Location, Location, Location - Where to Wed?

For me, weddings are like real estate - it's all about location, location, location. I believe that where you choose to host your wedding really helps set the tone for the day. Temple/Church? traditional & time-honored. Country Club/Hotel? fancy & formal. Outdoors? comfy & casual.

Brian and I like to keep it easy, breezy and beautiful (just like CoverGirl), so having our wedding as close to the beach as possible - without breaking the bank - would be a definite dream come true.

Well, agreeing on the actual location wasn't really difficult for us. In fact, we knew where we wanted to get married long before we got engaged...I know...shocker! 

We are fortunate that Brian's parents have a house in a lovely San Clemente community, and that this lovely San Clemente community has a picturesque park (above) just steps away from the beach with gorgeous peek views of the ocean. We also knew it would be an awesome place to celebrate our nuptials because Brian's sister and his brother wedded there too.

With all of that in mind, we thought it was a total slam dunk decision. We also thought it would be free seeing as how it's in a private, residential area where his parents own a home....my, how completely naive we were.

Turns out, not only does it cost to host a wedding in the park, it costs a pretty penny, and that pretty penny doesn't include the rentals or the food. With the help of my magnificent meshugana momala, we started looking into alternative venues to compare prices.

After many emails, phone calls, and fruitless google searches, we came to the conclusion that just about anywhere you decide to have a wedding isn't going to be cheap, and just about everywhere we looked into was lacking what we truly wanted.

We really want to customize our wedding, from the caterer, to the cake, to the rentals - and many venues only allow you to use their vendors and their catering services. Now, I am capable of compromising on some things, but I can't compromise on customization - after all, I've spent a majority of the last 3 years envisioning our wedding (you know, in between working and stuff), and I just couldn't bring myself to agree to a chicken/steak/veggie dinner and white folding chairs (no offense to couples who do want those things).

After much soul-searching and budget calculating, Brian and I sent in our check this week, and have almost officially locked in our wedding date at the picturesque park. We're just waiting on the housing board seal of approval and then we'll jump for joy! (But we're really already jumping!)