With a two year engagement, you would think that we had everything nailed down and all set to go welllllllllllllll before the big day. Well, you would think. And I had hoped. But alas. It was not the case. We had to move the location of our tent a week before our wedding. That's right, a WEEK before!!
From the very first moment that we fell in love with our venue, we knew exactly where we wanted our reception. We wanted it outside, in a tent, smack dab in the middle of the grounds. We wanted to be surrounded by all the neat sculptures that make the park what it is (and it wouldn't be too far from where cocktail hour would be). At the time we were told that we would need to build a floor for a tent since the ground is slightly uneven. Sure no problem, how much could a floor cost?
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| Original tent location. (personal photo) |
We met with our planner, the event coordinator for the museum, and our caterer for our final walk-thru and hashed out all the nitty gritty details with 30 days to go. Ceremony and cocktails on the terrace. Reception in the tent on the main lawn (center of park). Bathroom trailers in front of the carriage house. Paula contacted the tent company for a quote on the tent floor. The estimate was pretty hard to swallow. We hemmed and hawed for a bit and decided that since the RSVP numbers came out lower than expected that we would go for it. THEN, the tent company went out and surveyed the location to get the actual cost. Both Paula and I were hoping the number would come down. WRONG, it went up. WAY up. Try 67% higher. As it turned out that the ground is sloped by 4 feet in that location. The tent company would have to rig up a serious floor for us.
We had to move our tent. We knew there were two other locations available to choose from if we wanted to keep our reception outside. One was the back parking lot. Jake hated the back parking lot. It would have been far away from any neighbors, but we would have been removed from the sculptures and its a parking lot with a GIANT dumpster. The venue and our planner claimed that it would all be covered up and you would never know that we were in a parking lot. But we couldn't see it.
The second was in a secluded spot by the two black hearts sculpture. I disliked this location. It's by two giant black hearts AND there are neighbors through the trees on either side. After scoping out the property, I was hoping a third location would be possible. Unfortunately for us, there are water lines that run underground and is not a dig-safe location. At least that is what I have been telling myself. The venue never gave us a reason.
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| I was hoping this spot between the trees would be a possibility. (personal photo) |
Technically, there was another option that I considered. I considered moving the ceremony to be somewhere in the park. The cocktail hour somewhere else (I can't remember the life of me where now). And having our reception on the sculpture terrace, under the stars. But there isn't that much space on the terrace. We would have had to contend with a giant sculpture in the middle of it. The lounge and photobooth areas would be detached, lighting would need to be rigged up, and what would we have done with the parasols we were planning on hanging from the ceiling?
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| personal photo |
In the end, we went with the black hearts location with a full floor (one that didn't cost us an arm, a leg, and our first born). We pissed the neighbors off enough to have them call the cops. Whoops. Everyone partied like rock stars and had a blast. How many people can say the cops shut down their wedding reception?
