Our Venue Part 1: The Budget Constraints

Finding our venue was at first a struggle, but turned out to be one of the easiest wedding decisions we've had to make so far. It was probably around summer of 2007 that I started dreaming of wedding locations around Silicon Valley. Of course, we weren't engaged at that point, and hadn't discussed what we each wanted yet, but I was pretty set on a winery. There were so many beautiful ones, like Clos la Chance Winery in Morgan Hill:


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And Byington Winery in Los Gatos:

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As well as Thomas Fogarty Winery in Woodside:

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However, I soon learned just how expensive the wineries in the Bay Area were! Not only were most in the $8k-9k range for just the rental fee, all required you buy only their (expensive) wine, and some didn't even allow hard liquor.

I did all this research back in 2007, and then tabled it for two years until we got engaged this past spring, at which time I sat down with Mr. Cola and discussed what we both wanted in our wedding. I wanted something elegant and chic, he wanted kegs and pizza. Hmmm. We were not exactly on the same page. I then busted out one of my many sample budgets, and we quickly agreed that the cost for my dream winery locations were just too high. Byington Winery was almost doable, budget-wise, but the ceremony location is up about 100 steps on a hill, which would be impossible for my dad and grandpa to climb, so that was cut from the possibilities too. We were back at ground zero.

Did budget constraints come into play when you were choosing your wedding location?