Sorry this took so long to confirm, but we an official date and place for the wedding!
Everyone mark your calendars: June 4, 2011 at the Woodland Country Club in Carmel, Indiana
Dustin and I are leaving for an East Coast road trip today. We are each meeting family and going to see some special friends along the way. This will be Dustin’s first time to DC and New York! We will try to post highlights from the trip while we are away.
After the first day of visiting wedding venues, Dustin and I had a better idea of what we were looking for and what kinds of questions to ask. So day two was set to run a lot more smoothly than day one.
Stop one was supposed to be the library. We thought it would be a great, unique location with lots of settings and picture opportunities. Plus, being in downtown Indy, the library is close to several hotels and lots of attractions for out-of-town guests. However, we ended up spending the time that would have been that appointment with a tow truck.
Bye bye Bessie
After Mom came and picked up Dustin, his mother and I, the day started to get a little better. The delay made the Palomino Ballroom our first stop of the day.
Palomino
The Palomino is a banquet hall and horse barn a little outside of Zionsville. The venue is family-owned and operated. The Palomino started as a catering business by a mother and daughter. The place is a bit in the country, making it a little hard to find (and the GPS didn’t believe the address existed). However, the venue was very nice.
The main ballroom features a large window facing miles of farmland. There was plenty of room for our party size and a wedding ceremony in the same room. The bar is located in a different room connected to the party room. During the ceremony we could have a slideshow or something running on an inside circuit during the reception. The thing about Palomino that struck us the most was the saleswoman. She was absolutely fantastic and full of helpful and creative ideas to make our wedding fun, our style and affordable.
The second stop was the Riverwalk Lodge, located in the Broad Ripple area. A couple friends of mine had their wedding
The Lodge
reception at the Lodge on May 8 (I couldn’t go because I graduated that day). Their pictures looked great, so we thought we’d take a look at the Lodge. The Lodge overlooks a beautiful pond. One side of the venue is windows and glass doors that go out to a terrace area. (In Dustin’s words “It has a cool view.”) The location was nice also because we could have incorporated the Broad Ripple feel into the reception and the rehearsal.
The bridal chamber was also very nice. It was basically a little hotel suite attached to this room. It had plenty of seating room and places to get ready, along with a small kitchenette. There was not an area for the men to get ready or hang out before the wedding.
We were slightly disappointed by the sales staff. We had just come from a place with a fantastic, enthusiastic young woman, and then we came to this place where the woman really didn’t seem like she wanted to “sell” her location. She seemed open to questions and flexible, but just not too enthusiastic. I think enthusiasm from the coordinators and sales staff really adds to the location. I want my coordinator at the location to be just as excited about my wedding as I am, and that should come across from the very beginning.
Woodland
The final stop was the Woodland Country Club, located in Carmel. My uncle is a former member and very good friends with people who coordinate the events at Woodland, so one of the attractions of this place was the family connections and some benefits that come with that.
The country club is very classy (as Dustin says). The entryway and front hall are exquisite, and the venue space has ample room for our party size and a ceremony. Outside, there are a couple spots for pictures with beautfiul backgrounds of the golf course and a pond.
The wedding will be in the evening, so the (extremely fancy) locker rooms would be used for getting ready beforehand. The saleswoman said the men generally wait in the pub and the late golfers buy them drinks while they wait for the ceremony to start. (Dustin really liked this idea.)
One benefit for all these places was that we could a Saturday wedding, like we originally wanted. Almost all of the venues we visited on the first day were booked on Saturdays, so we would have to have a Sunday or weekday wedding. (We talked about doing it on the solstice, but the mothers thought that would be hard on out-of-town guests because it’s on a Tuesday.)
Right now, we’re leaning toward the Woodland Country Club, but we have to check with our officiant to make sure she is OK with the date we reserved before we confirm that.
Yesterday, Dustin, his mom, my mom and I went venue shopping. Since we’re looking at June of next year, we need to pick a venue in the next couple of weeks or we’ll have to move the wedding date to April or August. Indiana June weather is still decent. If we moved it to April, we might get snow, and if we moved it to August, we’ll still be in the dog days of summer.
Coming back to the subject at hand, we all visited five venues yesterday: The Monon Community Center, Mavris, Lumiere Du Corps, the Ritz Charles Garden Pavilion and Blu Falls.
Monon Center front
The Monon Center is located in Carmel right on the Monon Trail (a walking trail that spreads from 10th Street in Indianapolis to 161st Street in Westfield). The community is hidden from the busy traffic on 116th Street and Westfield Boulevard. The venue is quiet. Although, the fitness center and water park might change that, especially in the summer. The community center is on 161 acres of beautiful park land. It’s got a fishing lagoon, skate park, trails and gardens, giving us lots of places to take pictures on the grounds. The banquet hall has a built in sound system and plug-and-play elements. So we could easily plug in an iPod during dinner if we wanted or we could have a slideshow playing on a projector in the room.
Monon Center terrace
The community center is exclusively catered by the Ritz Charles. It’s got places from the men and bridal party to prepare for the big event. The banquet hall has a total of 3, 375 square feet, so it’s plenty of room for our expected number of guests. We were a little worried about the shape of the room because we’d have to do the ceremony at one end of the rectangular room, then the guests in the back couldn’t see. We could have a ceremony outside, which is one way of taking care of this issue. The outside terrace is beautiful. We had discussed doing a cocktail hour on the terrace if we chose this venue.
Mavris banquet room
The next stop was Mavris Arts and Events Center. Mavris was such a unique experience! The building was originally built in 1883 as a grocery distribution terminal. It served as a factory/distribution space for a while, but the current owner bought the place in 1999 and renovated it into a deconstructionist-style banquet venue. It’s got a beautiful view of the Indianapolis skyline from the outside terrace. One unique aspect is that it’s right next to the train tracks. Depending on how we handle this, it could be an interesting aspect or an annoying one. If we had an outdoor wedding and the train came by during the ceremony, we’d either have to wait for the train to pass or turn up the volume and hope the people in the back can hear.
Mavris view
The venue also has an in-house, exclusive caterer who is open to trying ideas we have an fitting them in to one of the packages they offer. The venue also offers a shuttle service, a day-of coordinator and many other services. Dustin and I both really enjoyed this venue because of its unique location, style and atmosphere.
Stop number three was at Lumiere Du Corps. This venue is located in the country near Zionsville, Brownsburg and Lebanon. Not only is Lumiere a wedding venue, it’s also a salon and spa. There are two suites also, so Dustin and I could stay there the night of our wedding instead of worrying about getting to a hotel or back to our home.
Lumiere Du Corps pond
Lumiere has two outdoor chapels. The first is located at the top of a staircase of rocks. The other is like an amphitheater with large pillars surrounding a semi-circular stage. The audience would hear the ceremony through a sound system at both chapels. The venue offers an indoor or outdoor reception area, but the reception areas are completely tied to which ceremonial spot we chose. So, if we liked the amphitheater more, we’d have to have the outside reception area. Mom was put off by the country setting. She was concerned about how far out-of-town guests would have to travel and whether they could find the facility easily.
The fourth stop was at the Ritz Charles’ Garden Pavilion.
Ritz Charles Garden Pavilion
The venue is located right on Meridian Street near 116th Street, so it wouldn’t be difficult for people from out-of-town to find it, and there are hotels right across the street. The pavilion was very nice. It’s basically a glass house located in the middle of a garden. We could have our ceremony in the pavilion with the doors open and still feel like we’re outdoors. Since it’s at the Ritz Charles, the business exclusively caters the location.
Blu Falls outdoor ceremony site
Finally, the last stop was at Blu Falls. Blu Falls is a fairly new venue located outside Pendleton, Indiana. If you’ve never been to Pendleton, it’s a beautiful little town in southern Madison County, only about 20 minutes north of Carmel. From the outside the venue looks like an unmarked church. Inside, though, it’s a beautiful banquet hall. The largest room has a water feature that could be used for pictures or during the ceremony as a little reminder of nature. There’s also an outdoor ceremony area that has a small waterfall in the back. Blu Falls also does their own catering. (In fact, one of their blog posts is a catered event at Mavris.)
By the end of the day, Dustin and I had a good idea of what we liked and didn’t like, and which venues we liked the most. We’re going to look at a couple more places and make a decision, but right now, I think Mavris is my favorite. (I’m still a city girl at heart…) All of us were exhausted after the day— even Hazel.
Hazel in bed
Being a passionate and curious (and lazy) person – read nerd, I can’t help but see opportunities to enhance everyday life with technology that will make it easier. A lot of the time I see a need for something that will make life easier, but I just don’t have the skills required to invent it.
When some really difficult or time consuming task is given to me, I immediately try to come up with a way that I can leverage my skill set to make that task easier for me: hopefully whatever I make will someday make the same task easier for someone else.
Our wedding has presented quite a few of those opportunities. Anyone who has planned a wedding or was even around someone who was planning a wedding knows how difficult and, even more-so, time consuming the planning can be. Fortunately for weddings there is almost an overabundance of tools out there to make wedding planning easier and more efficient. For us, though, there are some aspects of these things that don’t exactly fit what we’re imagining.
A prime example of that is the task of sending, receiving, creating, and tracking wedding invitations, RSVP’s and the current contact information of family and friends. Knowing the problems that arise when dealing with those tasks, I’ve discovered the need for a system that will make all of that easier.
The system that I plan to build will be a web-based application that I can integrate into our blog here that will allow everyone to see our family trees and who from those trees will be attending our wedding. This system will require that I create a digital invitation and RSVP system that is mostly automated. We’ll be able to send out an email and point people to our website to read how we’re planning it and through the same website they will be able to RSVP and view our family trees.
Look for this in the next couple of weeks, since I plan to start it as soon as possible in order to compile a comprehensive list of literally everyone we are related to and all of our friends. There will also probably be Facebook integration.
Sam, Shelley and I went to the Bridal Extravaganza in Zionsville at Lion’s Park today. We were attracted by the opportunity to participate in a cake “dig-in” and a ping-pong ball drop; however, the experience gave us a chance to learn some valuable information about weddings and wedding planning.
While we were there, we won 10% off at Ace Party Rental, which hosted the expo. That will be great when we figure out where we’re having the ceremony and reception, especially if we choose an outdoor venue. The company also rents out chairs, linens and dinnerware, so this should be very helpful. If end up choosing a venue that has all this, we can always pass on the savings to Dustin’s brother and his fiancé.
We also won a personal jewelry consultation and 10% off a purchase from stella & dot, a jewelry vendor. The vendor also included a free party for 20 at Fox and Hound with their prize, so we’ll definitely have to have a shin-dig there this summer.
Finally, we won 10% off the D Package at Cochran’s Catering and Cakes. The package includes our choice of wedding cake with decor of our colors and a cake fountain that appears underneath a tiered cake, punch or a Champagne fountain, sweet n’ sour meatballs, tangy BBQ weenies, tossed salad, choice of salads, relish tray, fresh tray, shredded pork BBQ, finger sandwiches and all the back drops. (I asked, and he said they would substitute for dietary restrictions.) The package also includes the table skirting for the cake & punch tables, cake plates, forks, spoons, basic napkins, punch glasses and white linen table covers.
While 10% doesn’t sound like a lot, every little bit helps when planning a wedding.
We also found a location we’d like to look at called Lumiere, which is like a one-stop-shop for everything weddings. They have outdoor and indoor venues, catering, a spa and more. It’s out in the country, which is nice for Dustin, but it’s also still a modern venue, which will fit our personalities.
We also tried some food from Ghyslain, an art gallery/sanctuary in Zionsville. It’s such a quaint place, but it has such classy style and really good food (we tried tiramisu chocolates. It’s a historical landmark in the heart of Zionsville that serves as an art gallery for Nancy Noel. I thought this might be a good place for a rehearsal dinner.
I met a wedding planner, and I have a phone meeting with her on Tuesday next week to discuss a Do-It-Yourself wedding, and how it’s done. Also we signed up for free dance lessons from Arthur Murray dance studios. I did get a $20 off first enrollment for the dance studio. I really liked the photography by Studio Alive, but I think Dustin and I are still considering asking a friend to do the wedding photography.
Overall, it was a fun learning experience, and I can’t wait to start getting stuff set so we can work on the details.
1930s - 1950s silver beaded purse
Yesterday, Dustin and I (along with his parents and Maddie) went on the hunt for deals at garage sales galore. Despite some threatening weather, we hit several garage sales during the SR 38 sale and we found a few small items. I purchased two vintage purses.
I’m still trying to figure out exactly what brand, year, etc. Dustin and I spent some time looking them up on the Web last night, but we couldn’t find these exact ones. We found a whole bunch of REALLY close matches, but nothing exact. One of the biggest problems we have is they don’t have any tags in them, so the searches have all been extremely vague. I plan to clean these up a little bit then use them somehow in the wedding. Probably as gifts for people in the bridal party or family members. We’ll see. I want the wedding in general to have a unique style that reflects Dustin’s and my style, and I feel like this is a good start.
Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out themes and motifs for our wedding. Currently, the most popular trend is the vintage or country look at weddings. There are some really great ideas out there for doing vintage on a budget. (I’ll write another post devoted to that soon.) I’m not sure this is where Dustin and I are going to do, but we might have some classics mixed in to our modern vibe.
These purses reminded me a few I saw in Salt Lake City’s airport a few weeks ago.
