In search.. of a venue

Pretty much the instant Mr. Foxy and I got engaged, I ran out to buy a bajillion wedding magazines and started researching venues. I quickly realized that weddings are wayyy more expensive than I thought they were. I mean, I knew they could be pricey, but couldn't I do a great wedding with all the fixin's near DC for under $10,000?

Oh shut up, Nelson.

Image via Dangerously Awesome

That would be a big fat no. I already knew that we couldn't afford a wedding where I grew up on Long Island, so I decided to look in upstate NY near where Foxy grew up. His parents currently live on one of the Finger Lakes, which I thought would be perfect because there are tons of wineries in the area, and I love me some wine. The only problem is that apparently the Finger Lake region of NY is a huge touristy area. Who knew? Not like I grew up in NY or anything. Bler.

Despite the fact that upstate NY was more expensive than I thought, I kept searching for places up there for us to look at on our July visit to his parents'. In all reality, the average prices up there were on par with or even above what the DC/MD area was offering. But it was pretty and Foxy seemed to really dig the fact that we'd get married upstate. Mostly because we could get Dinosaur BBQ (if you haven't heard of them, look them up then drop what you're doing and go get some NOW) to cater if we had it up there.

My dream wedding vision turned into us having a large tent with hanging lights and lanterns everywhere, preferably at a winery, and serving Dinosaur. They'd bring in a huge BBQ pit to cook all the food in, right there in front of everyone. It would have been amazeballs and it would have been so quintessentially us.

However, I realized that tents are expensive, many places wouldn't let us bring in outside caterers, and I was liking the idea of having to travel 7 hours to get to our wedding destination less and less as time went on. Plus, I really didn't want to plan it from so far away. That just sucks. We ended up only looking at one place while visiting in July, and quickly crossed it off the list. It just wasn't what we were looking for.

So I picked up my DC/Maryland search.


(Sidenote: Even though we're literally about 20 minutes away, I crossed out Virginia because I don't really like Virginia.. nothing at all against anyone who lives there or likes it, but I have this weird name association thing. Like, I refuse to eat from any restaurant named Lardo's (it's real, trust me) or Potbelly... it disturbs me. I really don't want to live on a street like Gun Powder Lane because it's so dismal. So I really don't want to live in Virginia, or get married there, because, well.. it looks and sounds like vagina to me. Sorry guys. It's the truth. I know I have issues. I'm sure Vagina Virginia is a wonderful place to live.)


Back to business. My main criteria was that the catering cost per head had to be under a certain amount for me to even begin to look at it. I was so hell bent on having an outdoor wedding on a Saturday in June; no wonder good prices were/are hard to come by. I found a few places that could be possibilities if some adjustments were made on our part, but the ones I wanted we couldn't afford, and the ones we could afford I didn't want.

And then. Then! We found it. You know that feeling that you get when you find the right dress? Both Foxy and I got that when we found the right venue...

..more to come!