YAY! We set a date!!

We picked our date! It’s going to be June 11th, 2011!! I’m so excited! It feels much more real now that there is a definitive date to look forward to. YAY!! We’ve contacted our entire wedding party and immediate family and it’s a go! We tried for this fall but all the dates (aside from 9/11) were booked up long ago. So we took the first available and least likeliest to rain day in 2011. So there you have it, June 11th, 2011!! The weather should be perfect for a late afternoon ceremony and we'll get an almost full moon!

We ended up choosing the very first place we visited in Los Angeles. Saddlerock Ranch!! It’s owned by Malibu Family Wines and the entire property including the vineyards is over 1000 acres! We went to visit it in late February, right after our Australia trip. It was tough to set up an appointment with Beth. She’s been absolutely fantastic but Saddlerock Ranch is so popular that she was pretty booked up. So when we finalized our visit date we were really eager to see how it looked in person. It was gorgeous on the internet, but you never really know until you see it in person.

This is the tree we'll tie the knot under!

We went up on a cold Saturday morning and it was pretty windy. You have to drive through the windy Malibu mountains and then you come upon a gate. As we drove through the beginning road, we felt like we were a hundred miles from Los Angeles. The road eventually slopes upward and as you come onto a flat landing you see the expansive Malibu Hills and the vineyards in all directions. A gigantic red and orange rock jutted into the sky. It was breathtaking! It instantly reminded me of The Farmhouse in Santa Barbara which was our first choice if we were to have it up north. Both Yams and I were taken away with the scenery.

We met up with Beth and she took us to the Vineyard Setting which has spectacular views because it sits on this high cliff that overlooks all the vineyards. You can see to the valley between two mountains. Guests would be shuttled to the top of the cliff, have cocktails near a cottage, walk down a path surrounded by roses on each side, and watch the ceremony with a gorgeous backdrop behind them. The only drawback for this location was that capacity was maxed at 100 and we knew we would go slightly over it.

The second setting she took us to was the Garden Setting. It’s completely different. The entrance to this setting is separated from the other so you would never even know if there was a wedding on the other side of the property. You definitely get more of a ranch feel when driving into this setting. The entrance road takes you pass zebras, llamas, camels, horses, and buffalo. The ceremony here would take place under a beautiful willow tree. Later guests would move to a large lawn for cocktails and would be able to pet some horses near their pen. Finally we’d move under 6 huge oak trees that have dripping twinkle lights coming down from their branches. It’s magical!

It took us about 20 site visits before we chose this venue. Initially we wanted to have a close destination wedding in Santa Barbara. We looked at the Doubletree, The Farmhouse (our favorite but the most logistically challenged), Canary Hotel, Four Seasons, and the Biltmore. We even attended a Bridal Expo. However after realizing it would be difficult for some relatives, we thought we’d give Los Angeles a go round. The very first place we went to was Saddlerock Ranch and we were blown away. But we thought, we should do our due diligence because there might be something we like better. We ended up seeing about 15 more places spread out among various weekends. In the end, we narrowed it down to three: The Adamson House (Malibu), The Anthenaeum (Pasadena), and Saddlerock Ranch. We went to visit each one again for the second time and because Adamson House had a very strict 10PM curfew and Anthenauem might be too cramped for our number of guests, we chose Saddlerock! It was the first place we saw and fell in love with and in the end, it just feels right that we’ll have it there. There is something about Saddlerock that just makes me so happy. It’s beautiful, relaxed, magical, and romantic all at once!

In upcoming posts I’ll highlight some of the venues we checked out. All were beautiful in their own right but Saddlerock just connected with us the most. I'm so happy!! I can not wait!!

Some advice. If you are intent on a Saturday wedding and in a specific month, start looking at venues asap. You'd be surprised how quickly they book up, especially for outdoor venues which have shorter wedding seasons. Like us, if the fall season is completely booked, you'll have to wait through the winter until the next spring/summer season. Luckily for us, it wasn't such a big deal.