The first place is a heritage museum and it has so many options for indoor or outdoor ceremony/reception. We would prefer the ceremony outside and reception inside, but where we live, summer weather is very unpredictable. It could be sunny for days, then rainy for days. Or sunny all morning, and rainy all afternoon, and vice versa. So we love that this venue has options if we had to have the ceremony inside. We would have to find outside catering, which I don't mind too much. The only downside to this place is because it is a museum, it is open to the public until 5:00PM. The staff would need time to set everything up, so we couldn't have the ceremony until 6PM. Our wedding day is on a Thursday, we don't want our guests to leave the reception early because it gets too late. This venue would be about $3,500, excluding food.
The other venue is at a Golf Course; it has a beautiful view of the city and the mountains and would be great for pictures. (The museum has no view of the mountains, just a lot of outside plants). We would have the outside ceremony next to a large pond. And the reception would be inside the Golf Courses restaurant. Catering and staff setup included. We could start anytime, but the downside of this place is if it were to rain, we would have to do the ceremony inside the reception room. Guests would sit at their tables and my fiance and I would be wed in the middle of the room on the dancefloor with a few chairs setup in front of us for immediately family. I attached a picture of what it would look like. Keep in mind, we have 7 bridesmaids and 7 groomsmen so I feel it would be cramped. It's just not what we envisioned for our wedding. This place, including food, would be about $7000.
It just sucks because I feel we have to make a decision based on the weather and it is so unpredictable
We're both very torn, any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
