The One Where We Choose a Venue

After our whirlwind venue tour, Mr. Coyote and I sat down and talked about the pros and cons of everything we saw. The dude was pretty set with River Stone, but I was wavering a bit. I wanted to see a few more places.

And so in November we packed up our bags (again) and went to see three more venues.

The first one could not really accommodate our large group. The second one was insanely over budget. And the third one was just right.

You know how some girls find a wedding dress and they put it on and they just “know” that it’s the one? That’s how I felt about this venue. I walked into the space and I just “knew”. This was the one. I could picture myself getting married here. I could see us celebrating with all of our friends and family. It was just pure perfection.

Are you dying to see it??

The Coyotes Hunt for a Venue (Part II)

After a quick lunch break we headed out to our last appointment of the day. I was still feeling pretty fatigued, but I figured it was just from all of the running around we were doing. And so we pressed on.

There's not much to say about this next venue. It was nice, but it just wasn't what we were looking for. It was also a bit small for our group. There definitely wouldn't be enough room for everyone to sit during the ceremony and although we would fit in the reception room, it would be a bit cramped.

 Image via Mallozzi's Ballroom & Catering

After we toured the facility the coordinator sat us down in a small side room to go over the details. She gave us some paperwork to look over and started to talk about the different packages they offered and....

The Coyotes Hunt for a Venue (Part I)

My parents, my fiance and I visited seven venues before making our decision. While we didn't downright hate any of the places we visited they all had their own unique sets of pros and cons.

Knock Knock

Mmmmm, I love me a good Pro/Con list!

We didn't have too many "must haves", but I really wanted to be able to have everything indoors (even though Murphy isn't invited, I'm pretty sure he's going to crash regardless of what kind of security we have set up). We also knew that we wanted to have the ceremony and the reception in the same location so the venue needed to be able to accommodate us there too. So, with that in mind we headed out! 

Our first stop was the gorgeous River Stone Manor. The venue is right on the river (obvs) and has a beautiful banquet facility lined with windows that overlook the water.

River Stone Manor / Photo by Dino Petrocelli

 Yea I'm still drooling over this ceremony setup.

A Semi-Destination Wedding

The next few posts are going to be about my experience with finding a venue. This was such an important aspect of the wedding for both of us so I want to make sure that I spend the time to describe the process and hopefully give some advice to brides and grooms that are going through this step!

Mr. Coyote and I are having what I like to call a semi-destination wedding.

Say wha?

LOLCAT Generator

No, we're not getting married on a secluded island or on top of Mount Everest.

Instead, we are getting married in my hometown, which is about 3 hours north of where the mister and I are living right now.

Who are all these people??

Okay, I promise you that we will talk about some actual wedding planning.

The morning after our celebratory dinner debacle I awoke to find my father reviewing a spreadsheet on his laptop. This is actually pretty normal behavior and I’ve learned that one of the many things I have in common with my dad is our obsession with spreadsheets.

  

Happy birthday to---- Wait, what?!

I owe you an apology.

How can I possibly share my wedding journey with you if I don’t even tell you about how it started??

Well, I hope you can forgive me because that’s not what this post is going to be about. I was actually going to explain to you how we started venue hunting in this post, but I am easily distracted and it somehow morphed into the story of the night Mr. Coyote hung me out to dry.

Miss Coyote's Top Five

I am a list maker. I am also realllllly unorganized. Yep, my brain is constantly fighting with itself. This usually means that I have about 5 or 6 unfinished “to-do” lists laying around my home at any given time.

In fact, I just now wandered around and took inventory of all my lists. Here's what I found:

[Personal Photo]

My planner, 2 lists of work-related tasks that I need to complete, a grocery shopping list, a list of wedding tasks and a list of things to ask your bakery. Yikes!

So you're engaged... Now what??

Right after getting engaged I was on Cloud 9. I spent the first month of my engagement skipping around singing, “I'm getting maaaaaaarried!!!!!”, staring at my shiny new ring and watching about a hundred reruns of Say Yes to the Dress.

TLC

C'mon Randy, you know you want to help me find my perfect dress!!

To be honest, I didn't know the first thing about planning a wedding. I have not been to many weddings in my lifetime (which is surprising considering my huge family) and I pretty much thought that planning a wedding consisted of buying a pretty dress, saying “I do” and dancing the night away with friends and family.

Speeding up

I've been collecting wedding inspiration for my June wedding for over a year now and I figure it's about time to share it with the rest of the Internet world.

Join me (and my wonderful fiance!) as we try to plan a personal, yet traditional wedding without losing our minds!