How it began (the venue, how the ball rolled, stopped, and began again)

I hadn't wanted a wedding, I know what kind of person I can be - detail oriented, focused, and easily frazzled. I saw the eventual downhill roll into insanity that would ensue if I agreed to plan an event. Rob wanted a wedding desperately, and so after agreeing that he would take a major roll in planning, we bought our first wedding magazine and started. This was in April 2006, and we immediately began making appointments to view venues that we'd be booking for Fall of 2007. We knew we wanted outdoors, natural beauty, to have our pick of caterers, and just to feel it was - the one.

We traveled all over wine country, the coast, within San Francisco city limits and just beyond, only to be broken down in not finding the right place. We stopped looking for months, got sidetracked with buying our home and it wasn't until this February that we looked at each other and thought, "oh yea, we're getting married..." and jumped back on the horse. We hadn't considered leaving the bay area, but we took a chance and drove an hour from our home to visit a small organic farm directly between our two home towns.

lavender field facing the cottage:


the lush almond trees where we will make our entrance:


It was beyond perfect! Exactly what we had been looking for. The open vendor list, so they said, a natural setting, an open canvas completely outdoors, and although it wasn't in the bay area, it was one hour from my parents and one hour from his. We'd found it, the one! They offer 10 weddings a year, 1 per weekend, and we wanted to be one of them at any cost. So began our negotiations...