Bridge Blogger Update: Venue Search and Wedding Planner
The venue search can be one of the most challenging elements to planning a wedding. However, when you find the right spot, you often just know — and the location can help shape and direct the rest of your plans.
I have gone to Bride Blogger Marybeth’s venue (keep reading to find out where!) twice in the past week for various events and I can definitely attest that it is one-of-a-kind fabulous!
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After getting engaged I was surprised how quickly we changed course and eliminated destinations in our search for the perfect venue. At first we both loved the idea of having our wedding on the shore in Maryland, I even had my favorite venue already picked out and it was the first place I requested information from. But we quickly realized two things – first, most of our family would be coming from out of town and would have to fly into the DC area and then rent a car to drive a few hours to the shore. Second, the majority of our friends were in DC and any with kids or other obligations may not want to or be able to make the weekend trip. I know everyone says it is our day and do what we want, but what fun would a wedding be without most of our family and friends? So based on those factors and that our whole relationship has been in the DC area we decided DC it was.
We began our venue search with 3 main criteria: 1. No traditional hotel ballrooms, while the ones in DC are very nice it just wasn’t us. 2. An outdoor space, we wanted the opportunity to have at the least an outdoor cocktail hour. 3. A view – if we were getting married in DC we wanted people to know they were in DC. I was shocked how hard it was find to find a venue that fit that description! I expressed my frustration to a friend who had recently gotten married and she suggested the idea of using a wedding planner who would know of all the venues and could help us narrow them down. I had never really thought I would go the wedding planner route – I am pretty organized and like projects, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Between work and school, my free time was limited, my parents are in North Carolina and while my mom would help with planning, her knowledge of DC was limited.
James and I decided a wedding planner was an idea worth exploring, and 10 minutes into our meeting with Jen at SoCo Events , we knew she was the planner for us. When we gave her our list of venue criteria, she quickly listed a few venues we had never heard of and started showing us pictures on her iPad. James was sold because Jen had an iPad, I was sold because after just 10 minutes she understood just what we wanted.
After deciding to work with Jen she took us to our top two venues – Halcyon House in Georgetown and 101 Constitution Rooftop. Halcyon was great, but not quite what we were looking for. When James and I walked out the elevator onto the roof at 101 Constitution we booth new we had found our venue. I think the picture below shows how it exceeds our 3 criteria….
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