D popped the big question on New Year's day 2013. It caught me so off guard and it was a wonderful surprise! We had previously talked about getting married throughout our relationship so we were ready. What I was not ready for was all that followed. We knew that we would be paying for the wedding ourselves, so the budget was a big concern for us. We had just moved to Minneapolis the July before, so we were stuck trying to decide where to have the wedding. Minneapolis or Ohio? This seemed like an easy decision for us. Most of our family was in Ohio, so we would do it there. We started looking in the Cincinnati area since that is where we met (in college) and it was sort of a middle point for our families.
It was so tough to find a decent venue for around $1000 or less. We set our budget at about $10,000 so we knew we couldn't spend much more on the venue itself. This was going to be a DIY wedding all the way. I really liked the barn wedding trend at the time, and we finally found a nice renovated barn venue that was in our budget. The Muhlhauser barn is in West Chester Ohio, about 30 minutes outside of Cincinnati. We went home to visit D's family the following spring and toured it before sending in our deposit. It was great! Really nice and simple. We could bring in our own caterer and they had everything we needed- tables, chairs and a pretty gazebo by a pond for us to have our ceremony. The most difficult part was done. We set our date for September 2014 because my older sister was also engaged and planned to get married June 2014, so I didn't want to have mine before hers.
Picture of Muhlhauser Barn:
The logistics of wedding planning stressed me out. How will we get all the decorations there? We will have to drive them (14 hour drive). Where are we going to keep them? D's parents live about 2 hours away from our venue. What are we going to do with our 2 cats? Bring them with us? We need to find a photographer in the area. We will have to go back to Ohio and meet with our vendors and have our engagement pictures taken. These issues kept popping up, and kept me up at night.
On a bike ride during that summer, D and I were thinking "what if we just had a really small wedding? Just close family and friends? What if we did a backyard wedding here? What if we bought a house and had a backyard wedding?!" The idea delighted us. Soon we were on Zillow looking at houses that had pretty backyards for us to have our wedding. I asked D "does it seem backwards that we are looking for a house to have our wedding at?" Yes, it was. We knew that we both liked the idea of having a wedding here in MN with our close family and friends.
Luckily, we could get our deposit back from the Muhlhauser barn if we cancelled within 3 months or so of our wedding date. We began looking at venues in the area that were within our budget. On another bike ride (biking is big here in Minneapolis) we passed by a big beautiful white house near the Mississippi river. It looked like someone was holding an event there. I went home and quickly looked it up online. That is how we found the Riedel Farm Estate. And at $85 an hour rental rate, it was a dream come true.
Riedel farm Estate:
We decided that we were going to do it, let's have the wedding here! It may be more inconvenient for our family, but it would be so much easier for us. And if they really wanted to come, they would. Plus, Minneapolis in the summer is a great place to vacation! Not everyone was happy about our decision, but ultimately most people told us it was our wedding, so we should do what we want. And although that has been a very difficult part about planning our wedding, that is what we strive to do- what WE want.
Things got much more fun from there :)
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