And so it begins!

Chris and I have finally started to get underway with our wedding plans. Even though our wedding is almost two years away, Charleston is a Wedding Town. Venues here often book up more than 2 years in advance. So, if you want your pick of times and dates, you have to start early. Plus, with me in law school and Chris' bizarre Navy schedule, we need the luxury of a long time line. It'll be rare that our schedules will coincide enough to let us plan. Planning will be intermittent.

This will be an extremely long first post because we just got so much done this weekend! We're going to try and reeellllaaaaxxx tomorrow.

• The Planners

Chris and I had a ridiculously successful and busy weekend. We talked to 3 planners and visited several venues. We are well on our way to planning this event. We met with Emmy at Peacock Events on Friday (I skipped class... shhhh...). I found her online and really liked her because she actually responded to my e-mail in a timely manner. She was also recommended by several other planners I e-mailed who were way outside of our price range. We thought that she was really nice and an excellent planner, but not sure if she was willing to work within our budget. She kept telling us that our budget wasn't realistic. I would rather have a planner tell us how we can work within our budget and still make things look awesome. We flipped through some albums of her weddings. I looked over at an album he was looking at and told him to stop, because a venue had caught my eye. Emmy said that it was the Cotton Dock at Boone Hall Plantation. Chris said he really liked it, but wasn't going to point it out to me because he thought I wouldn't like it. Good thing I looked over!

Chris had to be at work at 3PM and we had a furniture delivery coming that afternoon (yay!), so we didn't get much done on Friday. After he left, I e-mailed Boone Hall to get some info from there. Turns out, they are exactly within our price range and the Cotton Dock (one of the various locations you can have it at) is perfect for a wedding of 150 guests. She was extremely prompt e-mailing me. Another good sign. You'd be surprised how many venues and planners don't e-mail you in a timely manner or not at all. She told me that they had very few days left in 2010 (!!!), so wanted to know if she could check availability for us. I told her we were looking at sometime in November 2011. She said that 1 weekend was already booked, but I could put a hold on for 2 weeks if I wanted. Chris and I were looking at November 5th, so I said to put a hold on that day. I happened to mention that I was going down to visit the Plantation the next day (today) with Chris as two of the wedding planners we were looking at are in the area. She sent over a self-guided tour sheet and a map and told us that our name was on a list at the gate, so we should be able to go right in. Wow. What a whirlwind set of e-mails! Good thing I mentioned I was going to be there!

Today, we had a meeting with Meloyne at Voila! Events. I really liked her over e-mail. She was really accommodating, sweet, and I thought enthusiastic to have us. She's not as experienced as Emmy, but she sent us a .pdf with images of some of her events. I feel like even if she doesn't do as many events as Emmy, she's experienced at working within our budget. Also, aesthetically, I love her work. I think she really would be great at putting together what we liked. Chris tended to agree. He also mentioned that he though Meloyne wanted to hear about us and what we wanted, and Emmy talked more about budget, numbers, and what we couldn't do. While numbers are important, didn't she want to hear about me and Chris? What our vision was? What we wanted and needed from her?

On the way out, we stopped by Barnes and Noble to get some coffee at the Starbucks inside. Chris said, "Look there's a book signing today!" Turns out, one of my favorite wedding designers, Tara Guerard was signing her new book later on that day. I was just telling him how I needed to get her book. Tara is pretty much the gold standard amongst southern wedding planners. She has a massive client list and does all the southern platinum weddings. I love her. Everyone who is planning a wedding in the south (or anywhere, for that matter), needs a copy of at least one of her books (She also has Southern Weddings). You will love it/them. It has fabulous ideas that you can DIY or do cheaper or just gain inspiration. We were headed over to the Cotton Dock to view the site, but I told Chris that we had to return to see her and get the book signed. He sighed, and said fine. Couldn't wait!

Next we went to the Cotton Dock, but I'll talk about that later.

After Chris had to go to work, I visited Alison at Ooh! Events by myself. I went in pretty closed minded. I wasn't having a great experience with them. I called their shop to speak with someone and they gave me the e-mail address of the person to contact. I e-mailed immediately and it was about 10 days before I even received a response. I was bounced around between several people before they finally gave me to Alison. She wanted to meet today at 1:00. I told her that I would prefer it if we moved it up so Chris could also attend. It took her a full 4 days to get back to me and told me that she actually wouldn't be able to even meet at the 1:00 timeslot and could we meet at 2:00 instead. Needless to say, I was exasperated. If this was the way they treated me to get me to sign a contract, it was not a good sign.

When I got there, I was a bit early. The event planning service is run out of a little shop called Out of Hand. It's really charming and they have some really neat stuff. My mom would love it.

I met with Alison, and it was actually my longest meeting of the three. It lasted about an hour and a half. I'm surprised that the other two planners didn't ask me some of the questions Alison asked me. She was really trying to get a feel for my event. They also do florals and rentals as well as planning. They have some of the neatest rentals. A lot of random and vintage items and really eclectic. Pretty much exactly what I want for my wedding. Their books of some of their events are really cool. They have a lot of really great ideas and some of them are totally doable for our wedding. She also had some fabulous ideas about what to do. She had some suggestions as far as catering and photographers and asked me a lot about that. Meloyne didn't really ask about this at all and what was important out of the wedding, but she was the only one that had a budget breakdown printed out for us. Our meeting with her was pretty short, but she talked about what she offered with her prices and such. I also get the impression that she would probably be the most available for us, because I think her work load is a bit less.

Alison also kept checking her Blackberry and stuff. I really wish Chris were there with me to get an impression of her. Had it not been for my bad string of e-mails and such, I may have been really set to sign a contract with them. However, a quick look of some Reviews are not very flattering. They seem like they tend to drop the ball. They have some great things going for them, but don't really seem all that reliable. I need reliable.

So, those are the three planners we're down to. I like that Emmy was really business oriented and professional. She is popular and probably the best within our price range. I think we're leaning toward Meloyne, though. Our meeting was so brief, but I really liked her. If we're going to be working so closely and for so long with someone, I really want to like her. Maybe we can get the rentals from Ooh! Events and keep Meloyne as a planner. We'll have to see what is most cost effective. Thoughts, anyone?

• The Venue
  

Okay, so back to venue talk. After meeting with Meloyne, we headed on over to Boone Hall Plantation. This is the drive up to Boone Hall:
You may remember this as the house in The Notebook. It was Rachel McAdams' house when she came to visit. The drive up to the house is down this long road called the Avenue of Oaks. If anything was Old South, it would be this.
There are so many amazing places to have a wedding here. Both the front and back lawns of the house are gorgeous. But the place everyone recommends is the Cotton Dock.

The Cotton Dock is down a short road just to the left of the house. It sits right on the water. It can best be described as a barn, but really it's just a rustic building that's a complete blank slate. Unlike many venues, we can literally do whatever we want to the place. We can tack and nail to the walls and ceiling, something which obviously would not be covered by the damage deposit at other places. It's in this neat "L" shape, which is great. It creates a great flow to the space and breaks it up so it doesn't feel like a gymnasium. There's also a wonderful old fireplace that can actually be lit and is included in the cost of the rental.
The Cotton Dock has an actual dock (go figure), where we can have a ceremony. It is right out on the water. It's fairly large and can seat about 100 people in chairs. We may put benches instead of chairs so that we can fit more people.
So much can be done with the space. Imagine it with lights and lanterns and flowers. The decorated pictures of this place are really nice. After the ceremony the staff at Boone Hall can flip the dock and turn it into a dance floor or just a nice outdoor area with a bar.

Chris and I really liked the place a lot. We were starting to get hungry and I had a date with Tara! We stopped by Barnes and Noble again so I could get my book signed. I told her that we had just visited the Cotton Dock and we really liked it. She immediately started raving. She said that it was one of her absolute favorite places in Charleston to have a wedding. You could do a lot or a little with it and it would always look fabulous. Your dollar could really go far there. Well... If the top wedding planner in the south loves it... She told us not to even wait and book it as fast as we could. We had one more site to visit, but we definitely did love it.

We drove down a long and windy road to Alhambra Hall. It was not too far away from Boone Hall, but someone will definitely get lost going there.
It has a really lovely porch that wraps all the way around the building. The inside space is huge and has two fireplaces.
Again, a nice open space. Plenty of light and really pretty. There's a lot we could do with the place. It's a pretty standard event place.

We also looked at a few more places. One of my law school friends recommended the Riviera Theatre in downtown Charleston. It is ridiculously cheap and Chris and I really loved it.
We loved that it was right in downtown Charleston. It is literally a step away from the famed Market Street (where you can get all sorts of crafts and knickknacks). It's on King Street, which is the new shopping district in Charleston. It's across the street from the Louis Vuitton shop and Saks. Katherine would have loved it. The pictures of the weddings at this place are impressive. It's this awesome historic Art Deco theater. The problem was, that the event space is absolutely massive.
The chairs are just part of the charm. You can see the ballroom in front of them. We loved that it was so inexpensive and it was just plain COOL. It was different. However, we would never fill the space. It's big enough to accommodate groups of 500 easily. We would look so puny in the space. Plus, there are no divisions or partitions. We would spend a ton of money dividing the space to do what we needed. We love that it's within walking distance of this beautiful episcopalian church where I (and my mother) would love Chris and I to get married in. We could have the ceremony there and then just walk en masse over to the theater. It would make some amazing pictures. We just would never do this place justice, though.

We also looked at the South Carolina Society Hall which is also owned by the same company/hotel chain that owns the Theater.
It's got an amazing exterior and beautiful interior with lots of great rooms. We could definitely do cool things with it. Do the ceremony in one room, the cocktail party in another, dinner in a third, and dancing in another. There's also a great outdoor area. We would not have to spend a ton of money on the decor, because the interior is gorgeous. It's not blue anymore :) It's also within walking distance of that same church. Plus, we could get a great rate on hotel rooms and things. Also, they were prepared to waive the rental fee on either property if we used their in-house rental company.

The last place we really considered was the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. It is probably one of the top 5 most historic places in the United States.

I really liked it because it was historic. It's right on the battery next to the main river that runs past Charleston, the Wando. Just like the South Carolina Society Hall, the interior is faboosh and has several old rooms that we could use.
Definitely Old Charleston. More importantly, pirates use to hang out here!!! I was definitely loving it. It was a little more expensive than the Riviera and Society Hall, but not by much. The problem with this place is that it's a working museum. We would have (our planner would have) only about an hour or so to set up because they wouldn't be able to come in until after the exchange closed for the day. Plus, we had to be out of there really early. Sigh.

We would have loved to be in downtown Charleston. There were just so few places within our price range, though. I would have killed to be at the William Aiken House and Nathanial Russell House. Everyone gets married there, and for good reason. But it's almost 3X as expensive as some of these places AND you have to use their preferred caterer. While they're amazing, they are also the most expensive caterers in Charleston. Once you get inside the city limits, the cost of everything skyrockets because everyone wants to have their wedding there.  And so, we settled on:

The Cotton Dock at Boone Hall Plantation

Chris and I really loved this place. There are just so many options once you move just slightly outside of the city limits. Plus, you don't have to worry about pesky things like parking. Also, I think our guests are just going to be happier with us since the price of hotels are much better. So, that meant we had our decision. Boone Hall is located in Mount Pleasant, about 10-15 minutes or so away from downtown. This means that guests, if they want, can easily get into the city. They can also stay in downtown Charleston, if they would prefer and quickly get to the wedding venue itself. We're going to organize a ton of things to do downtown, so don't worry! We're also planning to do some of our wedding photos downtown and then driving into the plantation to finish taking them there. We're really excited and will book this week!