Location Location Location

 My dream wedding location was a winery. I just loved the idea of being out in the vines when they were all orange and red with bits of green during the autumn! Plus I figured that if it was a winery I'd be able to save on alcohol.... Little did I know just how much a winery would cost!! This was actually the very first thing we did. Before anything else I wanted to get the location nailed down. I felt it would help us be more realistic with decor and what we wanted it to feel like in the long run. A wedding is nice but, it's not just about the wedding it's about the marriage. Mike and I knew we didn't want to spend a small fortune on the wedding so I guess you could say I'm a bride on a budget!

We started out looking at some winery's in Napa. This one with the wine cave was perfect for our theme! It was on Halloween and the cave was just sooo cool there were this really cool rustic looking black chandeliers and it wasn't a huge space so it would have been nice and intimate . It really would have set the theme.  Once I called and set up a tour of the cave with the event coordinator I realized this just wasn't going to happen, This location alone without anything else was going to put us in way over our heads debt. So the search continued. 

I still had my heart set on a winery I just thought well maybe because it's Napa it's expensive. I mean if you think about wine country most people immediately think of Napa County. They don't think about the many many other regions of California that have wineries. So off to Amador County I went.  I loaded up the car with my friend Nicole and we took the one hour trip from here to Amador county. Where there are many wineries! 

There were 3 out here that I liked. The first one Karmere vineyards and winery It was beautiful it sat atop a hill looking out over the vineyards but, considering that my wedding is at the end of Oct I didn't really want to have to worry about rain and there wasn't an indoor area that would work just in case of rain. Also out here the vineyards were again more than I wanted to spend. NOT as bad as Napa but still bad. 

The next one was Bella Piazza Winery, this place was beautiful!!! Included many wonderful things in the price and it was a top contender. Perhaps a little more then I wanted to spend but more in the price range. Also had an indoor location in case of rain and a bridal suite and contracts with hotels allowing for a bus transportation to and from the winery for the wedding. 

The last one out in Amador county was the sister winery to Bella Piazza Winery and I felt like it fit my theme a little better. (Remember when I was looking for a winery out here I still had my heart set on the wine cave....)

The Villa Toscano Winery was a little more Tuscany and absolutely gorgeous. Again it wasn't the wine cave but, I still liked it. My hang up with these locations were. Weather (Plan B), location from hotels and at all the wineries there was a 10:30 noise curfew.  I took the information home and the search continued.



Next I took Mike out and we went to a winery that is closer to Sacramento in the Delta about 15 min from downtown, The Citizen Hotel, Tsakopoulos library and finally the location we chose, The Firehouse Restaurant in  old Sacramento.

Wilson Vineyards were in the price range and close to Sacramento. Mike and I just weren't sold on the location. It was pretty and a good deal for the money but, it just didn't have the right feel to it. Also they had a 10:00PM Noise curfew so there would have been an after party.

The Citizen Hotel  was pretty cool. It had an old world feel to it as far as the price was concerned it was about the same as Wilson vineyards.  The Tsakopoulos Library Galleria was pretty cool also. They were very restrictive on which vendors you could use so that made the price go up. Plus sides to these were close to hotels and no noise curfew limit.

We finally decided on The Firehouse Restaurant, it is beautiful has all the things I was looking for and wasn't going to break the bank!! I'm not going to post any pictures of it I want you guys to see it the day of. So I'm not even going to tell you which room I am going to use because I want it to be a surprise!! Mike and I spent about 3 months looking for the location and we found it in Jan. We ate here for dinner one night and just loved the food so we came back to get information for the wedding! I would say this was the least painful process. It was hard to pick a location because there are a lot of places at there to choose from!