First Site Visit: Venue - Dancing Deer Mountain

We visited out first venue today, Dancing Deer Mountain.  The photos on their website do not do it justice, it's beautiful, even in early spring before the flowers have bloomed.

I really liked that they only host one event per week, and that they are set in the mountains.  I also liked that they have items on hand that we can use for centerpieces and a parking attendant, both at no extra charge.  They also have a nice collection of antique/vintage plates and silverware they we can rent for $1 per set.  We would be able to use the venue on Thursday/Friday to set up, create the centerpieces, rehearse, whatever we need, and we can go back on Sunday to pick up any items.

The cons were that we need to be done by sunset, so there would be no dancing into the night, and the caterer would need to haul away their own garbage, they would not take care of it for us.  Also, it's quite a bit out of the way from town, so that would be a concern for those who are coming from out of town.

It was a beautiful location and I could see myself getting married there.  Let's see if that changed after we see some more venues.

Some photos we took today:

The guests would be seated on either side of the walkway, facing us.  This would be our view from the ceremony circle.

This is the view of the lodge from the ceremony circle.

View of the property from the ceremony circle.

View of the gazebo, from the ceremony circle.

Pintrest - The Cake

I've been on somewhat of a pinning spree lately, I kinda feel bad for all my friends since in order to see anyone else's pin's they have to go through all my wedding ones.  I've found some pretty cool ideas...

My cake inspiration was is one of my favorite finds from Pintrest, and oddly enough seems like it could be our cake, due to the Bride & Groom initials in this photo... Anyone else think it's meant to be?

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For a more non-traditional cake topper, I was thinking something like this, but with the heart over Eugene instead of Portland:

Originally from Etsy, listing/shop can no longer be found.

And slightly more traditional, these two:

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However I'm thinking more a combination between a traditional cake top tier, and a cupcake tower like this:

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With these cupcakes (in red and light blue instead of purple and blue):

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And the last piece of flair for the 'cake' - these ladybugs on just a few of the cupcake blooms, maybe hidden somehow so that they look like they naturally landed there:

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This is just the start... Pintrest has opened my mind to so many options.  Now to budget and implement!

Have you found any great inspiration on Pintrest?  Do you have a Pintrest wedding board(s)?

Last Dance

My favorite movie of all time (played a VHS so much it broke, memorized the lines) is Dirty Dancing.  I absolutely love (L.O.V.E.) that movie.

Sitting here, trying to get off the computer and get ready for bed, I just had the greatest inspiration of all time for our last dance song.

Do you know what it is?

Can you hear it?

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I've been thinking about, and making plans for, this wedding for 2+ years now... how has this never occurred to me before?

YAY!!!

By the way, no, there will not be a lift, or a choreographed copy of the dance... I would never be able to convince him to go for that... lol

What are your musical inspirations?  Have you picked your last dance song yet?

How I almost ruined my own wedding...

Our wedding date has been an iffy subject for a while.

When we were originally engaged, we planned on getting married in Spring 2013.  Last year we realized that since we are paying for the wedding ourselves, cash, we needed more time to save money.  We moved the wedding to 2014.  This also has the added benefit of my having 10 years at my work, so I will have 4 weeks of vacation instead of my usual 3 = I can take a whole week off leading up to the wedding without 'feeling' like I'm loosing a week of vacation.

Over New Years, talking to my mom about a family vacation to Las Vegas (no one in my family has gone) we somehow got onto the subject of my getting married in Vegas.  I was completely against the idea (it had been brought up a million times by friends here in Oregon), until my mom pointed out a fact that I had overlooked.  Getting married in Vegas did not mean getting married on the spur of the moment in a place like the Chapel of the Bells:

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This thought had never occurred to me.  I could get married in a nice location? A very very nice location?  Hmmm... Now I had something to think about.

Based on this tidbit, I have spent the last twoish months talking myself into getting married in Vegas, at the Venetian, on their Wedding Bridge.

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Going this route would mean having a lot less people at our wedding, and we would not have selected to have a formal reception, just everyone going to dinner afterwards.

While this would have been a beautiful, and somewhat simpler, option, and I would have been happy on my wedding day, I was having trouble fully investing in this idea.

Then a friend asked me the other day if I really wanted to get married in Las Vegas, or in Eugene.  I closed my eyes and imagined my wedding day.  I imagined myself walking towards my fiancee.  I was not in Las Vegas.  I was not indoors standing on a bridge over a canal.  I was outdoors, surrounded by the beauty that in my home.  I was in Oregon.

That was it, I knew what I wanted in my heart. I talked to Jessy about it and I asked him, where do you want to get married?  He said he wanted to get married here, in our home, with our friends and family.

That was it.  Decision made.  We are getting married in Oregon.

Now to find a venue.

Did you have a hard time choosing what city/state to get married in?

Welcome! (and Our Story)

We are getting married in June of 2014.  I've spent a lot of time browsing the web and I've gotten a lot of tips, tricks and ideas from other's websites and blogs.  Over time I've decided that my ideas could help someone else one day, either to know what they want to do at their own wedding, or even what not to do.  I've also realized I want a place to record my thoughts and compile my ideas together (somewhere other than Pintrest).

You may want to know a little about us.

About Me:
I was born in Miami, Florida and lived there for most of life, with the exception of ages 2 through 10, when I lived in Georgia with my family.  My sisters were born there, and though they only lived there for 5 years, we all consider ourselves to be Georgia Peaches (with two Cuban parents!).  Throughout middle and high school I was always the 'best friend' of the guys that I was interested in, and that carried over into adulthood.  Before meeting my fiance I had a total of TWO boyfriends.

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About Him:
TBA**

How it started:
One New Years Day I was sick and tired of not having someone to kiss at the strike of midnight, so I made a drastic move - I signed up for an online dating website, you may have heard of it, eHarmony.  I signed up for a three months membership and while I met a few interesting people online, I only had interest in meeting one.  That meeting went so terribly that I decided eHarmony would not work for me and I canceled my membership after the first three months.

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When we 'met':
Fast forward about six months.  Throughout the months I continued to receive emails from eHarmony and I would delete them almost immediately.  Over Labor Day weekend however, one caught my eye.  It was an email stating that someone had requested to communicate with me.  On it's own this was not a strange email at all, since that was usually the content of all the emails I had received, however this person had the same first name as one of my prior boyfriends.  I thought it would be incredibly funny if it was said ex, so I signed on and checked it out.  It wasn't, however while I was there I decided to look around and see who had been wanting to communicate with me over the last six months.  There was a ton of duds, however one seemed to have potential.  Then my heart dropped.  I noticed that communication had been requested three months earlier, in June.  I knew in my heart of hearts that this man would not still be available - surely someone had scooped him up by now.  I took a risk and contacted him.

Imagine my surprise when just a few hours later I received a response.  He was not attached to anyone and was still interested.  We swapped communications into the evening, and we decided that I would text him the next day when I was done with a project for a class I was taking.  I was giddy.

The next day, Labor Day, I sent him a text when I was done with my project and he called me almost immediately.  It was early afternoon.  I don't believe we hung up the phone until the early hours of the morning.

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Meeting in person:
We continued this way for almost two weeks, until we decided to meet in person for dinner.  The day was September 11, 2008.  We immediately clicked, more so than on the phone, and the next day we were officially together.

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How we ended up in Oregon:
We saw each other often, almost daily, and in May of 2009 I moved in.  It was rough living with someone for the first time, but we really got to know each other much better after that.  I'd always wanted to move out of Miami, so had he, so in 2010 we made the decision to move to Oregon, where I could still stay with my company.  We started making plans, and saving money.  In March 2011 we moved in my with family to help save some money on bills and in June we left on a cross country adventure (a.k.a the big move).  We've been living in Oregon since the lat week in June 2011 and we absolutely love it.  We love it so much that this is where we are going to get married, instead of back in Miami.  This has been a difficult decision for us, because most of our family members do not understand, however we want to start our married life in the place where we feel that we are at home, regardless of what others think.

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How did you and your significant other meet?  Did you ever try online dating?

**I'll add more info (his side) when he gives it.