January 14, 2018

Wedding Bells….

The biggest news from last year is my son proposed to his long time girlfriend!!! Wedding Bells are going to ring…somewhere. The search was on for a suitable and affordable wedding venue. Suitable. Affordable. Two words that do not go hand in hand when searching for a wedding venue. The base price is just that…no thrills, no frills. My son and our future daughter in law are very responsible and cost conscience individuals. The more they looked for the perfect place, the more shocked they were by the prices they were seeing.

backyard makeoover

On one particular afternoon, I joined the Bride to be and her family at a potential venue for the big dog and pony show. The venue was decked out with all the bells and whistles that were not included in the price of the venue. As I watched the Bride to be add up the potential costs for the caterer, DJ, flowers and linens her smile began to fade. I knew it was time to step in and at least offer a suggestion.

So, that’s just what I did. I offered our home for the wedding venue. Our home is in a deed restricted ranch community on 4 acres. We have been told that our backyard looks like a park. I have to admit it is pretty and we have hosted many family gatherings.

The Bride to be did not immediately accept our offer, but it wasn’t long before we were planning a backyard wedding. As I said our backyard is pretty. However, not wedding venue pretty. So there was work to be done.

Harvey Flood 2017 2 — Harvey Flood September 2017

I began calling around for a landscape design company to come out and help pull my yard together. That in itself proved to be a bigger challenge than I expected. Long story short we did find a landscaping company to help with the project. I will leave those details for another time…

The landscape work began in June and “finished” in September. One month later “HARVEY”!!! Our beautiful yard sat under 37″ of water for 2 weeks. We were unsure of the damage or how long it would take the yard to rebound. It was “go or no go” time for changing the wedding date with all the vendors. The kids made the decision to postpone the wedding.

Now the wedding is 7 weeks away and we are having the wettest, coldest winter in years. However, typically spring comes early in south Texas and I am counting on that happening this year. We are going to give this our best effort and a little bit more money.