We went on venue tours two and three this weekend. I'd already had to cut out a bunch of potential places because they were either too expensive, too restrictive, or were booked every Saturday until next November (we wanted September).
Even the place we saw on Saturday ended up being an instant "no thanks" when they hit us with the $13k food & beverage minimum that wasn't mentioned in
any of the documents they sent me. Ouch!
Yesterday, we saw venue #3. It's a golf course out in wine country. The building is nice, the coordinator is flexible, and it's just barely in budget. The coordinator printed up a full estimate for us. The first round was over budget, but we cut down some of the appetizers and alcohol.
The only downside was a 100 person minimum for a Saturday. We're just going to have to expand our guest list slightly, since we'll already be paying for the food.
Here's the ceremony location out on the patio overlooking the golf course. The arches are included with live plants growing on them. We can just add an arrangement to the top.
Here's the reception room. I love the big windows. I would not go with the chair covers, though. Either plain (they're just white chairs underneath) or if we have extra money, we'll spring for chiavari. There are rope lights around each window that look pretty at night.
There's also another patio we can use for cocktail hour. The coordinator said to come back in two weeks so we could see them set up for another wedding. We have our date on hold right now, but I really don't have any other places on the list that I want to go look at.