Nella Vita di Wedding Plans

Well Shane and I sent it the contract and deposit for our wedding venue.  This is our first official step towards making the whole wedding thing come true.  We like to joke that there is no turning back now.  We will be married on Sunday, May 30, 2010 at Stonefire Station.  We are planning on having the ceremony around 3 or 4 in the salon, followed by cocktail hour on the pergola and patio, and then dinner and dancing til Monday in the ballroom.  An old friend of Shane's was married there a few years ago, and when we started our search he mentioned this firehouse reception he had been to.  My only rule with a reception location was no firehouse or veterans hall, so I immediately ruled it out.  While doing my own search, I came across this gorgeous Venetian Pallazzoesq hall about a 20 minutes outside of Cville in Barboursville.  Turns out it is the same 'fire station' Shane was telling me about.  It actually was a fire station years ago, but was converted into an event hall when the new fire station was built.  So it ended up being perfect for us on so many ways, picturesque in a rural country setting, large enough for 200 people, the flexibility to host both the ceremony and reception, gorgeous architectural features, Venetian characteristics, adaptive reuse, and extremely affordable.  The only thing that would have made it better is a mural of flamingos on the wall (oh well guess they'll have to be represented the old fashioned way ;) ).  I had the opportunity to go to a wedding there in October and see how beautiful it looked all decked out.  And Shane and I visited last May or June when we first started looking, and I noticed that all of the flowers blooming around it were a gorgeous shade of dark purple which just happens to be one of our colors.  Our next big hurdle is to figure out our guest list.  Our contract includes 200 chairs so in essence we need to get it down to 198.  Seeing how Shane's alone is over 150, we're going to have to start making some tough decisions...maybe we'll just have a wedding lottery!