one year from today...

the double d's will be getting married! :) can't you just feel the excitement? i sure can...

i've been a a blogging hiatus for quite some time now due to various reasons. first, i'm enjoying my summer way too much! secondly, david and i kept going back and forth between where and when to have our wedding. due to the house hunt we had to put wedding plans on hold, and were seriously considering having a destination wedding in hawaii (hence, the pictures in the previous post). we have so many friends and family we want to share our day with, but on a limited budget we couldn't justify inviting everyone we wanted to. we thought that the only way to save money would be to have a small wedding outside the bay area.

after doing some research, we found that while getting married in hawaii may be cheaper for us, our guests would have to pay a whopping $700+ to go at this time of the year. that's double what we paid a few years ago. now, that figure may not be so bad for some families, but for ours, it's a little steep. some of our closest family members seemed hesitant when we told them. it's not that they didn't want to go, but they have families and responsibilities of their own. plus, logistically it would be extremely difficult to plan a wedding without being able to check out the venue and various vendors. i also started having flashbacks of what it was like to travel to vegas with a big family in tow...yikes.

so, on a random day we set out to see if maybe, just maybe, we could afford to have our wedding in a nice venue close-by. we knew that our guest list was going to be cut in half, and that we needed a venue with a reasonable minimum revenue for the day we chose. our previous hotel's minimum revenue was $30K...no matter how many people you choose to invite. that's just for food and beverages, people! luckily, we happen to stumble upon a hotel that we drive by nearly every week -- a hotel that for some reason never made the list. and, it was there that we found our venue.

Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport

when we first walked in, we were impressed by the atrium and its grandness.

we were directed promptly to the catering manager who asked us several questions about our event. after determining the number of guests we would be expecting, she led us to the Poolside Pavilion, which is actually a permanent tent outdoors, alongside their pool! we walked in and really fell in love with the space.





the tent is fully equipped with A/C (though, who really uses that in the bay?!) and a heater. they allow the cocktail reception to take place by the pool area. what really sold it was david's reaction to the place. he was impressed by the manager that was showing us around (perhaps even more so due to the fact that 20 minutes beforehand i told him about another hotel lady that laughed at me when i requested to see their ballroom this far in advance of our wedding. your loss, lady!) who was extremely professional and knowledgeable, and he really felt like the outdoor tent was unique and beautiful. it has an "outdoorsy" vibe without feeling like you're in the country. plus, their minimum revenue wasn't all that bad, especially since we are having it on a Friday to save us a few grand. david and i both walked away from the hotel with our decision already made. alleluia.

so, with the church booked already, the signing of our venue contract next week, and a meeting with our prospective photographer also next week, things are slowly starting to become real.

are you getting excited yet?