Your Wedding's 'Spot'

Time to dive into/recap how we picked our 'wedding spot'.  Honestly, it didn't take me long after Hubs proposed to dive right into researching wedding venues.  I was so high on life, my excitement had me scanning Wedding Wire like it was my job.  Being boaters/'on the water' type of folks we, okay I, definitely knew I had to be married next to/on a body of water.  Hubs of course agreed.  So, I looked up every single venue that was close to the Potomac River or Chesapeake Bay in the MD and VA area.  We narrowed it down to the following places to visit:
1)  Chesapeake Bay Beach Club (our neighbors got married here and loved it)
2)  Celebrations at the Bay
3)  Silver Swan Bayside
4)  Old House Vineyard (now this was at a vineyard, but they had a lake.  A friend from high school got married there and I saw her pics so I had to visit it!)

A close friend had just recently got engaged and had visited similar places (include Bay Beach Club).  She had mentioned that, for example, Bay Beach Club already had dates booked for 2012 and we were only in 2010!  So, 2 weekends after we were engaged we made a weekend of visiting possible venues.  I look back on that and am like "whoa, that may have been a bit much to act so fast".  I blame it on the pure excitement :)

Chesapeake Bay Beach Club

Chesapeake Bay Beach Club

Silver Swan Bayside

Silver Swan Bayside

Celebrations at the Bay

Celebrations at the Bay

Celebrations at the Bay

Old House Vineyard

Old House Vineyard

Old House Vineyard

I think it was that Saturday afternoon after visiting a couple of places when I mentioned to Hubs that I saw this other place, we may consider checking out - The Point at Broomes Island.  Hubs said, "oh yeah, I have been there before when I was real young.  A friend and I went fishing there".  He remembered it had excellent crab cakes and was definitely willing to visit for food!  That Sunday on our way to visit Old House, we decided to stop by.  We weren't disappointed!  We LOVED IT and didn't want to leave.  We, okay I, battled for a couple of days after between Old House (which we loved too) and The Point at Broomes Island, but deep down I knew The Point was it.  When trying to make that final decision, Hubs asked "which place is 'us'" - The Point was the answer.  And there you have it, The Point at Broomes Island was our 'wedding spot'.

The Point at Broomes Island

The Point at Broomes Island

The Point at Broomes Island

The Point at Broomes Island

The Point at Broomes Island

But, anywho, my advise is:
1) Talk to your fiance and figure out what type of venues you want to visit.  Having an idea of what type of atmosphere you want (i.e. fancy, casual), possible 'theme' (i.e. we wanted to be on the water), any special places (i.e. your parents backyard), indoor vs outdoor is helpful.
2)  Research, Research, Research.  It is especially important is to see if the places you look up give you any info on the site fee, food costs (if this is included), etc.  I emailed probably 20 places and asked for cost information.  Their responses immediately eliminated them if it didn't 'fit the budget'
3)  You don't have to act as fast as I did, but schedule venue visits soon so you can select a place.  The location often drives the selection of the remaining vendors - for one reason, the location is important to know so you can start researching other vendors  (i.e. we didn't know if we would be in the SE part of Virginia or the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
4)  Make sure you love the place and ask yourself "which place is 'us'".