A Venue Update

Mr. C and I are getting married at Cloverleaf Farm a relatively new venue that has only hosted a few weddings thus far. Actually, its very first wedding was just in November but we booked them in August before they had even finished renovating the property. There was a lot of work to be done--a barn to clean up and repair, painting in the house, a bar to be built. We booked them on good faith that by May most of the major projects would be completed.

Well, our good faith and patience paid off! We visited the property just last week and I was blown away the beauty of the property. We arrived at 6:00 pm, around the time we will be getting married in a few weeks, and the light was absolutely gorgeous. All the rustic, rolling fields and pecan trees behind the property were aglow with the golden hues of the setting sun. I'm not usually a very weepy person, but I actually started to tear up looking out over the field where we are getting married in a few short weeks. The barn has been renovated with cafe lights and rustic chandeliers strung from the ceiling. The coordinator directed me towards their blog with even gorgeous photos from their recent April weddings. You can see them on the property website under their photos section, if you are interested. I am just so excited to be getting married at this venue!

Image via: Cloverleaf Farm / Photography by: ZoomWorks

I took a few photos with my phone that I wanted to share, since I really didn't have many photos of the venue to share when I first posted about it last fall. You can read about how we chose Cloverleaf in the venue entry. I was trying to capture that lovely golden hour just as the sun is setting.

This is the field where we will be getting married (weather permitting). If you look carefully you can see Mr. C way back there sort of in front of the large pecan tree. The plan is to have it underneath that tree with a crystal chandelier hanging from the limbs. We are renting a chandelier from a local antique shop.

This is the chandelier we are renting, but we are going to remove the hurricane glass covers because I think it makes it look a little outside of the time period we are going for (if that makes sense). I think it's beautiful though and it will look perfect hanging from the pecan tree.

This is the left side of the house with a cute little garden which leads into a sun room. We will have our cocktail hour out on the lawn here with highboy tables. The guestbook will be inside the sun room on a table which is conveniently on the way to the bar. One of the April brides decided to actually hold her ceremony in this space and it was really gorgeous. That's one awesome thing about this venue -- there are so many options for the ceremony, the reception, the cocktail hour, the bar, the band--everything! In fact, there were so many options that our meeting lasted over two hours as we hashed out the details and updated layout for the reception. All of our original plans were turned upside down!

This is the main dining room which we were originally going to use as the ballroom area for the DJ and dancing. However, our coordinator suggested that if the weather is nice we should hold it outside under the patio and have cafe lights strung up with the tables leading back into the lawn instead of being throughout the house. The door you see in these photos leads out onto the back patio/porch you see in the photo below. For months and months I have only visualized our wedding reception as being inside the house, but now that it can be held outside under cafe lights I am starting to really get excited. Now we just need to pray there is no rain! You hear me Georgia weather, no rain! Please!! 

The back patio where an April bride had her dance floor with the DJ up on the porch. The cafe lights were strung from the patio back to where I am standing taking the photo with the guests all sitting at tables out on the lawn. It was so beautiful!

Now that our venue has a few weddings under its belt, the coordinator had a much better idea of what would and would not work from our original plan. I'm so excited about the changes we've made, even if it has placed us closer in the hands of the capricious Georgia weather. I guess the good news is that the large house can certainly accommodate all of the guests in case the weather turns sour. The bad news is that our ceremony will have to be in the renovated barn and not out in the field under the trees which is my ultimate vision. Ah, but the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.

Did you have any last minute changes with your wedding reception or ceremony plans?

The Venue Drama Llama

(Source) Edited by me. 

After a few weeks of research, Mr. C and I had a small selection of local venues from which to choose. Our top choice was Tucker Plantation, a restored barn located on a historic farm about 20 minutes from where we live. Even though it was close to our home, being there gave us the feeling that we were hundreds of miles away. I say barn, but really the place looks more like a restored factory with exposed brick walls, wooden floors, and high rafters supported with thick wooden beams strung with rustic chandeliers.

At some point people stopped booking ballrooms and started booking barns and lofts for their weddings. I don't know when this shift occurred but I'm going to be cool and pretend that this is something I would have wanted even if it wasn't so popular right now. Seriously though, ballrooms just aren't my thing but they are awesome if you are going for the sleek, modern look. There's nothing sleek or modern about Mr. C or me, so it's off to the barn/field/warehouse for us!

Tucker has the perfect romantic, casual setting that we were looking for. It also met all of our other requirements in that we could choose our own vendors, serve our own alcohol, and hold the ceremony and reception at the same site. The building is divided into two sections: one for the ceremony with a gorgeous large window overlooking the fields and trees, and a second larger room for the reception. It has a groom's barn for the boys to get ready in, and a lovely bridal room with large mirrors and vanity lights. It is a blank slate that can be adapted based on the vision of the bride, groom, and/or wedding planner. Even after visiting the other venues on our list, we kept coming back to Tucker Plantation. It was actually the first place my fiance really seemed to love. Check out these amazing photos:

Image via: StyleMePretty / Photography by: Laura Leslie Photography / Venue: Tucker Plantation

By May we had made our choice. We signed the contract and eagerly made our first deposit. This is when things started to go downhill. It's pretty bad when things go downhill immediately after making your decision.

Weeks went by and the venue did not cash our deposit check. I started to worry, but several friends and co-workers told us that this was sometimes common practice for venues, especially during the busy summer wedding season. Still, I had this strange pit of doubt within me and my gut instinct was telling me that something wasn't right. I was also having issues contacting the venue's wedding coordinator. This lady was constantly MIA. Both my fiance and myself sent a couple of e-mails and left numerous voice mails over a period of weeks asking for an explanation or at least some assurance. What I hated most about this experience is that the coordinator made me feel like a crazy ex-girlfriend. If you don't receive a response, what is the appropriate amount of time to wait before sending another e-mail? In my world, where I'm freaking out about our venue, it's a week. Sometimes less. My point is that no vendor should ever make you feel crazy like that.

After several weeks we finally received an e-mail from the coordinator. She assured me that our date had been reserved and that the owners probably hadn't cashed the check because of a recent holiday weekend. This explanation didn't convince me because it had been six weeks since I had mailed the check and one holiday weekend would not have made much difference. It seemed a bit fishy. We had also been told that we would receive a copy of the signed contract from the venue attorneys, but nothing arrived in the mail. I was terrified to book any additional vendors because I was not confident that things were going to work out with Tucker Plantation.

It wasn't until the end of July that we finally had some answers to this venue mystery. At this point we had been busy traveling all summer and I had shifted my venue worries to the back burner. That all changed when we returned from a visit to Michigan to find a letter from the Tucker Plantation attorneys waiting for us in the mailbox.  Finally! The venue contract! Uh, no. It was something I had been secretly dreading for weeks.

Inside was a voided copy of our deposit check and a letter of apology from the attorneys. The letter stated that all weddings booked after October 2012 had been cancelled.

Cue crying.

Apparently the owner of the venue and surrounding farmland passed away the previous fall and there is some dispute as to who has control of the property. The property might also be in the process of being sold. I've also heard rumors of foreclosure. I thought that maybe the venue would have a new owner in time for our wedding in May, but when I contacted the coordinator she said that the venue owners had lied to her up until the very last minute. Apparently they told her via a text message the day they mailed out the apology letters so she didn't even have time to contact any of her clients. Just days later she was already working as wedding coordinator for another venue in our area so she had zero information on what (if anything) would be happening to Tucker Plantation after October.

The whole situation obviously left me distraught. We lost a really amazing venue. But really, we were lucky because our deposit was returned and we had plenty of time to find an alternate location. I felt so incredibly sorry for brides with November or December weddings who were just months away from their dates only to have their venue pulled out from under them. The news about Tucker Plantation spread quickly around the Athens wedding vendor community. Everywhere we went we heard about the "Tucker brides" who had been left venue-less.

I went through a few days of mourning. For several weeks I had imagined and re-imagined our wedding at Tucker Plantation. All of my inspirations and plans had developed around the look and feel of that venue. I'll be honest, when I opened the letter from the attorneys it felt as if someone had punched me in the gut. I felt physically ill and yes, I cried. I gave myself time to mourn but I also knew that being upset would not change reality. A few days later my fiance and I picked ourselves up and began the venue search anew.

This story has a happy ending though. We ended up finding a venue that we LOVE and that I think suits our aesthetic a little better. We love all of our vendors and the people we are working with now, which is something I'm not sure I would be willing to admit if we had stayed at Tucker Plantation.

And just to follow up on this story in case you have fallen in love with Tucker Plantation: they have recently transferred ownership and have reopened for wedding and event bookings. Honestly though, the whole fiasco left me feeling so bitter that even if we had not booked another venue, there's no way I'd want go back.

Where Can I Marry This Guy?!

Mr. C and I have family scattered across the country. I actually grew up in Georgia, but after my parents divorced in 1996, my dad moved out to California and ten years later my mom relocated to Illinois with my stepfather. My mom's side of the family is from New York and my dad's side of the family lives much further south around Brunswick, Georgia. Mr. C's  family is from Michigan and Ohio. Luckily I still have my brother in Atlanta and Mr. C has his sister and brother-in-law who live about 45 minutes away from us. Without them we would be practically on our own here!

When it came time to decide where to hold the wedding, it made the most sense to have it in Georgia, which would be a neutral territory for all family members involved. Both of our families are split by divorce (this requires its own super special entry) and so it was important that everyone feels that they have an equal role in the wedding. Plus, with our busy schedules, we had no desire to plan a wedding from across the country. Destination brides you have my most humble respect!

Image via: Green Wedding Shoes / Photography by: Once Like a Spark / Venue: Ashford Manor

We also knew that we wanted to have our wedding close by; I didn't want to be driving all around Atlanta or North Georgia searching for the perfect wedding venue. And let's be real, interviewing vendors or checking out venues is a serious time commitment. So in order to preserve our sanity I wanted us to create a somewhat narrow list of possibilities, investigate them, and make a choice. 

These are a few of the "non-negotiables" that we were looking for in a wedding venue: 

• no more than one hour from our house (preferably less than 30 minutes away) 
• a relaxing, natural, non-pretentious atmosphere 
• beautiful gardens, fields, and/or trees 
• the ability to choose our own vendors
• the ability to serve our own alcohol 
• ability to have the ceremony and reception on the same site

The last two requirements on our list immediately cut down our number of options. A lot of the fancier venues in our area are full-service venues or require that you use their in-house caterer or in-house florist. Since we want to DIY the flowers, use my brother as our DJ, and serve our own alcohol, choosing a venue that allowed us total freedom in vendor choice was definitely the right move. Serving our own alcohol was especially crucial because it is the most cost effective way to offer an open bar, something that was very important for us to offer our guests.

Photography by: Twin Hearts Photography / Venue: Tucker Plantation

My first instinct was to turn to the internet to research venues. I checked all the usual places (blogs, search engines), but I didn't see much that interested me. That's when I started to ask around in person. I spoke to photographers, caterers, friends, and coworkers. The wife of one of our coworkers gave us some great suggestions as well as a caterer that we were interviewing. In fact, all of my favorite venues came through word of mouth, not the internet, so keep that in mind if you are still in the planning stages of your own wedding. Don't trust the internet: ASK AROUND!

Image via: Southern Weddings / Photography by: Our Labor of Love / Venue: Fair Havens Plantation

Soon we had narrowed down our list to four or five different venues in our area (three are listed in the photos above). All but one of them were either stately homes or bed and breakfasts. The last was a beautifully restored barn out in the country which ended up becoming our top choice, especially after we had a chance to visit it in person. Unfortunately, things weren't going to be so easy for us in the venue department. Find out more about our venue drama in the next entry!

How did you narrow down your venue search? Did you have certain "non-negotiables" when looking for a venue?