Venue Search Part TWO: now what?!

   At the end of January, I truly felt "why bother to spend the money on a wedding, if you can't have it the way you want."  I don't mean to sound like a princess, but there was no venue that excited me that was also relatively convenient and affordable.   Mr. LB and I continued our search...this time with a couple more venues that were more beachy.

The Crescent Beach Club in seemed almost perfectly beachy from the pictures.  Don' t you agree?

   However,  Mr. LB reminded me that the decor inside of the Crescent Club was less than desirable, since his cousin had their reception there after a destination wedding.  Mr. LB and I hate drop ceilings.   Drop ceilings are what they use in church basements, that was not the look we were going for.  If you 're going to charge me $XXX per person, at least get a real ceiling--not everyone is under 6 feet.   But regardless of drop ceilings, what made me think the most was Mr. LB's question: "What are you going to do if it rains."  There was nothing I could say.

Onward.  We next visited the Hotel Allegria in Long Beach.  This one was hard to pass up, but we weren't willing to be paying off the wedding for the next 10 years to have the reception here.  No way.

 

   It was hard to cross the Hotel Allegria off the list because it was the closest I could get to my "dream beach wedding."  The cocktail hour with it's chic decor (blue and sea green mosaic tile bar with beautiful lighting) and amazing views of the ocean took my breath away.   It was like something out of HGTV.  The only problem was that this was the cocktail room--the rest of the wedding would be downstairs in a ballroom that faced a parking lot--not even the beach!  Apparently, this was from keeping drunk guests from wandering out of the party and drown in the ocean.  Plus, the price we could afford was, for example, a Friday night in the middle of January, and no one would have been able to enjoy the pretty ocean views. So with some sadness, I kissed the Allegria and my dream beach wedding goodbye.

   Lastly, we found our current "runner up"-- The Mansion at Timber Point.

   We met Neil, one of the catering managers and was blown away by his professionalism, humor and directness.  He actually gave us a final price that included tax and gratuity.  All other venues we visited gave as a price "plus tax and 18% gratuity"  --a.k.a add another 20-25 dollars per person.    Timber Point is a mansion on a golf course on the Great South Bay.  It had a decent ballroom with a beautiful portico that looked out onto the golf course and eventually the Bay.   Neil's price on a Saturday evening in the middle of the summer was very reasonable and even though Timber Point was not on the beach,  I loved the view of the Great Bay South.  But then I remembered this question..."What if it rains..."   I had visions of the cocktail hour being in a room off the side of the ballroom--yuck.  The golf course and Bay barely visible in the rain--the hopes of wandering around the golf course with the photographer dashed.  At this point, if nothing else surfaced I would have been okay at Timber Point and would have prayed for no rain.  But I had a feeling that something even better was around the corner.
   If Mr. LB and I lived in predictably sunny southern California, I would be able to have some type of reception on the beach.  However, I live on Long Island, where the weather can change at the drop of dime.  Something can be said for peace of mind to not have to worry about possible rain and I'm embracing that peace of mind in a new venue.

Have you had to kiss a wedding dream goodbye?  How did you handle it?

xoxo Miss LB