Choosing a Venue: South Bay

Hi Guys! Welcome back to part two of my venue hunt. As you may recall, John and I were pretty stuck on the City Club in San Francisco for our dream Art Deco wedding, but as we got more and more educated about weddings, we began to realize that the little costs were going to add up to put this venue outside of our price range. We looked aroud the North Bay some, but found that venues near us didn't tend to be the style we had in mind and were, in general, very expensive. With that in mind, we decided to look around the South Bay some. I went to high school in San Jose and grew up near the East Bay/ South Bay border, so this area has meaning to me, and some of my close friends still live in the area. We drove down one day and went to the Bay Club, a health club that also hosts weddings in its facilities, and then drove to downtown San Jose and toured a bunch of lovely, historic hotels in that area, hoping that one would have a great ballroom with a bit of an Art Deco feel.

By this point in time, we had already accepted that nothing was going to look as classically Art Deco as the SF City Club, so our focus had shifted on finding a pretty space that would lend itself to that type of decor, typography, etc... and would work for what we had in mind. San Jose would be a great option since the San Francisco and San Jose airports are nearby, and downtown San Jose would have worked out perfectly because of all of the hotels in the area for our out of town guests! Here's an overview of what we found.

The first stop of the day was the Bay Club in Santa Clara. The informational packet they sent us before the meeting was promising, price-wise, and they venue looked neutral enough. Upon arrival, however, John and I pretty quickly ascertained this was not going to work for our vision. The building looked very late 70's/ early 80's in a clay tile and unfinished wood sort of way. I was reminded of Epcot- always a good association, but not what we were going for! The inside of the building had a little stream with a lot of vegetation around it going down the center, with wooden walkways on either side.

The Stream...

Off to the left was an area that they used for the reception, with a lower level nearer to the stream that was used for the ceremony.

Reception Space

Off to the right were hallways leading to the club; apparently they put up large dividers so that you can't see that area when an event is going on. I could see this venue being great for someone who wanted a kind of tropical, natural wedding while still being indoors, and it would have worked a lot better with our budget, but it just wasn't what we wanted.

Ceremony Area; they put up dividers so you can't see the opposite wall/ walkway

Our next stop was the Hotel De Anza. This is an historical hotel in downtown San Jose. The menu sounded really good, and the woman we met there was very nice.

This location looked like it would fit with our budget as well. The ceremony and reception would have taken place on their patio, which they flip during cocktail hour which is held in the hotel lounge. John liked this option, but I wasn't as crazy about it; the patio was fine, but nothing about it really spoke to me personally, and I didn't like the idea of having such a small amount of space. The lounge for cocktail hour would still be open to the public, so between that and using the same area for the ceremony and reception, I just didn't think the event would have a nice flow. The lounge and exterior had a great period feel, but the patio looked a bit Mediterranean.

Ceremony/ Reception space

They did mention that they had live jazz on weekend nights, though, which would have been such a great afterparty; after the receptions, guests could either go up to their rooms or stay and relax in the lounge, which would have been a nice way to extend the event at no cost.

Lounge 

I love me some good live jazz, so I was really into the idea of using the De Anza as an afterparty spot if we decided on a location in San Jose.

After the Hotel De Anza, we wandered downtown San Joseand went into the Hilton, which was much too modern for our event; it was decorated in Chihuly style glass and bold primary colors.

After that, it was time for food. We passed on the provocative pho.

Enlarge for double-entendre that is more like a single-entendre

Instead, we went to Johnny Rockets and enjoyed milkshakes!

Next, we went into the Fairmont, which was lovely but lacked personality. If we had just been hosting a reception, it may have been a contender, but they wanted to put is in one meeting room for the ceremony, another for cocktail hour, and a third for the reception, and all three looked nearly identical. The man who helped us here was a bit condescending, too. We were walk-ins, so it was really nice of him to accomodate us, but I was really turned off by the way he spoke to me.

From there, we walked over to the Sainte-Claire, another historical hotel.

The Sainte Claire

The Sainte-Claire was beautiful, and the catering was all handled by Il Fornaio, a small Italian restaurant chain. John and I both really liked this venue. The ceremony space, a glass-enclosed atrium, was one of his favorites that we saw in our search.

Ceremony Space

Cocktail hour would spill out of that space (which has a built-in bar in the back) into a really lovely hallway, and then the reception takes place in the meeting room on the ground floor.

Cocktail Hour Hallway

Ballroom for the reception

The lobby had painted leather ceilings, and the details of the space were just spectacular.

Lounge off the lobby

One drawback was that the hotel was undergoing a transition in owners, as it was being bought out by a larger chain (I want to say Hyatt?). Because it is a national landmark, the look of the hotel could not have been changed drastically, but policies and management may have changed from when we booked to when the wedding occurred. Also, when we ran the numbers, we realized that this was going to be one of our pricier options. Of course!

After that, we drove over to Santana Row in San Jose to see the Hotel Valencia.

Their pricing and menus both looked great, so we decided to check it out. It was very modern and sleek with an Asian aesthetic. It kind of felt like a club inside... It was incredibly dark. Awkwardly so. It was too dark for me to take any interior pictures.

Outdoor courtyard. There's a terrace up here somewhere that is used as a ceremony space!

And then we found a bar that looked like it had been airlifted out of Vegas, so... That wasn't really helping the Hotel Valencia's case. It's a neat place, but would absolutely not work for what we have in mind. However, their buffets sounded amazing! I want to go to somebody else's wedding there. And eat a lot.

It was a long day, but we got a lot of great information and saw some really inspiring spaces! I think this was the first day where we were able to let go of the SF City Club, and we also got some neat ideas about how a less specific venue could work with our vision. I'll show you guys the rest of the places we toured soon!

Choosing a Venue: SF/ North Bay

Well, we did it! We chose a venue and set a date. We aren't getting married until June of 2015, so we have some time still, but I feel good knowing the "where" and the "when". Finding a venue was harder than I thought it would be! We looked at a TON of different locations within a two hour radius of where we live. We almost immediately ruled out locations in Wine Country, our home; everything is so expensive! So, we actually started our search in San Francisco, before taking a quick look throughout Sonoma County. I'll document that leg of the search in this post, and tell you some about other venues we scouted in the rest of the Bay Area in a later post. Overall, the venue hunt was a lot of fun, but it was also much more difficult than we thought it would be. It was really difficult to find a place that worked with our budget, our theme, that would be workable for our out of town guests, and most importantly: that we both liked. There were a couple of venues that John really liked that I was lukewarm on, and vice versa.

The day we got engaged, we actually went to look at a venue that was PERFECT. It was the San Francisco City Club, which used to be the social rooms for the Pacific Stock Exchange.

The Building Lobby

 It was designed in a lavish Art Deco style, and very quickly became, quite literally, the Platonic ideal of all venues in our mind. It wouldn't take much decorating, would feel like our guests had stepped back in time, and was exactly what we had wanted without even knowing it existed. However, it turned out that it wouldn't work for our budget. Because it was the first place we looked, we weren't prepared to factor in service fees, tax, and alcohol into base prices, and it sounded like on a week day it would have been reasonably priced for us! Once we started adding everything up though, we realized that even if we could make it work on our budget, after food and venue fees we would have very little left over, and would probably end up going over budget, something we absolutely do not want to do.

Ceremony Space

Diego Rivera Mural

Reception Space

 Add to that the fact that we would have had to cut the guest list nearly in half, and we decided it wasn't worth it. We don't want to go into debt for the wedding, and we didn't want to feel guilty and stressed about the whole thing. It was a lovely dream and it has been difficult for me to put it aside completely, even though I know it would have caused us a lot of stress and upset had we decided to "splurge" on it. It also would have been more expensive and difficult for our family, who will be traveling from out of state and are not used to navigating big cities. However, most couples have to compromise on many aspects of their wedding, and I do not regret our choice.

We looked at a lot of options within Sonoma County as well, trying to see if we had missed something. We moved away from looking at wineries, which weren't really our style, and started focusing on trying to find hotels or event centers that had a classic look that would lend themselves to the Art Deco theme. Most of the places we saw were very "California/ Mission/ Modern", in true Wine Country fashion. Nine brides out of ten at work tell me they are doing a rustic-vintage-country theme, and I am beginning to see why. Other than wineries, our venue choices were barns, fields, gardens, and a handful of hotels.

We did seriously consider a couple of spaces up here, including the local Hyatt. The Hyatt would have been really convenient for guests, and they had an absolutely beautiful venue space with a huge outdoor fireplace. 

Ceremony Space

However, we didn't like the room that they would have put us in. It was cramped, and we didn't have enough guests to get bumped into the larger room (which would have swallowed our group). Plus, the colors in the conference rooms were overwhelming; everything was sage green with burnt orange accents. The coordinator showed us photos of previous weddings saying "and here's one with a white and purple theme, this couple used blush and taupe, this couple did yellow and purple..." and all I could see was green and orange, green and orange. Not what we wanted. If we hadn't wanted to decorate much and had loved green and orange, it would have been a great fit; the light fixtures, carpeting, etc... all had a lot of personality, they just weren't the style we were going for.

The larger, nicer room... But the smaller one had the same wall color/ carpet/ light fixtures, etc...

The outdoor reception option was lovely, but once again, not exactly our style; John and I don't even like patio seating at restaurants, so 6 hours outside (and in June, where temperatures at night can easily dip down into the 50's) did not appeal to us.

Madrona Manor was another venue we took a peek at that was beautiful, but not our style. It is a lovely old Victorian house painted yellow surrounded by gardens. It would have suited itself to a garden theme really well, but John and I didn't see any opportunity to bring any glamour into the mix. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of this venue... But if you're considering a Wine Country wedding, it was beautiful and worth looking at! It just wasn't a good fit for us.

The Sonoma Fairmont was my favorite venue that we looked at our way, although it was even more expensive than San Francisco City Club. It was an old California Mission Revival style hotel with a large social lobby, impeccable grounds, and little villas of clustered guestrooms, something you could imagine existing in 1930's Old Hollywood, but it still wasn't the style we ideally wanted. They had a meeting room in the main hotel buiding as well as a tent on the grounds that they use for wedding receptions.

Reception room all set up for a meeting

The empty tent

It would have been a pain for out of town guests as well; there is no major airport conveniently located to us, and the Fairmont itself is a fairly pricey hotel- we had to pay $20 to park there just to walk the grounds- but it was a really beautiful setting. We didn't seriously entertain it as a venue since if we were going to spend that kind of money on a wedding, it would have been at the City Club, but it has gotten me daydreaming about a romantic weekend excursion...

Well, there are the highlights from the first few venues we looked at... There were a few other stops around Sonoma County, but these were the most noteworthy! Next up, I'll be posting about our adventures in the South Bay, East Bay, and Sacramento, before telling you where we finally booked. Until then!

Man-gagement Ring

Believe it or not, I didn't see a man wearing an engagement ring until only about two years ago. Of 

course, I'm sure I had seen engagement rings and assumed they were wedding bands, but I didn't encounter one for certain until about two years ago. I came home and told John that one of my engaged male classmates was wearing an engagement ring, which I thought very novel. He said he'd seen it before and liked the idea. 

When we began talking about getting engaged, I asked John if he wanted an engagement ring and he said yes, so as we were having my rings sized, we picked one out for him, too. He enjoys wearing it; we bought an inexpensive ring from Amazon (comparable to some $200 rings we saw in local stores... Seriously guys, check out Amazon) with the understanding that he could pick out another one later if he wants. He was nervous about getting used to wearing a ring, and I think he liked that by the time we get married it will be second nature to him. 

We've gotten some criticism for his choice to wear an engagement ring. I'm learning that it is impossible for people to keep their opinions to themselves when it comes to engagements, weddings, and marriage, so being questioned on this decision should come as no surprise. It's non-traditional in our part of the world, and John and I both understand that, but I love the decision. It makes me feel less like I am being purchased with a ring, less like my ring is a symbol of becoming someone else's property. In a less extreme way, it makes it feel more "fair"; we are both promised to one another, and we both wear an outward symbol of that commitment. 

I think my favorite part about John wearing a ring is that it is something that brings us together. We often talk about how exciting it has been to wear our rings, and how much we've enjoyed showing them to curious friends and family. I love that this is an experience we've been able to share. 

What do you guys think about engagement rings for men? Do you like the idea? 

The Ring(s)

I have two engagement rings. I'm not ashamed to say this, although I know it is non-traditional. Eventually, I hope to have three: my current two rings as well as one that I picked out myself. I've gotten some pretty unpleasant reactions to my ring; people who don't understand why I'd accept something that wasn't brand new and 100% what I would choose if I had all the freedom in the world, and people who think it's ridiculous that I have an heirloom ring from BOTH sides of the family, instead of just using one or the other. You can't please all the people all the time.

My mom's set

When John and I started talking about getting engaged, we realized one of the factors that kept us from moving forward with it sooner was the fear of the expense. It seemed so frivolous to put money towards a piece of jewelry when we are a young couple starting out on our lives. And, as backwards as this may sound, we would rather put the money towards the experience of a wedding right now than a rock. I've never been fixated on nice jewelry, although I do wear a lot of costume jewelry, and the idea of putting a small car on my hand was overwhelming. John told me he had his great aunt's ring that he had been thinking of proposing with, but wanted to make sure I was ok with not having "my own" ring. I realized I could probably use my late mom's ring as well, and we decided that using a family ring was the way to go. When both families wanted us to have the rings, it became really hard for me to decide between the two; my mom's ring had so much meaning to me, but could not be un-soldered from her wedding band without being re-set, and John's great aunt's ring was more my taste, so we had both sets resized and I switch between the two.

John's family ring

Sometimes I wish that I had the opportunity to pick out something that I felt suited my (very large) hand better or reflected my personality, and I won't lie, as someone working in the wedding industry I see a ton of HUGE rocks and wonder if people (especially clients) look at my ring negatively because it is smaller. It's not even that I prefer the look of a larger stone; I don't even particularly care for diamonds in general. But it's hard not to get sucked into that way of thinking; I see huge diamonds surrounded by more diamonds every day at work or on Facebook, and those rings always get more oohs and aaahs than mine. I have to remind myself that my rings are valued on a different, more personal scale that near-strangers can't understand; they represent family history, and the loved ones who can't be with us to celebrate this moment. The rings represent two families coming together and supporting our decision to get married. They do not represent a man "purchasing" me with a piece of jewelry that he put his life savings towards. More importantly, they represent our shared values; choosing a solution with more meaning behind it than money, something that John and I are already struggling to uphold with our wedding planning. John and I decided that at some point in the future when the money isn't quite so dear to us, we might pick out a new "engagement" ring (and even then I can almost guarantee that it won't be the monetary equivalent of a new car!), but for now I love looking down at either of my rings and knowing they symbolize our families' love and support, and our desire to start our lives together sooner rather than later.

I respect all couples' decisions when it comes to rings, whether they choose to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a ring or to not exchange rings at all. If a couple has the money for a large diamond ring, then more power to them! My problem is with a society that tells couples their engagement or marriage isn't worthwhile unless they are willing to drain their bank account for a ring, or that tells women it is ok to demand something beyond their partner's means.

A Little About Me

Hello Everyone! Welcome to Otherwise Engaged, my wedding planning blog. I've been blogging in some form or another for years now, so when I became engaged it felt only natural to document the journey on a blog! I am hoping that this will end up being a good way for me to keep track of my thoughts and share my ideas with my friends and family, but I also hope that I will get some great ideas and feedback from the blogging community as well!

About Me: 
I'm a grad student studying English Literature, and I'm working as a bridal consultant right now. What do I do as a bridal consultant? Mostly, I help brides pick out their wedding gowns. I also help guide women in their tuxedo and bridesmaid dress choices, as well as coordinating rental orders, so I end up helping put together place settings and table linens as well. My store works with a lot of vendors and hosts an expo, so I am really lucky in that I already know a lot of great vendors and have an idea of what planning a wedding will be like. Of course, having an idea and doing are very different things! A few of my hobbies are represented on my other blogs, but I love to read, sew costumes, and play with makeup.

About My Fiance: 
My fiance's name is John! We met in a thoroughly modern fashion- we are a product of online dating. We met about three and a half years ago online and, as they say, the rest is history. John owns his own video production business and also does some I.T. consulting. His hobbies include finding new ways to brew coffee, building PCs, playing video games, and film. He spends hours each week staying caught up in what's happening with technology.

As A Couple: 
We have some really fun (to us) shared interests! We are both total nerds; John loved Star Wars for years before I met him, but I opened him up to Star Trek and now we are both pretty passionate about that; we even went to a Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas together about a year after we met! We also love Disney theme parks; our first trip together was to Disneyland, which we planned after just four dates. I think we were testing each other- luckily we both passed. We are both really big into space and history, and love nothing better than cuddling and watching a good documentary together. Another overlap of our interests is our curiosity with Art Deco style and architecture. It is this interest that became the catalyst for the style of our wedding, since it's the perfect overlap of our aesthetics and reflects both of our personalities.

So far we don't have any firm plans, but we are hoping to set a date for June 2015 just as soon as we decide on a venue. We have a few more venues we'd like to explore, but we're not quite there yet.

Thanks for reading!