Who, what, when, where, why ...

Do you remember those writing exercises when you were in school when you had to answer those five important questions?

Well, Spencer and I are getting married, which answers the who, what and why!

As everyone knows, a wedding can't happen if there's no date set, or no place to hold the dang thing in! So, first things first, time to set the date.

Confession time: We pretty much had decided on a date a few months before we got engaged.

My family lives far away. Like, across a continent and ocean far. So, we wanted to make it as easy as possible time-wise for them to celebrate with us! Having a wedding in the summer would probably be easiest, but there were a few reasons why this didn't work. First, we wanted to keep our engagement as close to a year as possible. Six months would be too fast - I admit, I'm not the best with handling stress; and a year and a half to two years would be too long. Second, if we decided to wait a bit longer than a year, we would be in direct conflict with my cousin who's getting married in the summer of 2014. Third, my family has a week-long school break around Valentine's Day. Fourth, I'm a winter baby. I may hate the cold sometimes, but I love the beauty of a blanket of snow. And fifth, and the biggest influence on our decision - every year we can escape the cold and go to the beach for our anniversary!

In the end, we decided on February 2014. Please tell me someone else makes endless lists on why their date works for them? Or am I the only crazy one?

Now to choose the where. Spencer's brother got married at a beautiful church downtown - I believe it's the oldest Catholic church in Edmonton. Full of dark wood and candles and history ... Just gorgeous! They had our date open and we booked it easy-peasy.

Isn't it lovely? It's even better on the inside. Image taken from Google.

The reception venue was a tad harder. We sat down one day and made a "short" list of venues we were interested. This list had 10 venues on it. Mostly central - having (hopefully) a lot of out-of-town guests, we wanted to make transportation on the day as easy as possible - but we also had some outliers. And they were mostly hotels as that was one of my dad's requests - again, to make it easier for out-of-towners. I'm also a fan of one-stop-shops for this whole wedding planning process, and hotels definitely offer that option! Spencer and I narrowed down a few due to size or scheduling constraints, then went to view three venues.

The first venue we went to see was the Marriott Courtyard West Edmonton, a newer hotel on (obviously) the West side of Edmonton. We were very impressed by the hotel itself and the catering manager was so nice! However, the dominant colours of the hotel were gold and red - which wouldn't exactly going to go with our colour scheme (spoiler alert: it's navy blue and a green that lands sort of between emerald and lime - descriptive enough for ya?). There were also size issues ... Our lower limit guest list estimate was their upper limit occupancy. The location also had more to be desired. What if there was a blizzard on our wedding day? Driving would be horrible! So ... No. We crossed it off our list. But like I said, the hotel and staff were very nice, so I would definitely recommend a look to other couples who are looking for venues.

The second venue I didn't have the greatest experience with. For that reason, I won't name them - I don't want to make any enemies on the Internet nor colour anyone's opinions. The contact person to book site tours and such was great - prompt responses and she answered all of my questions. However, she was an assistant, and the woman who met us to give us the tour had absolutely no idea who we were and she kind of rushed us through it, which made us feel like we were a horrible inconvenience. Did I want to feel that way when I was considering dropping a bunch of cash on this place? Yeah, no ... The venue itself was okay - nice, but not what I was hoping for. It wasn't a one-stop shop either, with them, you just booked the venue and had to outsource everything else. Long story short (sorry, this was actually long story long), we didn't go with them.

The third (and final!) venue we went to see was the Westin downtown. I was very, very interested in this venue and let me say I was not disappointed! The catering manager is great and open to any question I may have. They take care of the tables, linens (except chair covers), food, beverage, etc. The hotel itself was recently renovated and it's modern with muted colours that will complement our colour scheme. Basically, I'm head-over-heels for our venue and very excited to work with them!

 

Again! Lovely ... Except, I don't forsee palm trees in our decor. 

Pictures taken from www.thewestinedmonton.com.

After we chose the venues, I felt so much better. I'm not a person that easily "rolls with the punches," so having a concrete idea about where our wedding was happening just took the world off of my shoulders. Now to focus on the fun, little details!