I guess with wedding seasons slowly coming to a close, it makes me think of last year, and my wedding. I never did blog about the wonderment of it, and the insanity. One cannot understand how truly stressful a wedding can be until you yourself go through it.
It takes a lot to make a wedding work, when you have people always saying what they think or how they feel, when in reality that's just how people are, but it's annoying when you have a vision for your wedding day, and some just don't get that vision. If you're kind like I am, you prove to these people that what you want will work, and if you've done your homework, and know yourself, then you've got it all figured out.
When it comes to most weddings especially those on a budget you can't ever EVERYTHING, so you have to make choices of what's important to you at the time. People wonder why we choose Orcas Island to get married since it was such a far a way place, there were many thoughts and decisions that were centered around that choice. To explain that choice, I need to explain one of the main reasons we choose the venue that we did.
Some little girls dream about their weddings from the time they've very small, as did I, so there's that part of the mix, throw in the fact that I grew up spending a least part of my summers in Chippewa Falls Wisconsin where my dad's from. My Grandparent's had several bridal stores, and even when I was small would send my dress up clothes from the back of the store, including bridal gowns, bridesmaids dresses, hats, you name it. So I spent my childhood in a great many senses surrounded by the bridal industry, and one summer my aunt got married back in Chippewa, and I saw that whole experience, and for the record someone else started dancing on the tables first, no one remembers that night right. :-)
The other part of the story to add to the reason we choose the Orcas Hotel was growing up until I was about twelve, I had the privilege of my parents owning old homes and restoring them, filled with antiques. There was one particular house that they owned that many weddings of mine were planned, some by my Mom, and my Aunt Brita without my knowledge, until I was much much older, some were planned together. This house was amazing, it was a brick Tudor from the 1930's or 40's with manicured lawns, and an apple orchard. Needless to say when you spend a great deal of your childhood with the perfect venue already decided, it's hard to find one that fits the bill, and is vintage enough. So I guess being exposed to the many things that I was growing up, I developed quite a taste for what I wanted my wedding to be, and it was not going to be just any wedding.
When I started planning my wedding, I worked through so many different ideas, originally the idea of a winter came through, but the only problem we needed snow to make it work, and it never really seems to snow in Western Washington, and any venues that worked of worked during that time of year were out of our price range, and not right for my vision.
I wanted something that was very English Country Garden much like something out of a Brambly Hedge book, stories I'd grown up on as a child and loved. We'd booked other venues, and thought they would work, but somehow we found some error, and they didn't fit. By an act of something higher Matt kept going back to Orcas Island to find venues, maybe it providence that lead us there, but I did one last search, and found the hotel, emailed, and found the price was something we could do. Now keep in mind there were three things that I HAD to have at the wedding, the venue had to be vintage, which limits you in Washington, and couldn't feel cold or industrial, it had to Victorian like, and having a hotel that was built in 1904, was perfect. It wasn't big, but it something out of Brambly Hedge book, but sadly the mice didn't wear clothes. There had to be a tent at the wedding, one of those white lawn tents, and it couldn't be stuffy.
We made the choice to choose that venue because nothing else was right, and we searched for months, so the choice was that it was ok that it was far away, because it was perfect for us.
Everything else was just icing on the cake, including an amazing arch that we found and decorated, the disasters of the first cake on the ferry,( which looking back is pretty funny, and we got a replacement), the roses and calla lilies were beautiful, the eyelet lace lanterns in the tent for dinner fit perfect although a pain in the butt to hang I hear, the food was good. Everything had to be centered around the venue so the theme was vintage, and whimsical, and even my wedding dress and the bridesmaids had to match that theme, and having lanterns for the bridesmaids instead of flowers, and pink everywhere!
The day of anyone's wedding is a pain,stressful and full of hard work, and it was insanely hot that day. Running errands, getting hair and makeup done, trying to get people where they need to be at the correct times, but it all turned out great. And I loved it all, including the pinata, and the candy buffet, and the ferry ride over to the island was amazing because it felt like we were away from everything, and then the day after the wedding it rained so much so that with a fire ban, and that much rain it wasn't fun to stay camping so we canceled our trip and went to Montana instead, where we almost died trying to get a ghost town. Eventful Honeymoon!!!
