Hey brides, savvy wives, and New Englanders,
Sorry for the length: This is a cry for help in finding a non-traditional venue in Cape Cod, specifically Falmouth or Woods Hole.
For context: My fiancé and I live in Chicago, but he spent his childhood summers there and since our friends and family are all over the place, I'm happy to have it there and I have to admit it's beautiful. His parents have a really sweet house that they bought a long time ago, but having it there is a last resort because it would be cutting our guest list in half, and then cutting it in half again. And then one more time.
I'm cringing at the prices for more traditional venues like Bourne farm, etc, especially since they rent it for one or two days. I would really love a backyard wedding, so I figured I'd just find us a bigger backyard, no big deal right? After 287 hours of research and a lot of 'no, sorries' later, a lovely woman from VRBO with a huge gorgeous backyard agreed to let us throw the reception there. She even suggested where to put any porta-potties (I know 
, I know), she was ok with our number (80 ppl) and asked if she could use photos of the wedding on her site, so she was 100% on board. But when I flew there (on a plane! time off work!), she was still totally lovely and sweet but just straight up said she changed her mind. I'm getting the sense that it's not really worth it for a VRBO/AirBnB to get involved in a wedding but I feel like there must be *some* way to do this. Normally I would just get back on the horse, but I'm kind of stumped. Does anyone have any ideas at all about where I might be able to find a good sized backyard for a reception--I wasn't planning on having any part of it in the house at all. I wrote to the Falmouth parks department to see if they would allow something like a wedding reception in the Woods Hole park, which, to be honest is mostly a baseball diamond and I wasn't crazy about it, but no word. I'm so sorry for the length of this, but I'm about to give up! I'd welcome any suggestions at all.
Thank you!