How we chose our venue!

As I mentioned in the previous post, we finally chose our wedding venue! The Conservatory in St. Charles, Missouri. It's BEAUTIFUL!!

The week we got engaged (back in early July), I bought a local wedding magazine. In the venue section, The Conservatory was at the top of the list. I was AMAZED by the picture, of course, but it looked like it would be way out of our price range so I didn't give it another thought. Plus, I really had my heart set on a destination beach wedding. Well, fast forward a few months... I realized the beach wedding was unrealistic for us, since our wedding budget turned out to be SO low. So we went back to searching for a local venue. Within 24 hours, I had two different friends mention The Conservatory. It's a beautiful garden house, heated in the winter, with plants everywhere... it's a pretty good alternative to an outdoor beach wedding! So I looked at the website with one of my girl friends, we ooh'd and ahh'd over it, but, as I first assumed, it WAS out of our price range. :( Poo. So, I continued to search. I found some other garden houses that were cheaper, but, honestly, THEY SUCKED in comparison!! So I went back to the website, looked at prices again, and noticed... OMG... week days in the winter are half off! Our Monday, February 14th wedding would be $600 instead of $1,200! I decided to show James the website, so, when he got home, I typed in gardenwedding.com... and... he gasped! Yes, my big, strong, tough, manly-man GASPED at the beauty of The Conservatory! It was priceless, and I knew immediately that it would be our venue... assuming the date/time we wanted was open still.

The following day happened to be a Wednesday, which is open house day at The Conservatory! So I grabbed one of my best girl friends, we took a drive to St. Charles, practically DIED when we saw the place in person, and, after learning my date/time was available, I booked it right away!!

Meanwhile, unsuspecting James was at work having a pretty average day. I called him, sounding really disappointed. I told him The Conservatory was booked for February 14th. He sounded totally shot down, and when he started to say "Awww, really," I said "YEAH... BECAUSE I BOOKED IT!!!!!!!" It was a cute moment! :) How could I not book that venue? He gasped!