It’s January and you are booked until November?!
We got engaged in December and while my fiance will tell you that my mother and I started wedding planning the day after we got engaged, I can tell you that it didn’t really start happening until January because of the holidays.
First thing I did was consult my list of invitees (I will admit, I had started that list before he proposed) to see how big of a venue we would need. Mom and Dad added a few people and my fiance added a few and we ended up around 150. And so the search began. We looked at golf courses, wineries, hotels, wedding halls, historic houses, social clubs and my personal favorite, the modern art museum.
We started out thinking that we were going to have a wedding on a Friday or a Sunday because we could get cheaper rates. We threw around the idea of having a wedding brunch, but Dad wasn’t too excited about that prospect, so it quickly was dismissed. The thing that surprised me most was how booked all of the venues were! It was January and we wanted an October wedding. We figured October was a little off season, so we could get better rates. The weather is still pretty nice in California in October, so we thought we still might have the option of an outdoor fall wedding. Boy, were we wrong! I am no longer sure there is an “off season” in weddings and if there is, October doesn’t fall into it. A lot of the venues were booked through November on Saturdays, or there were a smattering of dates available, none of which were in October. Fridays and Sundays were still available, but they were going too. We were told we needed to book soon. It was January!!
I have to admit, this was probably one of the most stressful times for me. You cannot even start the wedding planning without having a place and a date. We went for onsite visits at a few golf courses and wineries. I wanted to try to compare apples to apples, but they do not make it easy. Some places had wedding packages, others were a la carte. Some charged for linens and glassware, others did not. Some let you bring in wine and charged a corking fee, others would only serve their own alcohol at significant retail prices. There were so many differences. How was I ever going to figure this out?