Our Venue Part 2: Redwoods, Bay View, Outdoors, What More Could We Want?

In my last post I left you back at ground zero, with both Mr. Cola and I not on the same page with what we wanted in a wedding location, and all my pre-screened beautiful winery locations rejected because the price tags were just too high.

So I began researching locations yet again, looking at every single posting on theknot.com and herecomestheguide.com, and any other sites I could find, looking for something that met most of our criteria. Mr. Cola wanted something more causal and laid back than the wineries I'd liked so much, and I wanted something with an outdoor ceremony and dinner location, preferably with a view or beautiful surroundings. And it all had to be for under about $5500. Believe me, this is a tall order in the Bay Area!

So after a week or two of research and reaching out to site managers for pricing info, I'd found two locations that could be contenders. The Mountain Terrace in Woodside:

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The Mountain Terrace was only $4100 for the rental with the on site ceremony fee and had a great view of the bay through the redwood trees. It really reminded me of some of our favorite camping spots in Big Sur and at Big Basin Redwood State Park.

.....so from the title of this post (and my profile!), you can probably guess that TMT is the location we picked! But just for the record, I'll talk about the other contender, Bella Montagna, in San Jose:

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Bella Montagna had a great view, and was $5500 for the rental fee (but allowed BYBO, so the cost would have come close to TMT). However, we never even went and looked at Bella Montagna in person. Why, you ask? Well, sometimes you just know. We knew that The Mountain Terrace had everything we were looking for. And with that, I'll leave you with some pretty pictures I took on our visit:


(all pictures taken by me. I MUST have a picture of me swinging with my dress on!)

How many of you have gone with your gut feeling, and just known your wedding location was right for you?