July 2009 Weddings
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Tuesday Tales
I skipped last week Friday flashback bc I was outta town but this week's flashback PIP challenge is venues. Changed it to Tues bc Fri and the wknd is so busy!!Im calling it "tale" bc I want to hear the story behind things you chose, like etc. Tell the "tale" (story) with pictures and words.
Outside/inside venue (or combo)?
Why did you choose it?
What did you love and or not love about your venue?
Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you?
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today?
Anything else to add about your venue(s)?
Re: Tuesday Tales
Blog
I don't know why that happened...it deleted everyt hing I wrote and only posted a picture lol
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? : Outside
Why did you choose it? : Because the views were unbelivable!
What did you love and or not love about your venue? : The price was too high for the amount of hours we got. I LOVED everything else about the entire manor.
Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? : Pricey, they did everything
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? : If we were to have done what we REALLY wanted it would have been on a beach. But here in Colorado I would do it there again.
Anything else to add about your venue(s)?
Blog
Oh and the picture above is not mine. Its from the website. I can't get to shutterfly or FB for my pictures :-( but this has beaustiful pics right on the main page http://lionscrestmanor.com/
Blog
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? Inside... It was a churchWhy did you choose it? M's parents and sisters for married ther, so we wanted to keep with traditionWhat did you love and or not love about your venue? I loved that it was a church. And it was old. That was about it. Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? Super budget friendly, which was another plus, but we had to do everything ourselves.Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? I wouldn't pick it. I mean, I'm glad we did what we did, but knowing what I know now, I would do something different. I don't know what though. At the time I really wanted it to be in a church, but our church is not wedding friendly or attractive at all. This was the next obvious choice. I would stil want to be in a church, but definitely have the reception somewhere else.Anything else to add about your venue(s)? Nope
Ceremony:
Reception:
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? Inside
Why did you choose it? The church was the church that we belonged to... there was never any question that we would get married there. The reception was at a hotel in downtown Kansas City. The location was great and the ballroom was stunning. We also liked the convenience of it being in a hotel because we had a ton of out of town guests. What did you love and or not love about your venue? I loved everything about both places! The only (teeny tiny) complaint was that the ballroom was on the 12th floor of the hotel, and it was about 100 degrees that day. It was pretty hot up there.Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? The church wasn't too bad (helped that we were members). The reception was pricey, but they took care of absolutely everything. It was worth every penny, in my opinion.
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? I honestly wouldn't change a thing! It was perfect
Anything else to add about your venue(s)? Nope
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? Both ceremony and reception were inside.
Why did you choose it? ceremony was at the church that I grew up in. Our reception venue was actually where we had our senior prom (LOL) and DH wanted to go look at it. We ended up choosing it because the price was right and we loved the space. Plus the owner is the chef, so the food is extrememly important to him, and it was delicious.
What did you love and or not love about your venue? I loved almost everything about it. The food especially! The only downsides were the dance floor is kind of in an awkward spot, but I know it did help people be able to sit and talk at the tables without having to talk over the music. Also they have a second, smaller room, and there was another wedding in there. It didn't really affect anything, I just wish I could have been the only wedding there!
Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? It was budget friendly compared to other places around us, and for what they offered.
Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? They did most for us. We used their centerpieces, and my florist added flowers. They set everything up for us that day, and took care of us while we were there.
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? I would 100% go with it again.
Anything else to add about your venue(s)?
Country Club Christian, at Ward Parkway and 61st. The reception was at the Hilton President.
That is where my sister and cousin got married. My mom and step-dad got married in the chapel to the north of it too! My grandpa went there too.
I looked into the Hilton. I can't remember why we didn't have ours there...
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? Inside
Why did you choose it? The ceremony was at the church we attend. The reception was at a golf and yacht club.
What did you love and or not love about your venue? The reception was a bit far away. And our church isn't the prettiest church.
Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? The church I believe was free because I'm a member. The reception I believe was a fairly good price (but my parents offered to pay for our wedding so we would have been crazy to turn them down).
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? I'd definitely still get married at our church, but maybe do a few more decorations. As for ceremony, I might shop around a bit more for something closer.
Anything else to add about your venue(s)?
Its hard to get a good picture of the inside because its a few different smaller rooms and our wedding was so crowded you couldn't really see the place in any of our pictures. So here are a few that I took when we toured the place before booking. The carpet was replaced with wood floors before our wedding.
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? Both venues were inside. I'm way too paranoid about the weather to ever have anything outside. Also, when you are catholic in order for the marriage to be a catholic marriage you have to get married in a church.
Why did you choose it? The church DH had suggested and it is just exactly what I wanted. We went to a wedding there two years before we got married and it was just absolutely beautiful. I decided to break with tradition because of this church. DH wanted both of our venues to have New Orleans addresses so our reception place was the nicest venue on a budget when you have 300 people.
What did you love and or not love about your venue? I loved how beautiful our church was. I didn't like how strict it was. We had to take a NFP course because the church required it. All the women had to have straps on their dresses. I loved how well organized and how nice of people our reception place was. I would have liked to have a place that was one big room because a few people didn't get to see the important parts because it was separate rooms. I was also a little upset that they didn't add another song to the money dance when there were still people in line to dance with us. I had only requested two songs and they played those two and that was it.
Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? The church was super pricey. The reception place was pretty budget friendly if you consider we had 300 people and it included everything - food, wedding cake, open bar, centerpieces, etc. Phew just looked at the website and it is not so affordable now!
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? Sometimes I wish I had done a smaller wedding but our venues were pretty perfect. If I had an unlimited budget, I would have picked a different reception place. But ours was pretty amazing.
Anything else to add about your venue(s)? Places book up fast around us, especially the good places. I was calling for dates 15 months in advance and the church only had one Saturday night left in June. But I didn't really like the date, but DH was insistent on a June wedding. By the time I came to terms with the date and booked the church, the reception hall had been booked the night before. Then I changed both to the July date. Also, the venues are not at all on my list of wish I would have done differently for the wedding.
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? both - ceremony was inside, reception was outside.
here's a photo that shows the backdrop of the ceremony location
a shot of the ceremony
Why did you choose it? Ceremony was at the church where we became engaged and the church David grew up in. Reception was at David's parents' house in the country.
What did you love and or not love about your venue? The church was not air conditioned, and it was very hot, but we didn't have a full mass so it worked out. I liked being able to do only minimal decorations at both locations to let the natural beauty be the main point.
Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? Very budget friendly. I DIY'd a lot.
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? I would choose the same reception, but David is not religious anymore, so we would probably just be married at the in-laws outside (the catholic faith typically does not recognize marriages not inside a church)
Anything else to add about your venue(s)?
That's so fun! Honestly, our church is one of the things we miss most about KC. Never would have expected that, but we loved it there so much.
Where did you have yours?
Our wedding was at St. Michael's and All Angels Episcopal (may parents church) and our reception was at Californo's in Westport.
Outside/inside venue (or combo)? Both inside
Why did you choose it? The church is my parents and my brother is buried in the courtyard right outside. It was a no brainer because of that. We picked our recpetion main because they had my favorite beer on tap! The people were super nice and the price was right.
What did you love and or not love about your venue? The only thing that I didn't really like was that we had too many people and they didn't fit in the main room. We had to have some sit in another room with the food. It wasn't that big of deal and they do it all the time, but I would have preferred everyone to be in the same room.
Was the venue budget friendly or kinda pricey? Did you do a lot yourself or did the venue do a lot for you? It was fairly buget friendly. I think we paid something like $45 per person for the reception and that included everything. We had some family friends go over in the morning and set everything up. My florist was a friend of my sisters so she helped a ton too.
Would you chose the same one or go with someone different if you were planning today? If I would do it again I think I would have a much smaller wedding. I would still get married at the same church, but I think I would have done a more low key reception in my parents back yard or something. My wedding was really for my mom. She planned the majority of it and still refers to it as her wedding.
Anything else to add about your venue(s)? Nothing about the venue, but I absolutely HATED our DJ. That is the main thing that I would have changed if I could go back and re-do everything.
Church:
Reception:
I don't have my professional pictures at work. These are ones that were uploaded to our photo share site.
Everytime I open this post there is a huge picture of someone's venue across the top
We got married in the Catholic Church. Not much of a choice on that one. I would have preferred an outdoor ceremony, but that's a no go for the Catholics.
This is the best pictures I could find. Sorry it's B&W. The only decorating we did there was to have our bouquet's of peacock feathers at the front:
The reception was at a hall. We looked around a lot but had a pretty limited budget. This hall was new, neutral colours, and allowed us to bring in our own caterer and alcohol which was great for our purposes. We decorated it all ourselves, I had to order Linen's from a party store, etc.
Head table:
Guest Tables:
It also had sort of a coffee shop area with huge windows and a fireplace that was attached to the room we had the reception in that we used for the food service (buffet is the most common around here), and then had tables out there for people who wanted a quieter atmosphere during the dance. I loved that aspect of it.
I was happy with our decisions for the most part. We were able to stick to a budget of $10,000 by doing a lot of it ourselves.
If we were to get married again we always say we would just elope and then throw a big party and save that money for our house or a big trip or something else. Seems like such a waste of a lot of money for one day.
I think that sounds perfect! You should post some "inspiration" pictures!
Not sure Im that far along yet... No idea on colors or anything. We have thrown around the idea of June but until he formally asks and we set a budget/date, im not sure I can do much more