Hello everyone! I know I have been gone for a while but I now back from Afghanistan and ready to blog.
Here is a sneak peak of some of the things I will be blogging about soon. Finding our baker, picking furniture, making Save the Dates and invitations nad so much more.
Making of our invitations
save the dates
Well hope the sneak peeks are worth it. Will blog more about this later.
The decision for our venue was a hard one partly because we wanted a place that gave a rustic feel and could serve hard alcohol. Planning a wedding from the other side of the country didn’t help things either. I found many venues online that I thought will fit the bill on what we were looking for in a venue however, we were discouraged either because of prices, inability to serve any alcohol besides wine, some weren’t winery or didn’t have the winery scene, and one venue flat lied about what their venue offers. For those planning a wedding in California Wine country please do keep in mind that there are restrictions on serving anything other than wine at most wineries/venues so you have to do your research to find a place that will encompass everything that you are looking for in a venue.
So after so many searches online, I was so happy when we made a trip to California for thanksgiving and our planner was able to schedule site visit to approximately 5 venues that we had on our list. I am glad that we visited these venues because it turned out that the place we were going to sign with and almost signed with without visiting wasn’t anything we had hoped for. We really bit the bullet on that one. After that visit we went to Cornerstone and I was truly impressed by the variety that the gardens offered. In addition, we get the rustic feel we were looking for, hard alcohol, winery scenery, and it wasn’t as expensive as a lot of the other places in Sonoma. We knew cornerstone stole our hearts during our visit but we wanted to make sure this was the venue for us. So we visited 2 other venues and while they were awesome, Mr. FW, my Future Mother In Law (FMIL), Planner, and myself pretty much knew we loved cornerstone and there was no need to go to our last appointment. While I felt bad for blowing off the last appointment, I was comforted in knowing that we made the right decision when it came to choosing the venue.
Here is a little info on Cornerstone:
Cornerstone Gardens is an ever-changing series of walk-through gardens, showcasing new and innovative designs from the world’s finest landscape architects and designers. The first such gallery-style gardens in the United States, the nine-acre Cornerstone Gardens was created as an inspiration and resource for people interested in gardens, garden design and art.
Inspired by the International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire in France, Cornerstone Gardens aims to create a cultural and creative haven, celebrating the connection between art, architecture and nature. The gardens contribute to the art, philosophy and future of garden design; they focus on themes and ideas, establishing or uncovering new directions in garden design and art. Continually in a state of evolution, some garden installations will be in place for a season, while others will remain for several seasons.
In addition to individual gardens by select landscape architects and designers, a book is available for sale on site that provides information on the designers and the process of creating each of their installations.
In addition to the shops and gardens, Cornerstone hosts educational seminars on landscape architecture and garden design, as well as related special events.
At Cornerstone we have several options to use several areas of the property for different events.
If weather cooperate we will have our ceremony in The Vineyawn
I can't wait!!
April 2011 can't come fast enough
The Cocktail Hour and Dancing will be in The Garden Barn:
Front of the Barn
Party over here!
Dinner and Reception will be here:
Here we eat and dance a little
How amazing is that!
There are other Gardens that we plan to use for pictures and our photobooth. I like the fact that everything for our wedding doesn’t all take place in one space. I love that we will be able to give our guests different things to explore and that we kept true to what we wanted. Most importantly Mr. FW and myself are happy that we will get married somewhere as unique as Cornerstone.
What factors did you consider when picking out your venue? And how important were those factors to you and your FI?
This is the direction I now believe our wedding is going which is great because I love rustic weddings. I didn’t have a theme or cohesive look in mind when I started planning however, as I started throwing ideas out there it became apparent this was the direction I was headed. I love that we have a barn at our venue ….. speaking of venue I need to blog about how we decided on our venue. Other elements that screams rustic, vintage, and romantic theme are: my wedding dress all lace, milk vases and mason jars for center pieces, wine barrels at the drink table, Chandelier hanging over our cake, and so much more! I really cannot wait for our wedding.
Also, I have started accumulating crafting tools while here in Afghanistan. The other week I ordered and got this and this 2 days ago. I now can round the corners, punch holes, and set eyelet on our save the dates…..yay! I will take pictures when I do this so you guys can see my room in Afghanistan or lack there of and my progress.
Until then I leave you with inspiration boards of what a rustic, vintage, and romantic wedding should look like and they make me go woooooo!!!
So what themes are you planning on using to make your wedding look cohesive?
In my last post, I talked about how excited I am about booking our photographer Punam Bean. Photography is probably the single most important thing to us beside the actual act of getting married. We knew all along that we wanted someone who comes from the photo-journalistic side of wedding photography and Punam fit all the requirements of the awesomeness we were looking for. Once we decided to get married, it was no a brainer that we were going to hire Punam. It was a painless process and I can not wait until the engagement pictures and wedding day for Punam to make beautiful pictures of Mr. FW and I.
With that I give you the first vendor we booked Punam Bean!
Testing post by email. Here is a picture of me on my Birthday.
My name is Sade and I am over the moon and excited about planning the beginning of the happiest day of my freaking life. My Fiance’s name (who from here on out will be known as Mr.FW) is Brent and he is simply the best person I can ever ask for. We have a little puggle named Sasha who we love and spoil to pieces.
Together we are planning what we hope is an awesome wine country wedding in Sonoma at the awesome Cornerstone Gardens (more on that later).
With the help of our planner we have been able to assemble some awesome vendors. I am most excited about our photographer and I can’t wait for her to photograph our wedding. The next few post will go into details about some of the vendors we picked and why we picked them.
Here is a picture of us until next time!
Engagement
Welcome to my blog! Here I will talk about the process leading up to my wedding day . I will be planning my wedding from Afghanistan since I will be deployed in a few weeks. I live in Maryland (DC area) and having a destination wedding in Sonoma, CA, all this planning while I will be deployed to Afghanistan for 6 months. I have a wonderful planner and she is absolutely a joy to have, there is no way I will be able to pull of some of the things I wanted without her guidance. Not that my wedding is complicated but it is complicated…..LOL since we are meshing 3 cultures and trying to have fun as we plan and celebrate our coming together as Man and Wife.
*Sidenote*I have been collecting ideas for a while now and I really can’t remember where I got most of my pictures. If I post a picture of yours please let me know and I will either credit you or take down the picture. I want this blog to be chuck full of pictures just because I am a visual person!!
I can’t wait to share some of my DIY projects, details that are not so DIY, and just the fun process of planning our wedding with all of you!
Please stay a while and leave a comment or two while you are at it!
Thanks
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