly believe that when you have a lot of out-of-town guests, you have to feed them a nice dinner, which means we'll need catering, which means we'll need a reception hall. And if we're already paying for all of this, should we just do it at the nice hotel on the Riverwalk?

So it looks like the fiance and I have a lot of thinking to do. I really am torn on what I want to do, and I'm willing to listen to advice. Have you been through this, too? E-mail me and let me know: jdaffern@lmtonline.com. It'll be good to know I'm not alone.