Picking a date and venue.

After this first task, Chris and I were about ready to just go down to the town hall to get hitched. However, in light of how our family and friends would feel about that, we finally settled on a date and time.

The first big question: New England or Montana? Montana would be cheaper for us, more expensive for Chris’ family, my extended family, and pretty much all of our high school and college friends. Accordingly, I acquiesced, and we chose New England.

We both like a rustic feel, and we both like the fall in New England (with the added benefit of cooler weather for the easily-perspiring Chris). Thus, we thought that October would be the perfect month, and a barn would be the perfect setting. We came up with a list of places, near and far:

• The White Barn at South Farms – Morris, CT
• Stonover Farm – Lenox, MA
• Dream Away Lodge – Becket, MA
• Winvian Farms – Morris, CT
• Interlaken Inn – Lakeville, CT
• Lionrock Farm – Sharon, CT
• West Mountain Inn – Arlington, VT
• Wake Robin Inn – Lakeville, CT
• Sweet Brook Farm – Williamstown, MA
• Cricket Creek Farm – Williamstown, MA
• Wrights Mill Farm – Canterbury, CT
• Tyrone Farm – Pomfret Center, CT
• Circa 1799 Farm – Ancramdale, NY
• Crissey Farm – Great Barrington, MA
• Canterbury Farm – Becket, MA
• The Barn at Moody Mountain Farm – Wolfeboro, NH
• The Barn at Montague Retreat Center – Montague, MA
• Warfield House Inn – Charlemont, MA
• Gedney Farm – New Marlborough, MA

And then we started to contact them and research them, and slowly cross them off of our list for a variety of reasons: too expensive, no indoor reception space, fully booked for 2016, not enough room for 150 guests, reception has to end too early, etcetera.

Finally, we started to visit places. Since it was September and lovely weather, we took Chris’ motorcycle. Our first stop was Gedney Farm, and we absolutely loved it.

Both of us could find nothing wrong with it – the grounds were beautiful, the guests could dance as late as they wanted.

We even saw a couple with a young baby coming back to visit, since they had been married there! A mother was packing up the remnants from a wedding the night before, and she whispered to us that she would highly recommend having a wedding there. Michael, our tour guide, had the answers to all of our questions.

We took home the information he gave us, and went home to crunch the numbers.

Too much money, we decided. My new hopes and dreams = shattered.

So, we moved on and began to look at other places. Crissey Farm, Race Brook Lodge, Winvian Farms, The White Barn at South Farms, and Stonover Farm. Stonover Farm was finally a place that seemed like it had the potential compete with Gedney Farm for our enthusiasm. It was a DIY place, meaning we had to find the caterer, organize the bar, etc, ourselves (Gedney Farm had their own caterer and baristas). It was expensive, but because of this DIY aspect, we felt that we could make it affordable. We decided that October 8th sounded lovely, and came to the conclusion that we had found the spot where we would be married.

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.”  – Proverbs 16:9

Oh, how wrong we were. I experienced some serious emotional angst when Chris told me that one of his best friend’s brother was also planning to get married on October 8th. I knew how important this friend was to Chris, and how much it meant to him to have him at our wedding. At the same time, we had begun to call caterers and other services in the area to gauge cost. We would even have to rent bathrooms! It was all starting to add up to more than we had planned.

At that point, we decided to back out of Stonover Farm. Once again, the one thing I wanted to have decided, was not decided. This was an incredible obstacle for me, and it forced me to practice patience and trust.

We decided to revisit the possibility of having our wedding at Gedney Farm. Chris emailed Michael, and gave him our target budget, asking if there was any way we could hit it. Michael responded and said that if we had our wedding in November, he could give us 30% off.

Chris and I talked it over, and determined that probably no one was busy in November (although this time, we checked with the members of our wedding party before committing!).

Finally, we settled on our original favorite location, Gedney Farm, for November 12th, 2016. In the end, it worked out better than I could have hoped for. 🙂