Dreamwood is a really cheesy name.

So we just had a little kink thrown in our awesome plans.

Dreamwood

It is practically next door to the Long Tom Grange, the location we have previously been planning on using.

But let's start with the one down side. It's $3000, which is nearly six times what we would pay for the Long Tom Grange.

It's privately owned by a family (one of the student teachers at my mom's school is part of the family that owns and operates it, that's how I heard about it).

They do everything there.

What do I mean by everything? Well let me tell you...

They have 6 staff members day of, one parking attendant, one bartender, one day of coordinator, the others are servers, set up, runners etc.

The space can accommodate up to 500, but for 300 or less they already have all the tables, chairs, linens (white), napkins (colored or white), dishes, flatware, serving dishes, sliver for a beverage table, pitchers, glassware for a dessert or candy buffet. They have a wide variety of decorations and centerpiece things such as: gazebo, chandeliers, hurricane glasses, candles, white paper lanterns, cut glass votive holders, and more. Not to mention various fabric and ribbon for decorating. They supply the bathrooms (so called 'black tie' port-a-potties), more parking then we could need, several big (semi-permanent) baskets of flowers, colored for the general area, white for the alter area, electricity hook ups, several big white couches, a large dance floor, two sites, about 75 feet apart, connected by a path. The bride is invited to use a room in their home in order to get ready and is treated to a luncheon (with her maids I assume) the day of the wedding. Once the contract is signed, the bride and groom are welcome to come out to the site any time, and they can start bringing stuff out to the site the Wednesday before the wedding, and have access until Sunday.

While we are welcome to bring out own food in for the rehearsal dinner, we would have to use their catering service, I'm waiting for a sample menu, which will be sent to me with the other info, the catch is their minimum is $20/person for catering. This is of course the other down side. The other catering services we are looking at are about $13.00/person, although that doesn't include gratuity, which the $20 for Dreamwood does include.

So now it all comes down to money. Luke and I both agree that this sounds fantastic, but can we afford it?

Here is a photo blog of a wedding there.