welcome to the first part of a series of posts detailing our wedding that took place on may 5, 2012. i've been disconnected from blogging lately but am ready to come on back. so i thought instead of posting 1093849 pictures in one post, i'd break it up into more manageable chunks.
our wedding venue was definitely not your conventional venue. it was actually a rental house that over looked the beach in fort bragg, ca. we knew from the get-go that we wanted to have our wedding in fort bragg. we got engaged during our "babymoon" where we road tripped from sacramento to british columbia and back. on our way down the coast, we drove through the beautiful northern california coast line and we knew we had to have our wedding there. unfortunately, fort bragg is a good four hour drive from our hometown. with this in mind, we wanted to have the ability to house our wedding party so they wouldn't be bogged down with the added expense of finding a room. we all know being in a wedding can get very expensive and i kept that in mind with every decision that we made. we had a hard time finding a house that would let us have a wedding there but nye ranch pulled through! there was no "staff", just a house, so we did everything ourselves. we had to keep a pretty tight budget for this wedding. while i don't have a hard figure, i'd say we definitely kept it under $5000 but we were only able to do so because we have awesome family and friends who were all down to help. i would definitely recommend this type of venue to someone looking to have a laid back location with room for people to crash. but you have to keep in mind that to have that "laid back" feel, you need to put in a lot of work yourself!
our venue really set the tone for the wedding style. the home has a very rustic, country feel but being on the coast, it was very green and lush as well. i chose navy blue and kelly green as our wedding colors to complement the natural colors already present at the venue. the property also housed a barn and resident llamas (alpacas? i can't remember) who we probably kept awake during our crazy antics during the reception.
we had our wedding party and a few family members arrive one day prior to the ceremony and help us set up all the tables. the house easily slept our ten person wedding party, a couple strays, a couple babies and ourselves. our wedding was relatively small (50-60 guests including the bridal party) so we were able to easily have our ceremony take place on a bluff overlooking the beach and the reception on the back deck of the house. there was also a small grassy field with fire pits that definitely got some use during our chilly reception.
i love this house so much, i'd love to be able to go back just for fun!
That house is just lovely! What a great location. I love Fort Bragg,
ReplyDeleteThe venue looks great! This is certainly a unique place for a wedding. Some people want to have a beach wedding, a garden wedding, or a church wedding. But for the both of you, a unique setting is the only choice - a ranch wedding! Well, logistically, it is good that you picked a place that could house the guests. That way, they wouldn’t have had to drive a long way to get to the venue. Good luck with the wedding!
ReplyDelete@Kelli Mueller
An open space wedding venue makes you feel a lot comfortable and relaxed. You not only get to experience a momentous event unfold right before your eyes, but also enjoy such great view of greens and depth of ocean. Good choice for your special day!
ReplyDelete-Thomas Barrett @ BeeAndThistleInn