The first of our venue visits

Well the search has begun. We have been doing some research on the Internet for some places to go and visit. A website that we have been using a lot is herecomestheguide.com. It has great information and pictures of venues and it is easy to search by a specific area. I also like looking at photographer's sites at different venues. It is helpful to see what a real wedding would look like at the place.

Last week  we visited two venues. The first one was The Hacienda and Santa Ana. It is kind of in a random location, but once inside it is very pretty. We had a lovely experience; the lady who helped us was very nice. Dave also liked that there was a kitty hanging out in one of the trees. The Hacienda has a Spanish feel with a lot of different areas where you can have the ceremony and reception. There is a pretty area for the ceremony that is in a covered patio area and an indoor area where there could be dancing. One of the things that we were not too wild about was that the reception area was rather small and broken up into different rooms. While the venue is very pretty and unique, some of the decorations could be classified as a bit gaudy. The Hacienda seemed rather affordable and the package that they offered included a lot including a cake. As we left, we listed out the pros and cons of the place. It was great practice in wedding venue hunting.

The next place we visited was the Redondo Beach Historic Library. I absolutely love this place. It is right on the ocean near the Redondo Beach pier. The building itself is Dutch and Spanish architecture (almost like me) and was at one time was a library. There are bookshelves along the perimeter of the main room downstairs. I like that it is not just your typical banquet room. It definitely has character. It is simple, but really beautiful. I like that there are different rooms and you can customize the layout for your wedding. The package that they offer is very inclusive and includes the cake and even the DJ. Unfortunately, all of these things come at a rather high price. While we really like this place, we will have to figure out our budget and see if this is a place we can afford.

Looking at venues has been fun so far, but there a lot of other places that we are looking into. Dave has been working a lot during the day so we haven't had time to look at more places. This week we are requesting information from different venues online and hopefully next week we will have more time to go check some out.