So me and Aaron got engaged on May 15, 2012 (the day before my birthday :)) and it was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me......I was completely surprised!
After Aaron asked me and I said "Yes, of course!" he said we can go to dinner wherever I wanted...(this is where the "totally me" kicks in lol) I said I wanted to go to In-N-Out, so that's where we went LOL!!
After we told our parents of course and made it "Facebook official" as everyone says, the wedding planning could begin!
The first thing we had to do was come up with a list of people we wanted to invite to the wedding. We decided we didn't want a big wedding because we didn't want to spend our whole reception just walking around thanking everyone for coming when we could be enjoying the reception that we planned. So we decided on 150 people maximum, no more no matter what!
So then when we figured out roughly who those lucky 150 would be, we started the venue search to house all these people for this amazing event in our lives. We didn't want something huge and just NOT us, we knew we wanted small and kind of a country feeling place. But the place had to be very accessible for people that can't get around easily too, like my grandma and others in Aaron's family. We decided it would be smart to have it somewhere close to Brentwood or Ceres or somewhere in between. We picked a few places and made appointments to look at them. The first of these was a winery in Livermore. It was beautiful and we kind of loved the place, but it could only house 100 people (we couldn't cut anymore from our list of 150), the bathrooms were on the second floor with no elevator available just some unsafe looking steps (which my grandmother couldn't even imagine walking up), and it was much much more than I was thinking we would spend on a venue. So we moved on to the next place, which was a little privately owned place down by the river in Waterford. It was really pretty and the price was great, but it was very very hilly (not good for grandma or any elderly person of any kind, I was even having trouble walking up the hills), the bride's room was this tiny shack that wasn't too impressive and the Groom had no room what so ever, the parking lot was an orchard (you parked in between the trees in this orchard), and the driveway was super steep. So we moved on to the next place.
That was the Pageo Lavender Farm. It was beautiful, trees and flat grass everywhere, it had a gravel parking lot, the entrance was right by the blooming lavender field, it had walkways to the get from building to building so no one can trip and fall, the restrooms were kind of off to the side so they are not an eyesore, there was an indoor room for the food area so it isn't taken over by bugs, there was an old grain silo that you can decoratively display your cake in, it had a groom's room (not too big but it would be big enough for the groom and his merry men), it had a patio that was perfectly framed with trees where the ceremony could take place then be converted into the dance floor for the reception, and the bridal suite was amazing and plenty of room for all the girls to get ready and the bride-to-be to relax. It was the perfect place I could feel it, so all we had to do was figure out how to get the money for this perfect place. My mom said that she would contribute a certain amount and we had to figure out the rest between Aaron's mom and us....I thought this was a really generous offer and knew it could be done and we could have a thrifty but beautiful wedding. So we booked this place almost exactly a year to the date we were getting married! We had a place to get married I was so excited. We took our parents out to look at the place almost exactly a year to the date so we knew pretty much what it would look like when we got married. I am so excited that we are getting married there and that I am lucky enough to find Aaron so soon in my life. :)
Just in case you want to check out Pageo Lavender Farm their website is:
www.pageolavenderfarm.com
They also have a gift shop with everything lavender that is amazing!!!
This is just a look at the night time lights (above) and the front of the bridal suite where I will be walking out and down the sidewalk to marry Aaron :) (below)
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