"Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry"

(the tree from the cover of the Purpose Driven Life and hopefully the tree we get married under)

On Friday, December 31st we decided to start our wedding planning by looking into venues. the night before matt, my mom and MOH (lauren) googled wedding venues for a few hours..."Oooohhh" and "awwws" and "eeekkkks" while they were looking through webpages and reading reviews on www.weddingwire.com (matt's new favorite website hehe)

after narrowing them down to a short little list (about 5) we made our way to look at venues in orange county. we first made our way to Rancho Capistrano...coming thru the gates i wasn't really impressed. i have driven by it many of times and it can be seen off the 5 freeway in laguna niguel. i had always thought it was camp with lots of soccer fields. after finding some people who work there they explained to us that saddleback christian church (the pastor is rick warren) owns the grounds, and that they allow weddings and are now revamping the grounds. walking around the place we both (plus my mom and sis) fell in love with the place. here are some pictures:

(the beautiful patio where the reception could be held)

(us dreaming of our big day!)

(a smaller patio where the cocktail hour could be held)

RC started our venue search off to a good start. we then made our way down to downtown san juan capistrano to a place called The Franciscan Gardens. we liked it cause it was right across the street from the mission but it was really tiny.

(looking into the garden area)

we then made our way to Rancho Las Lomas to find a sign at the gate entrance reading "private property, appointment needed to enter." not having an appointment we decided to call the place to see if we could get one, but they did not answer the phone, so lauren (being the non-rule follower she is) told me to get out of the driver's seat and she would drive us in! entering the place it did not look like any of the pictures we had seen online. what we liked about it was that they had a zoo....what i did not like about it was there was a reptile building (i would absolutely hate if a snake accidently was let out and made it to our reception!) we decided that this was not a place we could picture ourselves getting married at.

after a quick bite to eat at fashion island we made our way up to the place i was really excited to see, the Knewland Barn. it was very pretty and i loved the look of the place. but after going to rancho capistrano, we decided that the barn was our second choice.

though we both really love rancho capistrano we are hoping to have another day full of looking at wedding venues.

"I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance,
A church filled with family and friends.
I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for,
He said one that would make me his wife."