Portland, OR ?

dreambydaylight

Hello ladies, I am new here! My sweetie and I are a little backwards and started planning TTC before we started planning to tie the knot.
We will be living in Portland, OR when do get married and wondering if any of you ladies know any budget friendly outdoor venues there? [Also considering Upstate, NY as most of my family is there.]

Knottie1450123632

i would say ask on both the localsboard im in cali gettin married in vegas lol

balletdawn

Ditto-check on your local boards. But since I used to live in Portland, I'll dig up some ideas. Have you thought about going to the coast? You could have the ceremony on the beach and maybe rent a house for the reception?

Another thought - some friends of mine got married on a farm on Sauvie Island and it was AMAZING.

Otherwise, here's a great site I just found:

http://www.portlandweddingvenues.com/

MBeezKneez

I live in Portland!

There are a ton of options to choose from, just be aware that it rains ten months out of the year here, so unless you're getting married in July or August you should probably have alternative plans for if the weather is bad- ESPECIALLY if you're planning a May or June wedding. 

Some options you might consider:

Director Park (< Link)

This is located directly downtown. You can rent sections of it (which they will cordon off and reserve for you), or you can rent the entire thing. It is completely white marble, and there's a section of it that is covered by a glass ceiling with multi-colored changing lights. It is designed to be a wedding venue so portland parks and recreation might be able to point you towards other vendors (flowers, cakes, DJs, etc) that work with them.  

Speaking of PP&R, Portland has a ton of absolutely lovely public parks (<- link) that you can reserve for an event at surprisingly low prices. Be aware that some of them you have to rent both a ceremon location AND a reception location, and the rules are different for each. Also, they are PUBLIC parks, so even though they can reserve you a space, park officialls will not exclude others from the area. 

There are also:

Crystal Springs Rhododendren Garden (link) which is absolutely GORGEOUS, and their people are super friendly. It's in the Sellwood / southeast district, near the river but not on top of it.

The Ainsworth House (link) which has a lot of restrictions on what you can do in terms of decor but is quite beautiful. It also offers indoor and outdoor options for if the weather is bad.

McMenamin's (link) is company  that buys historic buildings, renovates them, and then uses them as restaurants, bars, and event venues. From an old school to an old masonic lodge to an old ballroom, you've got quite a variety of choices. A lot of them also have indoor/outdoor options in case of bad weather. The Grand Lodge is definitely one of my favorites for the indoor/outdoor thing, and they ALSO have hotel rooms to house guests if you're interested in that!

The Jenkins Estate (link)  I didn't see this one personally but the photos look amazing!

A million and one golf clubs, wineries, and farms, which were not my style so I didn't check out. They usually have bad weather options specifically because this is Portland, but you'll definitely want to check. 

I ended up dumping them all to get married in my parents' rather enormous private property so we could use that money elsewhere in our budget, but seriously- they're all great options and if I could do it all over again with a bigger budget I would have jumped so hard on either Crystal Springs or Creston public park. Hope you find this helpful, and good luck!

TheShadyYvonne

I live in Portland also - agree with what Beez kneez said... def think about when you want to get married given the weather out here.

goldfishcake

Also check out the Lake House at Blue Lake. It's in Gresham, which is a short drive from Portland. It's owned by parks and rec so it's very affordable (under 2k for full day) but the place is nice.