In my opinion, the venue is probably the most significant piece of a wedding. This decision tends to be the stepping stone to setting your overall wedding tone and style, which holds up for the remaining planning process—booking your photographer, florist, stationery, every last detail.
As soon as we got engaged, I knew family and friends would start asking about when and where everything would take place, so Bryan and I jumped right in and started searching. We thought through so many options and scenarios for our big day. We went back and forth on a destination versus local celebration. We came up with some really exciting destination options (mountains, beach, Northwoods), but the locations never really seemed to be “us.”
In the beginning stage of the venue search, I felt like we had endless options, so we needed to narrow down and establish our goals. There’s always a list of wants and needs; for us, we knew we wanted three things: an outdoor scene with a beautiful backdrop, a bright and light-filled cozy space for the reception, and a location near the Twin Cities. I immediately thought of an outdoor stone barn pizzeria that we both adore and is conveniently located for all of our guests. It wasn’t technically a wedding venue, so it would be a ton of logistics to manage and the dates were not as flexible. I was certainly up for the challenge, but we decided to keep our options open.
I continued to research online and came across a few additional venues that checked all of our boxes. I set up tours for the following Sunday. Our first stop was Legacy Hill Farm in Welch. We pulled in, and immediately Bryan was unsure. After walking around for a while, however, we fell in love. It was the perfect white and bright open, scenic space with a great layout for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception. An added bonus is everything is already there. No need for the headache of managing endless rentals and the added stress that would have caused.
Now that we had found something we loved, the next piece was availability. Since we were looking in late October and wanted to be married in 2018, I knew our options for dates were going to be limited. Fridays and Sundays were sprinkled throughout the calendar to choose from. Ideally, we would have loved a Saturday, but we weighed the pros and cons and came up with a Sunday in September. We ended up canceling the rest of the tours that day and signed on the dotted line to make it official. We can’t wait to celebrate with our guests at our semi-destination wedding this fall!
Images by Amanda Nippoldt
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