Finding a Venue, the Decision

Once we came to terms with our budget and ran more numbers on my ridiculous budget spreadsheet, we had some more long discussions about what we wanted to do with our wedding.

I was surprised that my fiance had fallen for the Outdoor Garden at Phipps.  I always loved the idea of getting married outside, but weather in Pittsburgh is pretty unpredictable, and I didn't want to stress about the weather, so I didn't think getting married outside was a realistic option for me.  Though it is beautiful.

Phipps Outdoor Garden

Outdoor Garden AND a fall wedding!

 

And after the ceremony, the new Mr. and Mrs. can take a love walk through the garden...

Outdoor Garden

 

The more I thought about the wedding, though, I realized it really doesn't matter to me whether the wedding is inside or outside - I'm going to stress about the weather regardless.  I might as well take my chances on a beautiful garden wedding, and potentially have to get married on a sidewalk under a tent as a plan B.  Obviously that option is less than ideal, but at the end of the day, I'll be married to the love of  my life, and I'm trying to keep the whole thing in perspective as I stress about the details that don't really matter. :-P

 

My ideal place at Phipps to get married was the Broderie room.  It's beautiful, cozy, and perfect for a dreamy, romantic, intimate wedding.  However, it only holds 50 people standing, and that's just not enough for our wedding, so my dreams got shattered by reality pretty early on in the process.

I had to give up my dream of this

and these lovelies

But all hope is not lost!  You can pay an exorbitant rental fee to take pictures in any room of the Conservatory, and so we are paying an extra fee to rent the Broderie room for 45 minutes to take photos, which satisfies my dream of having our wedding in that room, as well as having a great place (indoors) for photos, which will help in case of rain!

And in case that didn't give it away, our decision is...

to get married in an Outdoor Garden ceremony at Phipps, and have our reception at the Mayernik Center.

Even though I will probably stress about the weather forecast, we opted to take a risk with the weather.  I hope it works out!  But even if we have to get married under a tent, at least we can have gorgeous pictures inside the Broderie room, and inside our lovely reception facility.  Remember when I said I don't like banquet halls?  Well, the Mayernik Center is kind of a banquet hall.  It definitely has the stereotypical banquet chairs.

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But oh well.  I've sort of thrown out my opinions on a lot of things (including typical weddings, because in the beginning I didn't want a dinner reception, I didn't want dancing, and I didn't want a DJ) throughout this process thus far, and I'm sure I'll have to compromise on a lot of other stuff too.  That's okay though.  What really matters is that we get married, and we have a good time doing it.  Hopefully we'll have good weather and it'll be beautiful too!

Finding a Venue, Part 2

So I narrowed it down to 3 choices, and made appointments to visit Phipps Conservatory and the Mayernik Center.  The North Park Boathouse didn't have an email, so I would have to call to set up an appointment.  I'm not ashamed to say that actually having to call someone is a serious deterrent for me.  *shrug* Gen Y, lazy.

Thankfully, I had the good sense to schedule both visits pretty close together so that, if we loved the first venue, we wouldn't have long to wait before we could see the second, and then make a decision!  It was definitely a good choice, because all of the details were fresh in our minds, and it made October "wedding month" for us!  Somewhat coincidentally, it also marked the 2-year mark from our intended wedding date.  I say "intended" because, well, things change. :)

First up was Phipps.  We had an appointment to visit Phipps Garden Center first, which is a smaller, more casual area that only holds 100 people.  I thought that would be okay for us, since Phipps was pricey anyway, and we would be limiting our guest list already.  Once I saw the Garden Center, though, it was immediately ruled out.  We visited on a Sunday when it was set up for an event, which just so happened to be the brunch of a wedding held at the Conservatory the night before.  The set-up wasn't a deterrent, but the overall look of the Garden Center was just NOT what I wanted.  It was too casual for what we want our reception to be (ironic, since I think we're having a casual wedding, but this was more "jeans" casual), and it was just too small.  They say it holds 100, but it looked to me like over 60 would be pushing it, and there wouldn't be room for a dance floor with that many people there.

However, visiting the Garden Center sparked a couple more ideas, because it is next to Mellon Park, which has the "walled garden," I believe is what they called it, which is a gorgeous little stone-walled courtyard with a fountain, which would be a gorgeous space for a wedding ceremony.  I bookmarked it in my brain for later in case the rest of the visit didn't work out.  We also inadvertently went to the wrong building when we arrived for our tour, and found ourselves at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, which is also a venue for wedding receptions.  I did send an email there after our Phipps visit because I loved the look of the building, but I wasn't keen on the long response time, or the gruff response that I received.

Now, I may be crazy, but I don't take kindly to short or unfriendly responses that I receive from potential wedding vendors.  If I am thinking about giving you thousands of dollars, and you can't find it in you to be polite and send me a nice response in return to my inquiry, then I'm not going to give you my money.  I don't care how fabulous your venue, work, service, may be.  If you're not nice, I'm not going to involve you in the biggest event of my life.  I will find something maybe less than perfect, but with nice people who actually appreciate my hard-earned dollars in their pockets, thank you very much.

So I ruled the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts out based on my insanity "the nice vendor principle."

Thankfully, the rest of our Phipps visit was spectacular.  We met with Emily, the Event Sales Supervisor, who was super friendly and helpful.  She showed us all of the places in the Conservatory that I had requested we see, was patient with my craziness plentiful questions, and sat down to talk to us post-tour.  The next day, as promised, she sent me an email with all of the potential dates (for a 2-month span), answered my numerous emails, and has been great to work with.  She really met my expectations and put my mind at ease.  We drove home from our visit doing rough calculations (on my phone's calculator) and discussing whether we could make it work with our intended budget and our actual ability to save money over the next two years.  I spent the rest of the evening constructing a ridiculous budget spreadsheet with budget estimates, calculations for guest list estimates with each food and alcohol package, and a total estimate for all of the wedding expenses (only one of which was actually set in stone).  In our excitement, we were really considering the budget-busting plan of having both ceremony and reception at Phipps.

After our visit at Phipps, we had to wait until the following Saturday to visit the Mayernik Center.  Now, I had already hounded Suzi, the event coordinator at Avonworth Park, with tons of questions and details, so I knew she was quick to respond and took my craziness in stride.  I was surprised to find that, when I met her, she wasn't what I expected.  She actually reminded me of my crazy aunts.  We took a walk around the facility, I took a bunch of pictures, found that my cousin would be a guest at the wedding that evening (small world!), and we discussed dates and details with Suzi.  We both felt really comfortable with her, as we did with Emily, and it just felt right. As we walked out the door and across the bridge to the parking lot, we were holding hands and basically just asking each other "Are we really doing this?  Are we really ready to make a decision?"  Talk about fun moments of wedding planning!

And I think this calls for a Pros/Cons list.

Phipps Conservatory

Pros:

• Stunningly beautiful
• Memorable
• Gives out-of-town guests an "experience" rather than "just a wedding"
• My family loves visiting Phipps, and it gives us another reason to visit :)
• It's my dreeeeeeeeam
• They're wedding professionals, and it'd all be covered
• Their catering is in-house, and the cake is included in the cost
• We just have to provide the vision and our choices, and they'll put it together
• Pictures would be phenomenally gorgeous (yes, very dramatic)
• It's in Oakland, where I went to school, where we got our engagement pictures taken (spoiler alert!), and where I spent so many important years of my life.
• We would only have to choose our photographer, DJ, and lighting company.  Everything else (that we would use) is coordinated by the caterer.
• It fits my desire not to use flowers, because it's a garden and there are flowers everywhere. Check!

Cons:

• Really, just one. But it's a doozy.  It's suuuuuuuper expensive.  We're talking food starting at $90 pp and alcohol starting at $25 pp.  Our choices would likely lead to $130 or more per person.  That's  way over budget.

Mayernik Center

Pros:

• The look fits my wedding vision.  It's warm and cozy, rustic, and perfect for a fall wedding (it'd also be fabulous in winter).
• They have 3 different caterers to choose from
• It's still pricey as far as rental fees go, but choosing our own caterer would help us stay within budget
• We can provide our own alcohol, and they provide the bartenders and beer (both purchased through the Center) - which would greatly reduce costs as well!
• We get to choose and bring in all of our own vendors.

Cons:

• We have to choose and bring in all of our own vendors.  This is both a blessing a curse.  While it would help us minimize costs, it also is more stuff for me to organize and keep on top of while trying to juggle the rest of life.
• Decorating time is limited to 2 hours prior to the event, so decorations would have to be minimal.  They also restrict decor inside - you can't hang anything on the walls (seriously, nothing), so the majority of the decor would have to be on the tables and the mantle.  The short time to decorate (and tear down) gave me a little panic attack.  I'm sure it's that way with every venue, but it really made me think about the day-of details, and it freaked me out.

The Decision

Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that any wedding will be pricey if we go "all out" and have a "normal" wedding (ie. invite family and friends, have a full dinner reception with alcohol and dancing), so we had to get to a point where we were comfortable with what we could afford, without compromising on quality, but also make us feel like we were still doing well as far as saving money.  I think we both took a deep breath and decided where we were comfortable, and decided that we could achieve that wedding better with an option C...

Finding a Venue, Part 1

When I started researching venues, I used all of the online tools I could find... in a few minutes.  You see, I don't have the most patience, despite my obsessive need desire to make sure that I do thorough research before making a decision.  I googled wedding venues in the area, scoured recent weddings of friends on facebook, and looked at all of the local venues on the Knot, WeddingWire, and WeddingBee.  Nothing really stood out to me.  But there was one place in which I always dreamed of getting married...

Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

Namely, the Phipps' Broderie Room

This has been my dream since long before a wedding was on the horizon, since before I met my dear fiance, and probably even before I thought about anything else wedding-related.  I just knew it was a gorgeous place, and a wedding there would be to. die. for.

Needless to say, it's a pretty pricey option, and one that I was pretty sure was out of the budget.  So I put it on the back burner, chalked it up to being  just a dream and moved on with my research.

I should point out, too, that all of this research was being done without the input of my fiance.  Reason being, he's easily overwhelmed, and I knew it was a better approach to find something that I liked, make sure I knew all of the details already (prices especially) and have a plan in place before presenting him with my top few ideas, or else he would FREAK OUT.  And that's no good for anyone.

I really wanted a unique venue, because I'm not a fan of hotels or banquet halls, and I care A LOT (probably too much) about the look and feel of a venue.  I knew if I didn't like the walls or carpet of a venue, it would get ruled out, regardless of what else it may offer to its credit.  I looked at the zoo, the aviary, an opera house, and a few gorgeous historical buildings and halls.  Nothing really wooed me, though.  I gave up on the venue search for awhile, because truth be told, I had a lot of other things on my plate, and we couldn't book anything at the moment anyway.

A few months later, I picked back up the search because I realized that we were 2 years out and I should probably get a move on making decisions, since it had been nearly 6 months since we got engaged.  I started sending emails for price quotes, and got serious about my choices.

I narrowed it down to 3 options:  Phipps Conservatory (I couldn't give up the dream!), the Mayernik Center at Avonworth Park, and the North Park Boathouse.

Mayernik Center

North Park Boathouse

I was really drawn to the park options because they were more budget-friendly, but they also meant more work organizing vendors and setting up ourselves.  Phipps, although more pricey, offered more of an "all-inclusive"-type event, where we mostly just have to show up!

So those were my top 3 choices.  Is "the look" I was going for obvious from these pictures?

Time Flies...

When you work full-time, go to school part-time, and work part-time!

I'm having a hard time believing that Thanksgiving just passed and we're less than a month from Christmas.  For me, that means less than a month to get all of my holiday shopping done, while juggling work and school and preparing for finals in a couple of weeks.  However, that also means a couple of weeks from a break in school (post-finals) and a week and a half off of work, which will be very welcome!

Instead of my usual Christmas break activities - playing with new Christmas toys and stuffing myself with holiday leftovers, sweets, and candy - I will be jetting off to Vegas with my BFF/MOH and another gal pal to visit some friends and MOH's family for 4 days.  I'll be back in time for New Year's, which hopefully will also include a visit from my fiance's Best Man, flying in from California.

What I usually do over break...
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What we'll be doing this year after Christmas...

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Drinking lots of these

Knowing that I'll be spending my only "break" from work and school traveling is bittersweet, because I know it will be a great time, but I'm also sad to know that I won't be able to relax and catch up on sleep, since I'll be too busy being crazy. ;-)

Bitten by a Travel Bug!

I've always liked to travel, but when I was younger, my traveling was all road trips.  My dad used to go to these conventions for work, and my mom, sisters, and I would tag along, since the hotel room cost would already be covered.  It was probably the only way we got the opportunity to go as many places as we did when we were younger.  It also helps that my mom loved finding historical places that we could stop along the way, so we went a bunch of interesting places on our way to and from these conventions.

Places I visited as a child (in no particular order):
- Florida - my grandparents used to live there 7 months out of the year, so we visited them and went to Disney World!
- Georgia - on a trip to Florida, we visited friends of my parents, whom they actually met through those work conventions!
- Tennessee - Nashville, for a convention
- Kentucky - on the Nashville trip
- Missouri - Branson and St. Louis, for my uncle's wedding
- Indiana - Indianapolis, for the Children's Museum; Fort Wayne for dance competitions
- Nevada - Las Vegas, for a convention
- Hawaii - oh, wait... my parents didn't take us to that one. Twice.
- Arizona - Phoenix and Sedona

- New Jersey - Atlantic City, for a convention; Jersey Shore
- Maryland - various beach trips and a chorus trip that my mom chaperoned
- North Carolina - Outer Banks
- Massachusetts - Provincetown, for a whale-watching trip
- New York - NYC, for a choir trip in high school; Chautauqua, for an opera trip from a "summer enrichment" program I attended; Niagara Falls, for, well, Niagara Falls.
- Pennsylvania - where I grew up
- Ohio - we lived near the border, so Ohio is practically an extension of home
- West Virginia - like Ohio, I've been there frequently, and not really for vacation

So you could say that I did a fair amount of traveling by car when I was younger, and the only trip we flew to was Las Vegas.  Then, when I went to college, I dated a guy from Philadelphia.  I visited him and his family frequently enough that driving wasn't too convenient, so I racked up some frequent flyer miles through Southwest on $100 round-trips between Philly and Pittsburgh.  But I don't count that as "traveling," even if it took me from flying "once" in my life to "more than I care to count."

However, you may notice that none of those travels required a passport.  I don't think either of my parents have been out of the country before, which probably factored into why all of our vacations were domestic.  My mom is also a firm believer that there are more than enough interesting and historical places to see in the U.S., or so it seems, because she never ran out of places to try to make us stop on our road trips (like Lucy the Elephant near Atlantic City).  Regardless, I never needed a passport growing up.  When I got to college, I always wanted to do Study Abroad, but being the busy bee that I am, I worked the whole way through college.  I paid for everything myself, so I worked as much as humanly possible.  When we would have a day off from school (or a week for Spring Break or Christmas), I just viewed that as more hours that I could make money!  This mentality meant that I never took a Spring Break trip or studied abroad, because I couldn't bring myself to pay out a lot of money, while simultaneously giving up the opportunity to make money during the time off from school.  Do I regret that I never took the opportunity to travel abroad?  Maybe.  Do I think it would have been possible?  Maybe.  Do I ultimately regret my choice to work instead? No.  Instead I just looked through my friends' pictures on facebook of all of their Study Abroad trips in college, and when I felt bad, I just looked at my bank account to make myself feel better.  Just kidding.  Kind of.

After college, I started dating my fiance.  After about 13 months of dating, we were invited to his uncle's wedding, which was in Tampa.  Our first real trip together!  We flew from Pittsburgh to Atlanta and then to Tampa (the last leg of which made me really sick!), and then back.  I took the fact that we both survived the trip to be a good sign for our relationship.  We enjoyed traveling with each other, and even though we had talked about it before, it became very clear that we wanted to travel together in the future.

Since that first trip, we've been to California twice (to do some sightseeing, visit family & friends, and see our dear Steelers play the Niners at Candlestick Park, the worst field in the NFL), the Jersey Shore twice, Philly once, and NYC once.

In 2011, a work trip took my fiance (then-boyfriend) across the pond to Israel for 2 weeks, which could be a story all in itself.  This was his first trip out of the country, and required him to get his passport.  Getting his passport sparked many conversations about potential future trips, and inspired me to get my passport (despite having any firm plans to go out of the country).  In order to justify the passport fee, we decided to plan a trip to the easiest out-of-the-country locale, Canada.  My fiance is a huge baseball nerd fan, so I suggested we go to Niagara Falls and Toronto, and catch a baseball game in Toronto.  So Memorial Day weekend 2011, that's exactly what we did.  I could finally say I left the country (even if driving across the border was completely uneventful and Ontario is basically an extension of the U.S.)!

And then... 

For Christmas last year, my wonderful then-boyfriend/now-fiance bought me a trip to Jamaica!  I was convinced at that point that he was going to propose in Jamaica (but that's a story for another time).  The surprise was that it wasn't just a trip for two, but best friend and her fiance (who got engaged just prior to Christmas) were coming along, too!  Again, we took a trip out of the country over Memorial Day weekend.  We had a fabulous time, and that could fill a whole blog post in itself (and probably will at some point when I feel reminiscent), but my main reason for bringing it up is that Jamaica was my first stamp in my passport!  I was glad that I finally felt like it was worth having a passport for a trip.*  I also got to experience a "foreign" country, new culture, different climate, and faaaaantastic food!

So now...

Now that we are planning a wedding and need to save money, we shouldn't be spending our money on frivolous trips, right?  Wrong.  Instead of listening to the practical side of my brain tell me that the money is better off saved, I booked my flights to Vegas for a girls' weekend this year after Christmas!  But that's not all...  I've recently decided to take another trip without my dearest.

You see, my business school does what they call a Global Research Practicum.  In a nutshell, it's Study Abroad for graduate students, that takes a lot less time than Study Abroad for undergraduates.  The course requires three meetings prior to the trip, and one meeting after the trip, and is a 3-credit course.  So a coworker (potentially two coworkers) and I decided... we're going to Chile!  The trip is over Spring Break (we finally get to go on a Spring Break trip!), March 2013.  It costs a good deal of money, but now that I work full-time, I can afford the cost of the trip (one of my points of contention for trips in undergrad) and since I have the benefit of paid time off, I can take some vacation days and not miss out on pay (the other major point of contention).  So, years later, I finally get to study abroad.  I'm very excited to take this opportunity to travel and have once-in-a-lifetime experiences, while also getting credits towards graduation.  You can't beat that!

* Technically, a passport is required to cross the Canadian border, but it's such a frequently traveled route that they barely pay you any attention for crossing, and they definitely don't stamp your passport.  Until recently, a passport wasn't even required and you could get across with a copy of your birth certificate and identification.

We're having a wedding!

I might as well get this out of the way fairly early on.  Most of my free time these days is spent thinking about weddings*.  After 3+ years together, we are engaged and planning a wedding.  Because of my current status as a part-time grad student, full-time employee, part-time employee, and all around busy bee, we're planning a long engagement.  We got engaged in March (6+ months ago already!?!), and are looking at Fall of 2014 for our wedding.  Fall is my favorite season - the weather, the smell, the colors, the pumpkin-flavored-everythings, cozy sweaters, comfortable slippers and warm blankets!  I've always liked the idea of getting married in the fall, and incorporating my favorite flower into the wedding.  I have loved tiger lilies since I was in high school, and dreamed of having tiger lilies and orange dresses in my wedding.  As the time to plan gets nearer, I'm not sure how much I will stick with my original ideas.  Sometimes real life (like money) gets in the way of dreams.

*  Many of my future posts will probably focus more on wedding details, because I don't want to bore my fiance, friends & family with the minutiae, but need a place to vent.  Hopefully doing this will help me sort through my thoughts and even keep track of details over such a long planning period.  I also want to use this as a place to display my trials (and errors) on all the little things that I intend to DIY for the wedding, without posting it all to my facebook. :)

About Me

I'm a goofy character who appreciates a good pun or cheesy joke, but I'm serious when I need to be.  I'm a grant administrator by day, business student by night, and I moonlight as a promo girl.  I consider myself somewhat of a contradiction in a lot of ways, because I love being at home, cooking, baking, crafting, playing with my cats, reading or watching tv, but I also like to go out and party it up with my friends and coworkers.  I always said I'd never marry a guy I met in a bar, but alas, I met my wonderful fiance in a bar when I was 21.  I thought I'd be married (possibly with children) by 25, and here I am, 26 and unwed, though at least making progress towards it.  I planned on going to law school and being a judge, but life got in the way, and working full-time seemed like a better choice.  Now I'm working and going to business school part-time.  I'm frugal, but I love to shop, and I'll spend money on quality goods.  I spare no expense gifting my friends and family at the holidays and in-between.  I'm very generous with my money, as well as my time and energy, fiercely loyal and super loving.  I also consider myself a general badass and think I may get beer muscles at the bar, though my good sense keeps me from actually getting in bar fights (most of the time).  I can be really quiet and reserved, with a very mellow personality, but I can also tell inappropriate jokes and I enjoy watching people squirm in awkward situations.  I like popular music, but I also like to switch it up with electronica, heavy metal, emo rock, classic rock, or whatever else I may be feeling that day.  I'm really a nice person, but I'm also super stubborn.  The title of this blog comes from the fact that I'm always apologizing for stating my opinion all the time.  So now I'm putting my foot down.  I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry!

I'm writing this blog to keep my sanity, because no matter how many emails I write or chats I have, sometimes I just need another outlet for my thoughts and plans.