The Good, The Bad, The Unaffordable- Venues, Part 1

Okay, my next admission may be means to revoke one of my girl cards- to date, I've oogled more over wedding venues than engagement rings. *ducks* Yep, almost blashphemous I know, but aside from some totally unattainable baubles at Tiffany's & Danhov, a lot of my Google sessions post-wedding discussion have revolved around the good, the bad and the unaffordable in the world of location, location, location.

As I've said before, I knew that I wanted to pull off a simple, southern affair. And to me, that meant one thing- a barn. Or some other equally country-esque establishment. Either one big enough for both the ceremony and reception, or just for the reception itself. Fortunately, with Central Kentucky being "the horse capital of the world", farms, barns and general country things are all around.

Talon Winery - Ca"barn"et Barrel Barn

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Talon Winery sits on the outskirts of the city and is an absolutely gorgeous background for a wedding and reception. They have several locations for an outside wedding, including a gazebo, and their Barrel Barn with its extended patio would provide all the room you needed for your reception. Tables and chairs are included with the rental. And check out the inside!

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The open rafters and twinkle lights get me everytime! Unfortunately, this location catered more for an outdoor wedding and with our early spring date (and general luck), Justin and I didn't want to hedge our bets on a perfect weather day. Even more unfortunately, the barn ended up being more than slightly out of our budgeted range. I eventually dried my tears and moved on.

Black Barn at Cardome Center

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Back in the day, Cardome was sold to a group of nuns who started an academy for girls, but unfortunately the school was no more after the late 1960's. Since then, the property has been owned by non-profit organizations and the facility houses a lot of community activities (and also has a gorgeous Japanese Garden). And look, they have a barn! Unfortunately, it is just that- a barn.

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While there was a lot decoration wise that could be done (like in the picture above) to help fancy things up a bit, it was a little less on the inside than what I was hoping for and I wasn't sure how into spending a ton of time on room-altering decor I was gonna be.

The Round Barn at Redmile

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Anywhere near a horse farm in this part of the state is gorgeous, and as The Red Mile is a smaller track here in the city, the landscape is beautiful. And take a look at that unique, round barn! We'd have the backdrop, the feel, but I was a little iffy about the space.

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While pictures are often deceiving, I just didn't feel like there would be enough room for our guests seating plus a dance floor (and their in-house catering was a bit out of our league).

As I kept combing through venues here in town that I thought might fit what Justin and I were looking for, I started getting more and more discouraged. The "perfect" ones were either too pricey in their rental fee, too pricey in their in-house catering, didn't offer tables, chairs, etc. with the rental, only had accomodations for an outside event or was just too formal for our tastes.

So I did what any other bride would have done- I started to think outside the box...