Making a tough call...

So we did what any self-respecting couple would do. We took a day or so to weigh our options. We talked through all of the scenarios that I had envisioned as a couple, and made our decisions once we had all of the information at hand that we needed in order to make that decision.

This, of course was done AFTER I had consulted two of my closest friends for their advice first…don’t hate me honey! A girl has to talk things through with another girl (or two) before she comes to you…that helps eliminate options. Because even though it was presented to you with just four options of what to do, there were actually 7 or 8 things that could have happened. I just did the hard work of eliminating the REALLY far out ones first!

So what that being said, Mr. CC really shocked me with the option that he chose.

Mr. CC and I agreed to simply change the reception hall that we had selected and stay with TOT and our original date of October 24th. I was really worried about us selecting this option for several reasons. The main thing that worried me was that this wedding isn’t just about me, it’s OUR wedding, and Mr. CC’s initial reaction upon walking into Redbud Hall just kept standing out in my head, the immediate “No, this won’t work” kinda leaves a lasting impression on a girl. I know that a lot of grooms out there aren’t concerned with the details, but as long as Mr. CC is showing interest in the details, then I want to include him as much as possible and this is a big part of the overall wedding/reception.

But when we sat down and talked it through, Mr. CC was quick to assure me that his initial reaction was based on the size of the hall alone. He thought that it was too small, and this could be for several reasons.

One – he’s right, it IS the smallest hall that TOT has to offer. With a max guest count of 160 (with a dance floor), Mr. CC is worried that we won’t be able to invite all the people that we want to have there and still have room to breathe.

Two – it didn’t show well. The hall still had tables and chairs set up from the last party that had been held there, which took up some the viewing room. I know, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, there will be tables and chairs out in the room during our wedding/reception. You’re right. But when you’re just viewing a venue and both of the other halls have tables and chairs out of sight or pushed back along the wall, it makes a difference in the overall impression.

Now that I knew what the worry was, I could set about seeing if it was justified, which meant going back to the rough guest list that I had put together several months ago. This was something that I had not previously gone over with Mr. CC, so it was a good exercise to sit down and do. I made a database with all the names and contact information that I had of everyone that I thought that we would invite to the wedding. Along with this information, I put in a head count of both adults and children, and then totaled it all up neat and tidy at the bottom. I then applied what I’m hearing is a good rule of thumb for invites, 75% acceptance rate, and got a good guesstimate at the attendance for our wedding/reception.

Mr. CC’s biggest worry was that we would have to leave some people uninvited. But as it stands today, our guest list it right at 160 people (children included) and if only 75% are able to come to the shindig, then that puts us at around 120 on the big day. Which is more than enough room for Redbud Hall.

With that worry relieved from his mind, Mr. CC was MORE than happy to go ahead and go with Redbud Hall. We know that there will be some additions to our guest list as we remember people (family) that we’ve “accidentally” left off…and that’s ok. Heck, if everyone shows up, then I’ll rent some extra tables and open the doors wide and throw all the kiddos outside….as it stands today, there are 39 of them on the guest list…and let’s be honest – they’d have more fun outside anyway!

Which Option to Choose to Still Get What WE Want?

After the shock wore off, and we were able to think clearly – meaning past the emotional disappointment of not having things work out the way you had it all planned – we looked at the situation from a step removed.

It was important for us to acknowledge that things weren’t going to be what we wanted originally, unless something changed. I mean, let’s be honest. When things don’t work out and you fall back to Plan B, something has to give. So, we quit dwelling on what wouldn’t work and started looking at what would work. What could we change in our plans to still get us the wedding that we wanted?

From my perspective, there were several options open to us:
1. Change the Venue – maybe do some research into another facility - one of our runners up. Maybe they would have some availability still in October that TOT didn’t have.
2. Change the Day – not just picking a different date, but look into doing a Friday or Sunday wedding. That opened up the calendar back at the Tejas Hall at TOT.
3. Change the Date COMPLETELY – go with an all new time frame period. Look at getting married around holidays to make the Friday/Sunday option work for us, in a different season all together so that the weddings don’t collide.
4. Change the Hall at TOT – the smaller hall, Redbud Hall, had every Saturday in October open for rental, but Mr. CC didn’t like this hall as much as the Tejas Hall.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really excited about option #1. I didn’t want to choose another venue, I LIKED TOT. And the difficulties of being about 9 months out from the proposed wedding date at other popular choices in the Austin area would present with the same problem – they would already be booked. Which meant that I would have to go off of the beaten path a little bit to find somewhere else that WAS still available, and to be perfectly honest, I had spent countless hours doing this research months earlier and didn’t jump at the thought of starting over on it all.

Option #2 didn’t appeal to me either. I liked the fact that the wedding could cost less, since the rental rates for Fridays/Sundays are generally cheaper, and the practical side of my nature really liked that! But it presented a logistical problem for me specifically. My family and most of my friends that will be invited all live out of town. And not just like an hour or two away, they’re all at least 3 ½ hours away, some closer to 4 ½ hours away from the greater Austin area. Mr. CC’s family all live within the metro area of Austin for the most part, and only a few friends would make making the trek in from out of state, so it didn’t matter to them what day of the week we picked since for them it would mean several days off of work anyway. But for me, asking my family and friends to take not just one day off of work, but not TWO days off of work was just more than I could imagine. I know that they would probably be here no matter what day I chose, but I’d like to make the decision to attend as easy as possible for them – which means sticking to a Saturday.

I actually liked option #3. I decided that the Sunday before Memorial Day would be a fabulous time to do a wedding. It would be on a Sunday (cheaper rates) and the next day was a holiday for most people, so no worries about missing work for my traveling family and friends. The down sides to us picking that time were plenty, though. It was REALLY soon, for one thing, and my work schedule is jammed packed up through the end of April. (One small dilemma.) The end of May in Texas is just hot and sticky and can be completely uncomfortable. Mr. CC wasn’t thrilled about a tux/suit in the heat of May, and this was I think the driving force behind his dislike of my winner of an idea…

That really leaves us with only option #4. I didn’t want to be the one to suggest this to Mr. CC, though. I had already dealt with things not going the way that I had planned in my head, and didn’t want Mr. CC to have to do a similar thing. He really LOVED Tejas Hall, so me asking him to go to the smaller Hall which he walked into and immediately said NO, was just more than I could ask of a fiancé. This wedding isn’t just about me and what I want, but about us and what WE envision for the ceremony that marks the start of our life together. So I couldn’t ask that of him.

I did come up with one other solution, but the planning involved in it would have been SO tricky and convoluted that we didn’t consider it long. I considered booking the weekend before their wedding (Nov 7th) at the Tejas Hall that Mr. CC loved so much and then making our honeymoon be somewhere on the West Coast. That way, on our way “home” we could make a stop in Southern California for our friends wedding. Seems like a good solution right? Right. Until you consider the logistics behind all of that, and not knowing yet when they need the best man there, and if they would be able to attend an out-of-town wedding the week before their wedding. Not to mention that would mean that not only was our wedding planned around their wedding, but that would extend into our honeymoon time as well, and it might be cut short due to obligations for Mr. CC’s friends’ wedding. So that option was quickly ruled out as well.

I mean, really, what’s a girl to do? Were there other options out there that I might have overlooked in my haste to get something decided before those dates were booked too?

It's HARD to pick a date!

Don’t you just hate endings that are anticlimactic? I do. You sit there patiently through the entire two and a half hours of an action packed movie, and then the ending stinks. It just wraps up neat and tidy, or worse, doesn’t wrap up at all! (At least with that option, there’s a chance at a sequel if you liked the first one.)

That’s kinda how the drama to us picking out our favorite reception hall played out when we went to sign the contract and select our date. All this hype and excitement builds up, and drama and emotions get involved and then…POOF! It’s over. Done.

So here’s how it all happened. You remember where we left off, right? Tejas Hall was our favorite choice of the three reception halls that Texas Old Town had to chose from. Now it’s time to sign the contract and pick a date. Back when we first got engaged, I had traded several emails with the manager of TOT and found that October 24th and 31st were the only Saturdays available in October, but that November was completely open for booking a Saturday wedding at any of the halls. Great news, right? Right.

But fast forward to last week. Now it’s been almost two months. Do you think that those dates are still open? Nope. They’re not. (Well, that’s not entirely true. Halloween is still an option, but I just can’t wrap my head around getting married on Halloween, so that’s out. FH agrees.) But all Saturdays in November are open for Tejas Hall. So we start looking at November. I’m a little concerned about the weather in November for an outdoor wedding. Yes, there have been times in years past that I’ve still been on the lake in early November, enjoying balmy Texas weather, but that’s just the thing about Texas weather. It’s SO unpredictable.

So I’m going back and forth between early November and late November, when all of a sudden a thought hits me. Mr. CC’s best man got engaged over the Christmas holidays, and they were talking about an October wedding. So I check with Mr. CC to see if he heard if they had picked a date yet, just so we didn’t pick the same date, as Mr. CC would be returning the best man honors for his friend’s wedding. While Mr. CC leaves his friend a voice mail with the question, we tentatively settle on November 14th.

I’m ok with that date. It doesn’t jump right out and grab me or anything, but it’s an ok date. I’m weird, I know.

But all hell breaks loose the next day when our friend returns Mr. CC’s call. Turns out that they wanted to get married in this one particular place in California that has deep meaning to them as a couple and him as an individual. With that being the case, had to work around their venue’s schedule. And the only date that the Missions had open was….yep, you guessed it – November 14th!

We were SO bummed. I can’t even begin to explain to you what this did to our mood. Totally killed it. I mean, picking the 14th of the month to get married really blows the whole month for you. Now we can’t pick the week before (Nov 7th) since we’d still be on our honeymoon, it can’t be the same weekend (one is in Texas and on is in California), and we can’t choose the weekend after (Nov 21st) since they’ll still be on their honeymoon. You can see the difficulties that we were dealing with, right?

You think that it’s not that big of a deal, you just move your date. But when you get your heart set on something, a vision of how it’s going to be, and then things just don’t fall into place to make that happen, it requires a shift of perception. I had already dealt with this a little bit, if you remember from an earlier post in dealing with family members, but this is a new thing for Mr. CC. And let me assure you, he was just as upset about it all as I was. Not mad, upset. Just disappointed. Happy for his friends, because they got something that they really wanted and he understood what it meant to them to get married at the Missions, but disappointed that them getting what they wanted means that we have to shift our wedding perception a little bit to accommodate.

Three Halls....Three Choices...Our Favorite...

Texas Old Town has three reception halls, each with their own ceremony site provided as part of the rental. They are, Redbud Hall – seating a max of 160 people, Tejas Hall – seating a max of 550 people, and Sage Hall – seating a max of 320 people. And the prices vary based on the number of people and the hall chosen. Tejas and Redbud Hall both rent for the same amount and seat different numbers of people. Sage Hall, which seats fewer people than the Tejas Hall, rents for a higher rate.

This was all VERY confusing before seeing things in person. Now, after touring the place with Mr. CC and Danny German, it all makes perfect sense. So I’ll do a breakdown of the halls, their high points and their low points in my mind and then FINALLY put you out of your misery and tell you which hall we liked the best!

Tejas Hall
This is the original structure on the ranch, and is the older building found. It was designed and mostly built by hand by the founder of Texas Old Town several decades ago. It is a large hall that seats up to 550 people without a dance floor, it has a stage, kitchen area, food service area, bar, and bridal and groom dressing rooms located on the upstairs level. In keeping with the true Old Texas feel of the place, the restrooms are located outdoors, but real plumbing is installed, with a private bathroom in each dressing room for the wedding party. The hall has a “barn-like” feel to it, with gorgeous rafters and wooden beams supporting the entire structure. The area is open, in that it’s all one big room, but there are support beams throughout that somewhat divide the room. All tables and chairs are wooden and the tables themselves were crafted by the owner, so they are all originals. They vary in size and style, from picnic style with attached benches to 4 and 6 person tables. Everywhere you look is wood, wood floors, ceilings, walls, tables, chairs and roof. It is warm and inviting, and the beams that interrupt the flow slightly naturally mark off the best area for the dance floor. The ceremony site for Tejas Hall is located at the back of the hall, a short walk along a slightly wooded path. The ceremony site is cleared out, and the trees are not as full back there to provide full privacy, but the backdrops for the site more than make up for it, as the rolling hills come into view.

Redbud Hall
This was the second structure built for the property. It was originally a covered patio, that was eventually enclosed and furnished. It follows the same basic layout of the other hall, with an entirely open floorplan, which makes it warm and inviting. There are more windows to this area, giving the entire building an overall cottage feel to it. The kitchen area and food service area and bar are all located at one end of the building. There is a stage area, and the restrooms for this hall are located inside the hall. This hall only seats a maximum of 160 people while still leaving room for a dance floor, which makes the overall feel of this hall a bit more intimate than the larger Tejas Hall. This builidng also comes with dressing rooms, but they are located in the adjacent building that also houses the offices for TOT. The hall is also wood everywhere, which gives it a rustic charm and since it is smaller, it seems to have a cozier feel to it, like I mentioned earlier. Here the tables are round tables, standard for most venues, with wooden chairs to accompany. The private ceremony site for this hall is located just across the drive from the hall and is heavily wooded. As you walk into the clearing, you do get a sense of being off in your own private world, which is just what every bride would want for her wedding day.

Sage Hall
This is the most recent structure added to TOT. When Danny told me that it was designed specifically for weddings, I didn’t truly understand what he meant until I saw the hall myself. This building has been added within the last two years or so, and was built after TOT got involved with the wedding business, and was designed just so. The hall seats up to 320 people with a dance floor. Just like the other facilities, there is a kitchen, serving area, bar area, restrooms and dressing rooms for the bridal party. Unlike the other facilities, all of this is located in one building. The dressing rooms sit above the bathrooms and kitchen area, on the opposite end of the building from the stage and dance floor area. Like Redbud Hall, the tables here are round standard tables, with wooden chairs. The building lacks some of the warmth and character of the Tejas Hall, but makes up for it with a more refined sense of rustic elegance. For Sage Hall, the ceremony area is located right next to the building, and features a brook running through the area, complete with a bridge for the wedding party to cross to get to the ceremony site. A wooden arbor completes the backdrop, and a fence along the back provides privacy and a serene feel to the ceremony site. I can easily see why brides book this hall in a snap!

Each hall also comes with its own parking area and attendant to be the “gatekeeper” between halls. There was some concern with the Tejas Hall and Redbud Hall being located so close together, but with the outdoor stage area separating the two areas, and the ceremony sites for each hall being so far away from each other, I think that the concern of not having your “own” site falls out of concern very quickly.

So knowing all of that….Mr. CC fell in LOVE and I do mean capital L, capital O, capital V, capital E with the…..TEJAS HALL!! The character and charm and overall vibe to the hall meets and exceeds our own expectations for our wedding to a T! With that being said, there are some challenges that I can foresee working with this hall, but for the most part they can all be easily worked around or overcome with a little creativity from the bride and groom.

I’m SO excited to have a venue that I cannot contain myself, and I’m really relieved that Mr. CC likes the place so much too. It means a lot to me that he’s so involved in the whole process….just one of the reasons that I’m so lucky!

Texas Old Town...and it's own brand of charm

So don’t you know that it turns out the FH has to work on the Saturday that I’ve scheduled us to go and look at Texas Old Town? That’s just our luck. But the good news is that he thought that it would be a short half-day of work, and worst case scenario we could drive there separately and just meet instead of riding together.

In the end, it worked out fine. We managed to meet up, and ride together and got there right on time. As we’re driving along, I’m trying to keep an open mind, preparing myself to find the things that I don’t like about the venue. I mean, honestly, it’s the best option that we’ve come across on line and seems to fit in with everything that we’d been looking for. But nothing can be that great, right? Once again, that’s just my luck talking.

So as we’re driving along, I’m trying to see things from an outsider’s perspective. It was nice that Texas Old Town is situation so close to our house, a DEFINITE bonus, and I was trying to follow the directions given to us by Danny German, the manager as if I wasn’t familiar with the area. Good news, the directions were great, and the roads were clearly marked and all turns noted. Check on directions.

As we pull into the property, there is a large wooden ranch-style archway that you drive through, reminiscent of an actual ranch. Once inside the gates, there is a fork in the road. One way points toward two of the halls, and the other direction is clearly marked for another hall. Once again, kudos for having the trail clearly marked. I can see that this could be a nightmare if not marked clearly, but never fear, the folks at TOT seem to know what they’re doing. I also notice that underneath each building name is what looks to be a chalkboard frame, and I’m assuming that when there is an event scheduled, the event name is probably written upon that board to more clearly define where your guests should be going. Quaint, and I like it.

So we follow the roads around until we find a grouping of buildings where the office in located. Immediately I can see the outdoor stage area, as well as one ceremony site and two of the halls. The two halls are situation close together, but not side by side. They are separated by the outdoor stage as well as the office buildings, which is good news for me.

We find Danny, the manager, and are immediately welcomed to TOT and find him to be genuinely friendly and informative. He immediately lets up know up front that he’s not a salesperson, he’s just a tour guide. He welcomes us to his family’s business and immediately sets about making us feel at home. He gives us some papers to look over, with information about what is included in the rental and the rates and some preferred vendor information. He patiently explains some things, and answers any questions that we have right then, and we move quickly to the tour portion of the visit.

Danny does a great job of explaining the history behind TOT, giving us a better understanding of how the place started and how it morphed into what it is now. And there is a method to his madness…while on the tour, you can see the buildings and feel of the place change. The older buildings were built for reasons other than to be event locations, you see. The original founders (Danny’s in-laws) built Texas Old Town to be a throw back to the good old days of West Texas, back when there were cowboys and Indians roaming about. It was started as a “cow-town” settlement, for entertainment purposes only. It’s only been in the past few years that the wedding industry has discovered the unique charm and rustic elegance of having a Hill Country wedding in a locale such as this. And I think that it was important to have the brief history lesson – it gave us an understanding of the where, when and why behind it all.

And it explained the differences in the halls. Before going out there and seeing things myself, I couldn’t understand why two halls that hold different size parties would cost the same amount, and the other building was so much more expensive. Seeing things first hand, really helped clarify these points for me. And it truly is such that each hall has its own character and set of attributes that might appeal or not appeal to each individual bride. There are things that one hall has that another doesn’t that makes it more or less appealing to different people. And we liked this. It gave each hall its own little personality, and it was a joy to try to match that unique set of characteristics with what we’re shooting for with our wedding.

And as such, we felt it when we walked into the hall that “fit” us and our wedding. There was no question about it. The other two halls were nice, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but this one hall just fit US….stayed tuned to find out which one!

Venue Option B : Texas Old Town, Kyle, TX

So now we’re down to just one…and yep, you guessed it, this one is MORE than likely going to be our winner. There are a few other options that I need to double check myself on, but this venue met all of our needs. And then some.

Introducing Texas Old Town (http://www.texasoldtown.com/).

I don’t remember exactly how I found this place…I think that I had just done a generic search on msn.com for wedding reception facilities and this website popped up. At first glance, I wasn’t really sold on anything other than it seemed to fit the feel of what we were talking about wanting for the wedding (rustic elegance) and the spacious rooms and outdoor ceremony sites made this one worth re-visiting. I sent an email off to the contact address asking for rates and more information. The owner, Danny German, was more than quick to reply and has been MORE than gracious during the three months between our first contact with him and the actual appointment to see this place this past weekend.

You see, I was in a dilemma about how much I could actually do for the wedding without being actually engaged. Yes, this put pressure on my sweetie to pop the big question, but there came a point in my looking that this might seem to be the front runner in the list of venue options, and I didn’t feel right going to see the place until I was ACTUALLY engaged. And then, of course, once I was engaged, there was too much actually going on with the holidays and work-related stuff to even consider making appointments to see venues.

So fast forward to last week…when it hits me like a ton of bricks that January is almost OVER and I haven’t made ANY wedding decisions yet! YIKES!!

A quick phone call on Friday afternoon fixed that up, and we had an appointment to view the facilities on Saturday morning. Now you’re probably wondering what this place had over all of the others that I was looking at online to make me actually call them instead of just researching more…so I’ll tell you.

I liked the look of the place – outdoors Hill Country meets wedding reception venue. Old world charm with modern amenities for a nice wedding.


Everything was wood in sight – walls, ceilings, chairs, tables and flooring – which means, yep, you guessed right – built in dance floor!


Rental rates included the ceremony site along with the hall rental at no extra charge. Rental also included a FULL DAY – 8am-12am, so set up and take down would be no problem or cost anything extra. Plus, the cost of clean up was included (after removing anything that you brought in yourself) and on site dressing rooms were also part of the package. And an added bonus was that if the facility that you book isn’t reserved the day before your reservation, they don’t care or charge you extra to come out and do set up the day BEFORE! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – was this heaven on a website?!?!?



Texas Old Town allows outside vendors, but also has agreements with certain vendors and coordinators to allow discounts. Their catering charges quotes on line were WAY below others that I had been looking at, and they do a get together the first or second Friday of the month (Family Night) so that you can come and hang out, play games and taste the goods prior to booking with anyone, including band and dj options. A nice addition, I think. The only vendor that they require is the bartending service, which is not a deal breaker for me, and the rates quoted on music services (both band or dj) were also very reasonable.

So if all of this great stuff is there, what’s the drawback you ask? I’ll tell you. At Texas Old Town, there are three different halls that you can reserve for your event. Which means that on a busy Saturday in the fall, there could be three weddings going on at the same time. I think that you can see where my questions at this point are going, right? How close is each hall to one another? How secluded are the ceremony sites to give me the privacy and romance that I’m looking for? If everyone uses their caterers, and I have the smallest party booked for that day, will I still get the same great service that the larger weddings will get? Of course, this question was addressed on their FAQ page, but of COURSE they’re gonna say that this has never been a problem.


And at this point, I’m thinking that I want to book the smaller hall, Redbud Hall, based on size guidelines that they offer on their website. So I know that I’ll be the smallest wedding/event going on that day…

But all of this could be a moot point once I see the joint. You know? This is getting too long, you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see what FH and I thought of the place….

The Early Contenders...

In my haste to post about the two venue choices that I managed to narrow it down to, I totally forgot all about one of the my early contenders. So, in all fairness, here are a few other wedding venue site that you can check out that I did consider before narrowing it down to the final two…

www.angelspringsevents.com
www.umlaufsculpture.org
www.amoa.org
www.allanhouse.com

I really like several of those vendors, but there were problems with the venue. In some cases these venues did NOT include any rentals. Others had restrictions on vendor choices, and I couldn’t justify the additional cost to myself, much less to my fiancé. When there are other choices that do include tables, chairs and dance floors…it just didn’t appease the practical side of my nature. Please feel free to look at them online and give me your feedback though! Maybe you’ll come up with a solution that I hadn’t thought of before I book another place!

There were a few of these venues that I absolutely fell in LOVE with, and then had to cross off for practicality reasons…Austin Museum of Art being the #1 for that category. This was one of my early forerunners in the venue selection. Not only were the grounds FABULOUS, but the gorgeousness of the gardens would make on-site decorating a minimal expense. But the limitations on time of rental, vendor restrictions and no tables, chairs OR dance floor made the cost of the this venue add up quick!

The Allan House we REALLY liked, as it was central to downtown Austin – lots of lodging options, as well as extra entertainment choices for out-of-town guests. The only draw back to there was the lack of space. The house itself is small, the grounds are compact and there is no dance floor. Yes, in some of the pictures on their website you’ll see people dancing, but the flooring is stone, so uneven enough for our guests who are wanting to do a little boot scootin’!

And Angel Springs seemed to fit all requirements but one….it seems REALLY far out of town. With no local accommodations, that means our guests having to drive quite a distance after the reception. And since we’ve already discussed my fears of drinking and driving mixing that night, I just don’t want that on my conscience. I suppose that I could look into some transportation options for our guests, but that seems a bit extreme when I could just opt for a place closer into town.

So there were some of the close runners up for the venue selections. On to the final two….