Life is looking up...

So the one part of the wedding planning where P and I hit a roadblock was our location. We have our church for free, but the guy in charge of renting it out is vehemently adamant that the layout of the great hall CANNOT be changed on a Saturday night. Even though I can bring in my own team of guys to set stuff up and take it down, apparently they won't let us. And despite my FMIL's heavy hinting, I refuse to have the reception in the lobby. It's ugly and dreary and gray and has the weirdest layout of anything I've ever seen. It is a wedding fail.

So during the budget meeting we had yesterday, my dad brought up the Vanderbilt student life center. He works for Vanderbilt, and might be able to pull out a discount. I checked it out...and to rent just one part of the ballroom it would fit 550 people (!!!) and cost, without discount, only $625! That doesn't include room setup or sound equipment (that and the technician costs extra) but that coupled with my dad wrangling a discount is downright affordable for a wedding reception! Besides, we can still bring in the caterer we pick, and I can use my wholesale and silk flowers. And we can set it up the day before! It'll be epically perfect.

See? It's set up for a convention in here, but it'll work wonderfully. Plus it includes theatrical lighting, so we can get all kinds of pretty stuff. And if we really wanted to, we could reserve a second room to make it bigger for $1,250 (without the discount.)


I got a little nervous when I saw the caveat about how non-Vanderbilt people can rent the space only during school holidays. So I checked, and March 13, 2010, falls during Vandy's spring break! How much more perfect can you get?

(But I haven't shown P the pictures...I hope he likes it!)