6 Months!!!

    6 months from today... we will be getting married!! I can't believe it!! I have never been one of those girls to fantasize about her wedding as a little girl, my Barbies weren't getting married every weekend and I didn't have this urge to put on a wedding dress as a child.

In fact, when it became evident that YES! I in fact am actually going to get married, I wondered "How will I ever plan a wedding? I don't know where to begin!" It turns out, I was born for this, planning is in my blood! When we got engaged, I was overwhelmed at the thought of planning, but quickly embraced it. If you've ever planned a wedding, been to a wedding, have a friend that got married or have been in a wedding... You know the first thing people complain about... THE GUEST LIST!

Oh it's difficult, but everyone will tell you to start working on that FIRST so you can get a venue that accommodates everyone. Well, the guest list was not problematic at first... (More to come later on that) the problem was the VENUE! Turns out, the Husband to Be and I differed on every aspect of where we should get married... Let me give you some advice, sit down and talk about what you want in a venue and where you would like to get married before you start doing research.
I always had a venue in mind, but it was like the second we got engaged, I started researching so many others!! Let's take a brief look at the top choices:


The Frick Museum

Tell me this place isn't gorgeous! I loved it, it's always been one of my favorite places to go. The house is beautiful and it came with the perks of access to the museum and car museum! I was so excited, the FI LOVES cars, I thought it was a great choice... until I was told if we wanted to get married in the winter, the maximum capacity was 60 people, umm what?!!

Okay Choice 2

The Grand Hall at the Priory

After hearing about their Winter White Wedding Package, this quickly became my first and only choice. They had an AMAZING deal for winter weddings, I wanted it, and I wanted it bad. I mean, look at those columns, the balcony... It's perfect! It's exactly what we (I) wanted, glamorous, vintage and in the budget!

Except one major problem... Mr. C. (the Fiancé) DID NOT want to get married in Pittsburgh. I was heart broken. I never envisioned getting married elsewhere. He put his foot down and didn't tell me why, and I had to start all over again. Until... I remembered my original first choice venue...

Bella Sera

While pictures aren't as abundant for Bella Sera, it's a gorgeous venue and BONUS it's 5 miles away from our house! I didn't want to get married in a hotel or hall, this was the perfect solution. Those stairs, the fireplace... I loved it all... except the price. While doing some research, I found out that they had a $20,000 MINIMUM for Saturday weddings and that's food and bar only!! WHAT?! Who can afford that?! I had no idea that something like that existed. I was devastated... But I went ahead to set up an appointment to check it out.

So one rainy Sunday, Mr. C and I headed to Bella Sera, prepared to be heart broken... As we're looking around, it's clear this is the place for us. The grand hall has 3 story tall ceilings, the fireplace is floor to ceiling and perfect for a winter wedding. It was perfect, even Mr. C. loved it. So we sat down to talk about price, and I held my breath... 

As it turns out, they were just getting ready to debut a Winter Wedding Package!! YES! What does this mean for us?! If you get married in January/February/March (off peak) you qualify for this package. And this package comes with... wait for it... 6 Hours of DJ, 9 hours of a Photographer, $1000 credit for the Florist, a standard wedding cake, 4 course dinner, Appetizers and an open bar all for... $10,000!!!! What?! This can't be right, it's too good to be true, but it is right!

Let me tell you, I thank Bella Sera endlessly for allowing me to plan our wedding with zero issues. I highly encourage all of you brides (and grooms) out there to look into getting married in the winter. We knew it was cheaper, but we didn't realize it would  be this cheap. I'm not aware of how many of these packages exist, but from what our wedding coordinator has told me, they are starting to pop up more and more.

If you aren't dead set on getting married in the summer/spring, look into the Winter. Winter Weddings are gorgeous, and a great way to save money! How many winter brides do we have out there? Planning a winter wedding? Let's hear about it!