Looking for a Venue in San Diego?

[The Martin Johnson House at UCSD]

[This deck was gorgeous.]

[See the haziness in the background? That's the ocean.]

[The view from the porch. No joke.]

I never really found that many venues I liked in San Diego. Don't get my wrong, I'm beyond stoked about the vineyard, and I love the privacy, the accessibility, the large grounds, and the tent. But there really wasn't much competition to the vineyard, the other venues just didn't fit the bill.

But if I were to pick a venue today, The Martin Johnson House would be in the running.

For anyone out there in the San Diego area, this is a gem of a venue. The other night I accompanied the boy to a graduate school party here, and the first thing I thought was "this would be FANTASTIC for a wedding". And lo and behold, UCSD rents it for weddings!

Really beautiful place. We won't be getting married there, but maybe you can. =)

We Found Our Venue

Wow, we've made an actual decision. Like, there's no turning back now or else my deposit is lost and I kinda needed that money decision. Eeeek!!!

After much thought and consideration, we've decided to hold the event in San Diego and have a Chinese banquet in northern California. Hopefully between the two parties we can see all our family and friends. We booked it for July 3, 2010, so that our guests could enjoy fourth of July weekend in San Diego. So without further delay...before there's time to change our minds yet again...

**Trumpets**

Here is our venue.

[All images (c) Orfila Vineyards]

If you've been following the blog, you might remember it as venue #2. Who knew we could have stopped looking after two venues instead of going to eight?

...Did I mention how insanely excited I am?

Are You My Venue? #4-8: The SF Bay Area

Oh boy, was it a long trip of venue scouting.

Some of the questions that I asked while visiting these sites:

- how would you suggest separating the unisex bathroom for my more traditional guests?

- do people usually add flowers or ribbons to the urinals to discourage people from peeing in them?

- no parking? Could you give me an average cost of shuttle buses?

- can we play this piano? There was a rental fee for the piano at the other site.

- so, I would get married on this lawn, and there would be another wedding on that lawn?

- is there a lot of turkey poo in the meadow? How about duck poo?

To keep this as quick as possible, I'm going to list the pros and cons of each place we visited.

If you are interested in any of these venues and would like to know more, please leave a comment and I can PM you!

#4 The Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley, CA

Pros

-Both of us liked this venue. It was quaint, cute, and could fit all of our guests.

-The fee goes towards a good cause.

-Beautiful architecture. Very SF Bay Area.

-Reasonably priced with chairs and tables (woohoo chairs!)

Cons

-What parking?

-I wasn't too impressed with the ceremony area, which I had hoped would be grass instead of concrete.

#5 UC Botanical Gardens, Berkeley, CA

Pros

-OH EM GEE--I loved it here! The ceremony area is so so pretty and feels completely secluded. I could just imagine someone playing acoustic guitar as we walked through the forest of trees to the middle of the grove. Absolutely beautiful.

-We heart Berkeley like organic jam hearts soy butter.

Cons

-I didn't really feel like asking a friend to drive a van up and down the Berkeley hills so we could save cash on a shuttle van. Yeah, you guessed it--very little parking.

-For such an amazing spot, only 100 people could attend. We'd have to break some hearts in order to keep it that small.

[Le sigh. Image from weddingmapper]

#6 Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

Pros

-We'd be supporting a good cause.

-The Golden Gate National Park--freakin' gorgeous!

-Building is most definitely unique--nothing standard about it.

-Local, organic catering in-house
-There was a beautiful piano that came with the site fee in the ceremony room. I already had dreams of walking down the aisle to a piano...here was my chance!

Cons

-The bathroom. The boy hated the bathroom set-up. It is a rather old building, so the urinals did not work and the plumbing was a little leaky. Also, it was a unisex bathroom, so we would have to put up a curtain. I could just hear my parents complaining about that on my shoulder while we were on the tour.
-The boy just didn't like the venue at all and put it last on his list.

[The urinals look super charming in this photo by Marla Aufmuth via Snippet and Ink. The boy just wasn't digging it.]

#7 Dunsmuir Estate, Oakland, CA
I can't really write pros and cons for this one. There were a lot of things that rubbed me the wrong way. Enough said.

#8 The Brazilian Room in Tilden Park, Berkeley, CA

Pros
-The cost! This was the cheapest venue we saw.
-Very pretty rustic venue with a lot of foliage and flowers
-Quaint and cute
-Again, we heart Berkeley like flip-flops heart fleece sweaters.

Cons
-Parking woes.
-The drive through the winding hills got me a little car sick.
-We'd only be able to fit 120-130 with a dance floor. Bummer dude.

I'm so lucky to have such a patient partner who got dragged to all of these places. Let's hear it for the boy, and his willingness to drive all over the Bay Area and pay the $6 toll at the Golden Gate Bridge! Woohoo! **Applause**

I bet you're thinking, man Mo, I can't believe I read through this whole thing and you STILL don't have a venue. Well, lucky readers, stay-tuned for what we decided...

We're Going Places

A lot of places actually. In about a week, I'm taking some vacation days and we're heading up north to the San Francisco Bay Area to take a look at some venues, meet a possible photographer, try on dresses and eat a bunch of cupcakes...y'know, just in case we DO decide to have it in the Bay and need to know what four of the local cupcakeries have to offer to us. Mmmhmm. You can probably guess whose idea it was to go to four bakeries.

Anyway, it's a lot to accomplish in four days (and a lot of driving) but I am so excited. I'm excited to be close to finally deciding where we are going to get married. Because I still have the dilemma of what city to have the event.

Do we have it in the city that we currently live in, or the city where all of our family lives? I would say more than 75% of our guest list lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is a good one hour plane ride or eight hour drive from our itty bitty apartment in San Diego.

Do we make it convenient for us, or convenient for them? And if we made it convenient for us, would everyone hate us for being selfish and making them spend the weekend in San Diego?

I'll probably take a tip from the Gilmores and do a pro/con list, but in the meantime I'm just going to enjoy all of the pretty places we are going to visit and seeing my family for the first time since the engagement.

Here's where we are headed:

1. The Outdoor Art Club

[Photo from Here Comes the Guide]

2. The UC Berkeley Botanical Garden

[Photo by Don Prichard Photography via UC Botanical Gardens]

You can see it in all its glory here.

3. The Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate

[Photo from Here Comes the Guide]

4. The Headlands Center for the Arts

[Photo by Once Photography]

[Photo from the Headlands Center for the Arts by Ann Hamilton]

You might recognize this venue from here.

5. The Brazilian Room

[Photo from Here Comes the Guide]

You may have seen the Brazilian Room here.


Has anyone gotten married or attended a wedding at any of these venues?

Are You My Venue? #3: Ponte Winery

[Images from Ponte Winery]

I think today was the first day I have encountered in which wedding planning was not fun. I suppose it had to happen at some point.

Where to begin? First, we missed our site visit appointment at Ponte Winery. Due to poor planning on my part and the boy sleeping in later, we missed our appointment time. I called the venue several times asking if 30 minutes later would be a-okay, but unfortunately no one had checked their voicemail. So when I arrived, I was out of luck. The coordinator at Ponte was very nice about it and told me she was very sorry that they couldn't squeeze me in, but that I would have to look around the venue myself.

This normally would not have given me the headache that it did, but Ponte Winery is in Temecula, a good hour away from La Jolla. So we spent 2 hours driving today for a quick 15 minute walk-around the vineyard. I did my best "it's cool, we're totally fine, totally" face when the coordinator gently told me that no one could meet with us.

At this point I was kicking myself about not planning better, and getting increasingly frustrated with the boy. $%^&*#!!!

Anyway, enough of my silly trivial drama--despite the fact that we didn't get to meet with a coordinator, I am still glad we got to see Ponte Winery in person...because it is not the right match for us. BUT I can see how its benefits--an all inclusive package (WITH chiavari chairs,) on-site coordinators, ample parking, an outdoor ceremony and permanent tent--would make a great wedding.

We're taking it out of the running for the following reasons:

1. The drive is way too far. For some reason, a one hour drive in the Bay Area doesn't seem like much, but when you're driving in North County San Diego, all of the sudden that drive seems super.duper.long. Since a majority of our guests will be coming from out of town, the extra one hour drive just seems totally inconvenient. We wouldn't want them to fly and then have to drive another hour to our wedding.

2. It costs a bit more $$$ in comparison to other venues.

3. It just felt too big and commercial, and I was hoping for a more secluded, intimate ceremony and reception. There were a ton of people there, including two tour buses, and I just didn't envision a whole gaggle of people on site during my wedding day. We're quiet people who enjoy quiet places.

Three down, five to go. We have a whole half week planned in March in which we'll be parading around the SF Bay Area looking at venues, so I'm pretty sure I'll be all venued out by the time I roll around the last place, probably going crazy and babbling about bar options, chairs, and the earliest time we can arrive to set up.

Are You My Venue? #2: Orfila Vineyards

[The {permanent} tent all lit up with globe lanterns.]

[The ceremony site overlooking the vineyard and mountains.]

[You can also have tables set up under the grape arbor, which I think looks very pretty. And, how great are those pumpkins??]

[Here you can see the dance floor and the chivari (chiavari? shi-vahr-ee?) chairs that can be rented. The boy actually cracked me up during the venue appointment by asking "What are Chee-uh-vahr-ee chairs?"]

[All photos (c) Orfila Vineyards]

Today was the second venue that I visited and the boy (yay!) came with me. We headed north to the Orfila Vineyards in Escondido, just minutes down the road from the Wild Animal Park. I think we chose an unfortunate day to visit, because it had just rained so the grounds looked a little mucky and the sky was grey. BUT we did have a great appointment and had lots of photos to look at so we could envision what wine country would look like in June. It would look gorgeous.

There are a lot of positive aspects of this venue: 1) the tent where the reception would be held is permanent. It comes with the site fee, which is pretty reasonable in comparison to other places I've seen online. 2) the site fee also comes with valet parking (wheeee!) 3) they already have rental packages to choose from, so we would not have to search for an outside rentals company. 4) the bar quote is pretty reasonable, and they understood that 50% our guests would not be drinking. 5) Emma, the event coordinator who gave us a tour, was so nice and answered all of our questions. She didn't balk when I asked more specific $$ questions and she was just very relaxed and made us feel at ease. 6) the boy liked the pinot he tried.

And then there's the bad: 1) I would really like to have the option to choose my own caterer, but Orfila, like every other venue in town, has a list I have to choose from. 2) It is 30 miles inland and may be very hot in the summer. I don't want the guests to melt during the ceremony.

3) This is a concern for all San Diego venues that I did not mention for the Darlington House. Since we are from N. California, everyone we know still lives up north. Therefore, we'd be making everyone, perhaps 90% of our guests, travel just for our wedding.
How badly do we want it in San Diego? And, would people actually show up to our wedding if we had it in San Diego? Would everyone hate us for having to fly down south for the weekend? Is it selfish to make a majority of our guests come to us?

Bottom line, Orfila Vineyards is a very pretty venue and we liked our meeting with the event coordinator. We've got five more venue appointments (holy cow) so this is definitely on the 'maybe' list.

The boy told me immediately after the appointment that he would be very happy if we had our wedding there. We shall view more venues and see.

Are You My Venue? #1: The Darlington House

I took advantage of my 4 day week by visiting my first venue (!!!) in La Jolla--Darlington House. Darlington House is a historical site and is owned and operated by the Social Service League of La Jolla. The rental fee for weddings goes towards their organization, which provides housing and meal support for senior citizens. This is a big plus for me, because I'd really like to be supporting a worthy cause.

So what did I think of my first venue outing?

In a word, it was darling. Pun intended. It is a cute, charming white house ONE BLOCK from the beach. It has a lot of vintage details that are absolutely beautiful. The wallpaper for instance--of my goodness, the wallpaper! I didn't realize how excited I could get about WALLPAPER. Funny enough, my favorite wallpaper in the house were in the bathrooms.

What? Fabric backdrop? Who needs one when we can go take pictures in the awesome bathroom!

Unfortunately, there are the drawbacks: 1) No parking=valet service=$$ I would like to spend elsewhere. 2) I would have to provide all rentals. 3) And use their preferred catering list. 4) Things need to start shutting down at 9:30 because it is in a residential area. 5) It is indeed charming and pretty. But I felt like the wedding I envision, something colorful, playful, and whimsical, would be better suited in a park or big grassy lawn rather than a historical site. What do you think?

It is of course the first of many, and if I need to jog my memory, I took all of these pictures of the site. If you plan to get married in San Diego, I highly recommend visiting Darlington House.

And now here's a sampling of the obsessive picture taking extravaganza I had there:

[Darlington House is located in La Jolla, 15 minutes from our apartment, a hop and skip away from the beach]

[This is the front entrance where guests would arrive.]

[There were three main patio areas which all had beautiful Spanish tiling, colorful details, and flowers and fruit blooming. I spotted this lemon tree in the corner]

[This is the largest patio area where the reception would be held.]

[This gate connects the ceremony area to the reception area.]

[The Egyptian Pond--super charming, isn't it?]

[This is where the ceremony would be held. Isn't that art piece on the wall killer?]

[An up close shot of the killer art piece]

[The door frames had these scalloped edges that kinda make me drool because of how pretty they are.]

[Plates hung inside the house near the kitchen.]

[Let's go upstairs, shall we?]

[Where the boy would get pretty.]

[Where I would get pretty.]

[Le sigh.]

[This is a great example of the little details that make up this house's charm. These were the knobs in the bride's dressing room and were just too pretty not to admire.]

[Exhibit A of awesome wallpaper]

[Exhibit B of awesome wallpaper]

[Exhibit C of awesome wallpaper]

[Exhibit D of awesome wallpaper]

[A detail of the Spanish tiles that are all over Darlington House.]

PS: For some eye candy, check out Leigh Miller's blog with recent photos of Darlington House.