Vintage Music: 1960s

The 1960s, in comparison with some of the previous decades I posted, sounded much more current. The songs I found started to become much more familiar with bands like the Beatles and Ray Charles. 

Please enjoy some of my favourite romantic tunes from this amazing musical period! More will be posted as they are found.   

1960s

"Stand By Me" by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (1960)

Performed by: Ben E. King (1961)

"Georgia on My Mind" by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael (1960)

Performed by: Ray Charles (1960)

"In Dreams" by Roy Orbison (1963)

Performed by: Roy Orbison (1963)

"My Girl" by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White (1964)

Performed by: The Temptations (1964)

"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio (1967)

Performed by: Frankie Valli (1967)

"Something" by George Harrison (1969)

Performed by: The Beatles (1969)

"The Look of Love" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David (1967)

Performed by: Dusty Springfield (1967)

"You Really Got Me" by Ray Davies (1964)

Performed by: The Kinks (1964)

"How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" by Holland-Dozier-Holland (1964)
Performed by: Marvin Gaye

Vintage Music: 1950s

In my search for the best vintage, romantic music from the 1950s, I stumbled upon quite a few good ones and the list is still building. These were a few of my favourites. I mean, who could forget "Earth Angel" once you've seen Back to the Future!

1950s

"An Affair to Remember (Our Love Affair)" by Harry Warren, Leo McCarey and Harold Adamson (1957)

Performed by: Vic Damone (1957)

"Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight" by Calvin Carter and James Hudson (1953)

Performed by: The Spaniels (1954)

"Love Potion Number 9" by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (1959)

Performed by: The Clovers (1959)

"Lonely Teardrops" by Jackie Wilson (1958) 

Performed by: Jackie Wilson

"In the Still of The Night" by The Five Satins (1956)

Performed by: The Five Satins

"All I have to Do is Dream" by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (1958)

Performed by: The Everly Brothers

"Earth Angel" by Curtis Williams (1954)

Performed by: The Penguins (1954)

"Unchained Melody" by Alex North and Hy Zaret (1955)

Performed by: The Righteous Brothers (1965)

"Love is a Many Splendored Thing" by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster (1955)

Performed by: The Four Aces 

"I Got A Woman" by Ray Charles and Renald Richard (1954)

Performed by: Ray Charles (1954)

"Everyday" by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty (1957)

Performed by: Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1957)

"(The Night Time Is) The Right Time" by Nappy Brown (1957)
Performed by: Ray Charles (1958)

"So This Is Love" by Mack David, Jerry Livingston and Al Hoffman (1950)
Performed by: Ilene Woods and Mike Douglas (Cinderella, 1950)

Vintage Music: 1940s

I was searching for some old vintage music to play during the cocktail reception and dinner. I stumbled upon vintage.weddings.com who had a great list of music ranging from the early 1900s to 1950. It was definitely a great place to get started!

Here are some of the versions of the ones I liked the most from the 1940s:

1940s

"Shoo Shoo Baby" by Phil Moore (1943)

Performed by: The Andrews Sisters (1943)

"Swinging on a Star" by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen (1944)

Performed by: Bing Crosby (1944)

"(I Love You) for Sentimental Reasons" by William Best and Ivory Watson (1945)

Performed by: Nat King Cole (1946)

"Almost Like Being in Love" by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner (1947)

Performed by: Gene Kelly (1947)

"It's Magic" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn (1947)

Performed by: Doris Day (1948)

"Come Rain or Come Shine" by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer (1946)

Performed by: Billie Holiday (1952)

"At Last" by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren (1941) 

Performed by: Etta James (1960)

"My Baby Said Yes" by Bing Crosby (1945)
Performed by: Bing Crosby (ft. Louis Jordan Orchestra)

Vintage Music: 1930s

I was searching for some old vintage music to play during the cocktail reception and dinner. I stumbled upon vintage.weddings.com who had a great list of music ranging from the early 1900s to 1950. It was definitely a great place to get started!

Here are some of the versions of the ones I liked the most from the 1930s:

1930s

"Cheek to Cheek" by Irving Berlin (1935)

Performed by: Irving Berlin (1935)

"Night and Day" by Cole Porter (1932)

Performed by: Billie Holiday

"Let's Fall in Love" by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler (1934)

Performed by: Frank Sinatra

"All I do is Dream of You" by Nacio Herb Brown and Aruther Freed (1934)

Performed by: Joan Crawford from "Sadie McKee"

"A Fine Romance" by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields (1936)

Performed by: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" by Irving Berlin (1937)

Performed by: The Mills Brothers

"You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer (1938)

Performed by: Bing Crosby (1938)

Vintage Music: 1920s

I was searching for some old vintage music to play during the cocktail reception and dinner. I stumbled upon vintage.weddings.com who had a great list of music ranging from the early 1900s to 1950. It was definitely a great place to get started!

Here are some of the versions of the ones I liked the most from the 1920s:

1920s

"The Man I Love" by George and Ira Gershwin (1924)

Performed by: Ella Fitzgerald ft. The Nelson Riddle Orchestra (1959)

"It Had to Be You" by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn (1924)

Performed by: Frank Sinatra (1979)

"Someone to Watch Over Me" by George Gershwin (1926)

Performed by: Ella Fitzgerald

"I Wanna Be Loved by You" by Herbert Stothart, Harry Ruby, and Bert Kalmar (1928)

Performed by: Marilyn Monroe

"Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin (1926)

Performed by: Irving Berlin (1926)

"I Can't Give You Anything But Love" by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields (1928)

Performed by: Billie Holiday (1936)

Colours: The Hardest Choice

I can't even begin to list all of the potential combinations that we tried. Let me explain why choosing our wedding colours was the hardest decision I've made for the wedding (thus far).

Autumn Colours

Our venue, as I'm sure you've seen, looks like it's constantly autumn. The location is covered in rich, warm and beautiful colours that I absolutely adore. Unfortunately, this is a winter /spring wedding. Ryan's brother's wedding was set in the fall just 2 years ago, and it was stunning. We wanted to respect them and their special day, so we chose to do something different. Basically, we now had to try and hide all of these predominant, autumn colours.

This though, wasn't my only colour misfortune. Most girls, and I say this rather generally, dream of their wedding day. I certainly had pretend weddings with friends and Barbies, but as a child, I didn't really consider colours. When I started to age and date more, of course these natural thoughts do come up. More vivid and specific ideas started to form as time progressed. 

Winter Colours

When Ryan and I had settled on Silvertip as our venue, I instantly saw the colours I wanted. Their reception room was mostly a blank slate and we were still headed to the winter season at that point; so jewel tones fit perfectly. I love Christmas so these colours were comfortable and filled with memories. I was pleased. So naturally, this meant things needed to explode around me. Silvertip, of course, didn't work out. 

Not only was I heartbroken over losing this venue, I was also disappointed that all my initial "vision" was gone. I had to re-assess and start from scratch; a huge challenge. Standing in Stewart Creek, I had no idea where to go. Choose too many colours that are actually in the venue, and I'd lose any pizzazz, as well as be in the wrong season. Choose no colours from the venue, then risk having a colourful, yet very chaotic mess on my hands. Was I to choose all, some or none? I debated this at length, I assure you. 

Colour Inspiration

After seeing the space with zero decor (referring to my post "The Naked Venue") I was glad to see that we could hide some of the loud coloured floor beneath the tables and linens. Some of those autumn colours would be present, but we could mute them. Now, I still had to figure out what to choose, but at least I had slightly better options. Once again, with the help of Pinterest, I started searching for some complimentary colours. 

When it came down to the decision, I knew we needed to keep our "theme" in mind. Our wedding would be held in a natural, rustic setting. I should probably consider that. We also were picking up a vintage vibe, so that needed to be kept in mind as well. For my "rustic romance" theme, I chose green for rustic and cream for romance. Both pretty colours and they worked with all that fall-toned decor. I then took some cues from nature and rounded it out with blue and brown. These 4 colours together reminded me of a creek or lake in the woods.  Works well for a wedding in the mountains, am I right? 

The fun part for me, was figuring out the proper shades for our colours. My goal was to make sure we stayed within our season and to have them compliment the locations existing tones. So here's how I figured it out...

Getting Closer!

Blue, can work for any season. Typically, we see sky or light blues for spring, bright cobalt or teal for summer, grey-blues for fall, and silvery or deep blues for winter. For our timing and space, I chose navy. Its' deep colour fits nicely with the venue's existing colours and grounds our colour pallet. Navy can be characteristically a winter colour, so that works as well. For green, I chose a bright apple green instead of a evergreen or emerald, and my neutrals like cream and brown, rounded it out. 

Luckily, I love these colours now and I think it will be perfect for our mountain wedding. I'm  thankful that there are tons of flower varieties in both cream and green. Choosing two colours for the flowers and using them in a large quantity will create a great impact when looking at the completed space. 

With my lovely ladies in navy and myself in ivory, this colour palette has become my perfection. They certainly were not my favourite colours or are even ones that I'm attached to. I just ended up falling in love with them because they will help build the most wonderful wedding. I really could not be more in love. 

 Cream, Navy, Wood and Apple
I have also picked Slate Grey to round out the pallet

Dress Debacle

Every Brides Nightmare!

I think it is safe to say that wedding dress shopping is complicated.

I would assume that for most women, wearing a white dress is important and special on that day, but also can turn you into a hideously unattractive blob. It's a odd combination of both a sense of pride and duty to be the bride in this amazing dress, but also to try and not let ourselves just go crazy with insecurities. This, this is much harder than it seems.

I remember the first time I put on the elusive "white dress". I went dress shopping with my parents and sister in Winnipeg (not the greatest place for fashion, might I add), but I wanted the first time to be at least a little memorable and special. We arrived at this boutique off of a main street downtown and I walked through the doors. I had some idea of what I thought I wanted in a dress, what sort of styling and fabric, but all I saw was a sea of white. It's what I imagine our teeth feel like as we cram a gooey, toasted marshmallow in on our mouth.  Just absolutely consumed by white. 

A lovely older woman greeted us, and started asking the standard questions like, "tell me about your groom" and "where is the wedding?" I knew the next question was coming as I was still trying to figure out how to answer: "How do you want to look on your wedding day?"

I struggled to answer for a moment or two, then just blurted out, "not like a horrific, white blob." The consultant laughed and said she would do her absolute best to make me a beautiful bride. I wasn't too convinced that this point, but I let her start pulling different styles and waited nervously in the dressing room.

After what felt like forever (it was 5 minutes, I checked), the woman returned and told me that she brought a variety of shapes and styles to help me get a sense of what I liked and disliked. I already knew that I wasn't going to be a "cupcake" or "princess" bride, nevertheless, I slipped into a ruffled tulle ballgown to start with. As she laced up the back, I stared at myself in the mirror. To put my skin tone in perspective, my nickname in school was Snow White, due to my dark hair and very pale skin. Standing there, strapped into this large puffy dress, I was hideous. Honestly, it was more funny than tragic. I waltzed out of the dressing room cooing to my family that I had found the perfect dress. My family erupted into laughter and recommended that I keep looking. With humour, I'm glad to say that I stuck through quite a few more disaster dresses before I started to understand what I really wanted. 

'Emma' by Maggie Sottero

 I didn't leave that store with a dress; luckily, I wasn't expecting to. Rather, I wanted to get that initial shock over with and to have some fun with my family. Once we returned to Calgary, the real shopping began.

 To be a little more on the serious side, wedding dress shopping isn't as fun as it's made out to be (i.e. TV Shows like TLC's Say Yes to the Dress). At least, it wasn't for me. I'm not a large girl but I have my own body hang ups, like not having a long neck and being larger busted. These two don't blend well together. However, I would recommend to those girls out there worried about looking like a blob, or even just not beautiful, that there will be a dress for you. You just have to have the patience and humour to find it. 

 It was not without heartache, and frankly a few tears, that I found my dress. Even now, I have my doubts. It's hard to imagine what your dress will look like on you in the perfect size, the right colour and with alterations. I'm having to believe that when I put that dress on the day of, that I will be the beautiful bride that the consultants assured me that I would be. 

I'm looking forward to finally seeing my dress when it arrives in November. Until then, my mom continues to remind me that as long as I have the man who loves me standing beside me, it won't matter what dress I'm wearing. To him, I am perfect. 

Save the Date

We're very excited to see our wonderful Save the Date cards from the Social Page . The ladies are fabulous there and took great care to make sure we got exactly what we wanted. We ordered these today:

Too add to all this wonderful excitement, about 2 days after I signed off on our template, I received the call from our stationer. They said they were already ready to pick up! Super fast and they looked even better on the real card stock. 

Escort Table Sketch & Update

For those of you wondering what in God's name I'm talking about, here's my initial sketch of the escort card table when the idea struck me:

Things are starting to take shape now too as I start to acquire things. Mom will be bringing a lot of items from Winnipeg too on her next visits in June and July. Until then, I guess a box for a typewriter and empty spaces will do!

Decor Dilemma

Originally, Ryan and I were hoping to incorporate some sort of "theme" for the wedding. Nothing too drastic (no steam punk or or Elvis for us), but at least some idea to link all of our decor around. We toyed around with tons of ideas and finally came up with a few we liked.

Beautiful Rustic Barn Wedding 

We started with taking cues from the location. The setting of Stewart Creek is quite rustic and natural. Both the interior and exterior of the building looks crafted to sit perfectly in the mountains. True, starting off with thoughts of a rustic styled wedding doesn't really seem to far-fetched. However, it wasn't really enough to just stop there. The scenery and location are beautiful on it's own, but this is a wedding after all. We need more than that.

After flipping through countless magazines and scouring the internet for ideas, I started to assemble thoughts on how to add to our basic "theme". We settled on calling it: Rustic Romance. Kind of sounds run-of-the-mill, but we'll make it our own. Pinterest, although very irritating and/or addicting at times, can be a great resource for picking colours, themes and basically anything wedding related. I started boards for different aspects of the wedding: cake, decor, gifts, dresses, and so on; and pinned pretty much anything that fit within my vision of "romantic" or "rustic".

Rustic Bouquet

My definition of our theme will likely vary from others. For me, it's all about combining opposites. I really like the way wrought iron looks with soft white peonies, roses and hydrangeas. Or the way streamlined glass looks with a natural looking bouquet of flowers up top. Basically, it's the best of both worlds. I like the chaos of boatloads natural looking flowers and things not being so uptight, but adding soft elements like lace, and airy light colours.

My Mom loved all of the ideas that I gathered and added to them. We soon after realized; Ryan and I were missing from the wedding. There wasn't anything distinctly us about any of our ideas so far. It became all too obvious about how much our ideas wren't reflecting our personalities or relationship. I continued to mull this fact over for a few days, and decided to make a few changes which lead us to our now final theme.

Tall, Statement Centerpieces

We stuck with our "rustic romance", but decided to add our favourite couples in from various films, literature, video games, comics etc. This way, we now can mix in some of us into this otherwise, generic theme. I decided to use this idea as our escort table cards, decor and centerpieces. Items will correspond to a couple we like and represent their story/ relationship and will be on both the Escort table and the matching centerpiece.

I'm think that adding this personal touch is making  mundane items or endless inquring phone calls less tedious. Just this past weekend, we visited a used book store looking for some vintage style books to put on the table. I spent probably more time and money than I should have, but I was thrilled to get three books that fit perfectly. We also sourced out the perfect mask for our "Phantom of the Opera" couple. I can't tell you how exciting it is to finally be purchasing things for the wedding.

Lastly, we're finalizing our centerpieces. I know I want them really tall (32in or higher) with a large, rustic floral arrangement at the top. I really wanted wrought iron candelabras, however those seem to be impossible to find in the quantity and height we want. I could probably get them hand made, though the cost for them alone would be astronomical. Glass seems to be the cheapest option while still maintaining the look we're searching for. My hope for the next coming months, would be to have most of the decor sorted out and move on to the next items on my list. 

If you like this look, check out my Pinterest for more ideas!

Stationary Success!

I'm glad we're finally getting things rolling. It's felt like an eternity of "well, that could be an option". It's a strange feeling; having the world as your oyster. It kind of feels like when my Dad told me I could choose any restaurant for my graduation dinner, and I mean any where. If you're given too many options, it becomes extremely difficult to even start thinking about what you want. Wedding planning seems to just that. 

My parents said they'll try their hardest to give me whatever I want (yes, I know I'm lucky, thankyouverymuch). I'm not really like that though. I don't want to have some 300+ guest wedding with extravagant everything, and the whopping $100,000 price tag. I know my parents appreciate that. I am glad to know that I have a decent budget to work with and it's flexible depending on the situation. That takes a bit of the overarching, wedding planning stress off my shoulders.

I figure I should probably get to the point of this post, yes? SO, this past Saturday we went to our stationary consultation. We picked the Social Page off of 10th Ave and 8th Street downtown. When you enter the store, it kind of seems like one of those greeting card stores with nick-nacks for any occasion. They kind of are, however, they do have a huge elevated stationary section with tons of selection. We both had a good idea of what we were looking for, and took some time to flip through their books and samples. Surprisingly, decisions came quickly.

We basically chose a template that we liked the majority of (font, size layout, design, etc) and then described our edits. They wrote down all of our preferences and we selected the paper and quantities to order. The consultant jotted down our information and calculated a quote for both save the dates and invitations. She also gave us a guesstimate as to how much our menus, place setting cards and thank you cards would run us. The quote for each was very reasonable, but we want to mull it over for a day or two.

During our appointment, we settled on a small 4" x 6" card in ivory linen paper for the save the date. It has a rustic/ vintage feel with the lettering. We chose a brown recycled paper envelope to go with the rustic theme, and liked navy, brown and green inking. We plan on ordering them within the week. We're already at less than 11 months now and takes about a month to have the order ready. 

Example of the Vintage Style

The invitations we liked were actually quite different than I had been originally planning. We liked a 3-folded invitation with a vintage decal on the front. The paper will open like a brochure with the information on the flaps inside. I have recently created our wedding website so we don't need to put a ton of information on it. We decided on two inserts though, one for the map and one for the RSVP. This all may change by the time we actually order them, but that was our initial thought. They'll be printed on the same paper and have the same styling as the save the dates. I'm not typically "matchy-matchy" but I think it looks nicer this way.

The Social Page also had some great ideas to word the RSVP cards so I thought I'd share them:

Cant wait / Sorry to miss it

Deal me in / Sitting out

Looking forward to the big day / Regretfully cannot attend

Cant wait to celebrate / Sad to miss all the fun

Delighted to attend / Sorry. cant make it

Cant wait to party / Bummer! cant make it

Sunscreen is packed / Raising a toast from afar

Good news, we’ll be there / Bad news, Cant make it

Cant wait to be there / Party on with out us

I will be sure to post a picture of them when we get the template back for approval. With each decision made and tasks checked off my list, the more real and exciting all this planning is getting. Now, to take this success and run with it. Decisiveness, here I come!

The Naked Venue

Ryan and I went again to SC (yes, finally abbreviating since I'm sick of typing that whole thing out). We had made the appointment to see the reception space actually set-up for a wedding. Frankly, it was one of the most disappointing things I've ever seen. 

I'm starting to feel like Pinterest has now given me completely unrealistic ideas of how a wedding should look. You see all these impressive (and no doubt expensive) photographs of decor, and that's no doubt what you'd want. I guess it's not in everyone's budget; luckily some of it is in ours. I think that's why I was so disappointed when we saw this "wedding" set up a few weeks ago. I don't even know if I would've called it a wedding.

To give you some idea of how they managed to ruin a nice space, I will explain. This couple was obviously on a modest budget. That, I can understand. I am still shocked by the price tags of some things needed for weddings. I digress.

The area had tables set up in a strange layout. There were odd shaped gaps between the round tables and in some places, no space at all between. We found out through our SC contact, that the bride and groom had specifically asked for no tables to be on the dance floor. Taking away that extra space made it awkward to fit all 70 of their guests. However, the thing that surprised me the most, was the total and complete lack of decor. They had a few D.I.Y. paper flower pompoms (I think maybe 3 or 4) hanging from beams in the ceiling, but when the ceiling is easily 25 ft high, having 12 inch pompoms doesn't really do a whole lot. To add to all that, the tables were bare with only the standard white linen and boring place settings. I felt like I was entering their regular dining hall on a Tuesday night. No flowers, no colour, no nothing.

There was a plus side to even seeing all (or none, really) of this though. I wanted to see if the red and brown leaf carpet would disappear with all the tables on it; and it did. Thank goodness. And, not to sass another bride's vision for her wedding, but there's no way that I'm letting my wedding venue look that... naked.

Looking straight down from the dance floor!

Overall, it was a good trip. We managed to get an idea of what the venue will look like with tables set up. I guess that's a start. We will be re-visiting with my Mom (finally) so she can see the space in June. I'll feel better when I know that she has actually stepped foot into the venue. Pictures really don't do the place justice.

Ready, Set, GO!

March 29, 2014.

That is the day I will be married to my favourite person in the world. It's been a long road, but finally we found the perfect place and the perfect date.

We returned to Canmore, for what felt like the millionth time. The winding road up to the location was beautiful. Lots of new, rustic condos and apartment complexes lined the trip, which was surprising. I guess I just never knew all this was here. Ryan's Dad explained that this area was a huge up-and-coming location, but in the last few years, went sort of bankrupt. There's a few developments still chugging away, but the community is a small portion of the original plan. 

We arrived at Stewart Creek right before our appointment at 11:00 am. The outside of the clubhouse looked new and the structure was impressive. We walked through the drizzle that was attempting to mask the area in grey, and proceeded through the front entrance. It was different than I had expected it to be. A large sweeping front area welcomed us with a staircase leading down just ahead. The walls were a warm yellow and there was a large stone wall to the right side. I liked the stone, not many places we've visited had stone, it was mostly all wood. We were greeted and told to explore while we waiting for our contact to arrive. We first wandered to the right where we would be holding cocktail hour.

It was a smaller "cocktail" room than at Silvertip, but it had character and a great view. The bar featured a built-in wooden bottle display with a thick granite counter. Already this was a definite advantage over Silvertip and their mobile plastic tables and ugly black tablecloths. We went and stood on the balcony that surrounded half of the room and agreed that this was a satisfying space. Probably a little tight for 100 people, but would comfortably accommodate the 80 or so people attending. 

We walked back into the entrance way and saw lots of space for a seating chart, escort cards and gift table, then proceeded into the dining space. It was tall, airy and open. There was no door to constrict the space, only a slight wall on one side. Just inside the space, we found a beautiful lounge with low-backed brown leather chairs. There were 6 tables positioned in the space, shadowed by another stone wall, some artwork (which I liked) and a double-sided fireplace that extended fully to the ceiling.

When we actually walked slightly further into the room, we finally saw just how high the ceilings were; spectacular wood beams, lots of recessed pot lighting and more wood slats to fill it all out. It was just as high, or higher than Silvertip, but had a lighter, contemporary feel. I thought I really loved the rustic and old world look of Silvertip, but seeing the rustic style in a newer way was refreshing and unexpected.

We walked throughout the entire space and the consensus was that of awe. Both Ryan and I had our doubts that this location was going to work, but the more we looked, the more we liked. Ryan's parents wandered out on to the large patio outside the space and took in the view. His Dad showed us which golf holes he liked and pointed out the driving range. It was clear that he felt comfortable there. We all walked back inside and met the very friendly event planner and started our "official" tour.

She pointed out locations that would work for the ceremony, as well as all the details we needed to know for rental and use of the space. We were impressed, finally an appointment that didn't feel like we were in an tense, awkward interview. Once we had walked through the space again and asked our questions (the very few that she did not cover), we thought it was over. Wrong! There's still more to see!

The woman led us to various spots; citing great photograph locations or secret entrances for me to hide away in before the ceremony, and then pointed to an elevator. We rode up a floor and landed in a meeting room of sorts. She advised that we could use this room for the bridal party or to store things in. She also asked which weekend we were interested in. We both said we were thinking of March and we were being drawn to the end of March now (in hopes for nicer weather and longer light). She immediately offered to hold the date we wanted so we could take some time to decide.

With those last words, we were sold. She knew that we needed the entire package. We wanted to be wowed with the little details that would make this place special. However, we did know that we still needed to take time to decide, so we thanked her for her help, told her we'd be in touch, and went to lunch.

It was clear while discussing the pros and cons of both locations over lunch, that there was an obvious winner and a clear loser. While both Ryan and I loved Silvertip's location and overall look of the reception space, we felt completely mistreated when it came to actually attempting to book the space. We finally realized that to them, we were just another date that could be filled by someone else. They didn't seem to care whether or not we booked with them, it was merely first come, first served. While I completely understand this principle, we were willing to spend a handsome sum of money there. This made it totally apparent to us that we wanted the full service deal. We wanted to feel that our needs wouldn't be entirely taken care of, because after all, this is supposed to be our most special day. We knew then, Stewart Creek was our venue. Now just to book it. 

True to her word, the event coordinator had held our date and within 2 days we had officially signed the check, crossed our "t's" and dotted our "i's". On March 29, 2014, Ryan and I will be married at Stewart Creek Golf, and finally, we really couldn't be happier. 

P.S. More photos of the location to come!