The Great Wedding Venue Search of 2010 - Part II

And now we continue with the second instalment of venue hunting - if you need a little reminding on where I'd already visited...

Click here for Part I.

The next venue was one I've been to before, as it was actually the location for my high school formal/prom. It is another older house and has some very pretty gardens - but it was very basic. I was hoping to be shown a few different room options in the venue, however was a bit disappointed that the room they decided would be 'right' for our numbers was exactly the same room where we'd held our formal!

It was a pretty basic room in the daytime, though we were shown photographs of the room set up at night and it's amazing what a difference a few fairy lights can make! This was the cheapest venue option by a long shot, so I kept it on our maybe list just in case.

I'm going to throw in an extra shout-out here to my partners in crime, my Mum and the lovely Miss Kirby, who found themselves dragged along to view nearly all of the options with me. Look, aren't they wonderful?

Our next drive was a little terrifying, being that the venue was an inner city hotel and we had one panicking driver on our hands. It didn't help that our GPS Navigator tends to be a little delayed in the city, so it ended up having us drive over the Harbour Bridge twice! Let me just say, as nice as our famous bridge looks from afar, it's actually an express-way and it's really, really difficult to navigate its million changing lanes and tolls.

That venue ended up being a stuffy boardroom with a view of.. get this.. an air conditioning unit out the back, so I refused to take any pictures. It was that bad.

We then headed out into the Ku-ring-gai Chase region, which is a beautiful area north of the city. It's very green and really lush, and I had high hopes for our next visit. We drove into a big old underground car park and caught the lift up to the main reception entrance and I was blown away - it was modern, spacious and had beautiful gardens.. looking good.

Unfortunately, things went downhill from there - the first room we were shown was tiny and had a massive pylon in the middle which cut the room in half, and the second room was a HUGE empty ballroom with no windows and all artificial lighting. Was a shame too, as it could potentially have been a very nice venue. They did have beautiful floral arrangements, though!

Taking a break from the contemporary designs, I had chosen another heritage house to visit - and it was beautiful. It had a much more laidback feel to it, and everything was family run which was lovely. I loved this venue as you weren't just getting one room - our guests would have access to the entire lower level of the house, including a separate dancing room, bar, and formal lounge as well as the traditional dining room.

The flaw with this one? The owner wasn't a very pleasant person. I'm sure he runs events well, but the idea of having him as my sole wedding co-ordinator was a little iffy. It was close to the church that I loved though, so we kept this on our potentials too.

I'll interrupt my flowing commentary to throw in a little bit of trivia for you - most of these venues I had found through either recommendations from friends or through searches online. It wasn't all ME ME ME though, as everytime I would find a new potential, I'd show Jason and he would very kindly pretend to be interested in it.

There were a few he wasn't keen on which we ruled out, but for the most part, they were my choices. In one random Bridezilla moment though, I threw a bit of a tantrum that went something along the lines of 'Why is just ME doing all of this.. Wah Wah Wah - YOU try finding a venue that fits out budget, this isn't easy you know, Wah Wah Wah.' Imagine, if you will, a real stomp at the end, just for effect.

And so the boy begrudgingly did a search of his own and came across a clubhouse in a lovely golf course, and deemed his job done. Of course, I promised to view it as a potential while I was home. And so we did.

While the grounds of the course were lovely, unfortunately the clubhouse was just that - a clubhouse. It had horrible beige carpets, and just wasn't.. wedding-y enough. Sorry Jason!

And so the search continued...