Las Vegas anyone?

Sitting here staring at the calendar has me realizing another month has passed by without Chris and I securing a location spot to say 'I do'. Yes, we still have over 14 months to plan this bugger - but we have picked a rather popular date (07/07/07) and places are being gobbled up quicker than a pair of Manolo's at a shoe sale.

The frustrating thing is I thought we had it all tied up with the Southernmost House in Key West. It seemed like a perfect location to have both the ceremony and the reception while giving our guests a lovely place to stay while in town. Then the proposal came in and even though July is hurricane season (and as of a couple of days before this posting did not have a single room booked for July 2006), they still felt they can charge top dollar (and some) for our wedding in July 2007. I asked them several times to work with me on the site fee as they would be getting revenue from the room rates, caterers, florists, etc. but they would not budge. Of course, they can run their business anyway they wish, but I find it odd they would rather walk away from a weeks worth of guaranteed rental and all the fees that come with a wedding (totalling well over $30k), allowing the house to sit vacant, than to shave off even a $1,000 off the site fee as I don't feel their requirement to hire their staff bartender for two days was reasonable. Crazy. Make me feel like I negotiated a little something here or offer to add a few things to the package to compensate for the quirkiness of your agreement. Please. But no. So when I started looking at the numbers, I realized this 'destination' wedding was going to cost us as much (if not more) than if we stayed in San Francisco which just doesn't make sense. Come on...it is Key West for Pete's sake! Sure it would have been lovely, but my dollars should have reached so much more here.

So back to the search we go. I have since bounced Belize, St. Martin, Cancun and the Dominican Republic off of Chris and nothing has stuck. Doesn't have the right feel he says. Everything else I like is just too much money for our guests to have to pay to see us getting hitched - otherwise my trip to Florence, Italy would have already been booked. Why is this so hard? AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

So I am ready to push all this destination wedding aside and go empty my suitcase still full of clothes from a recent business trip to Vegas when it clicked. Vegas. Why not? We can go as casual or as glam as we want. We can hang out at the Bellagio, jump in a gondola in the waters surrounding Venetian, or hang out on top of the Eiffel Tower in the Paris hotel. It is a fun destination with lots to do (which has been one of my sticking points). And there are plenty of great restaurants to choose from for the rehearsal and dinner and the reception. Yeah, this might work she thinks to herself.

Then the 'Why Not?' hits me. Another one of my sticking points is finding a place we could just hang for a week or more. I like Vegas for a day, maybe two - then I can't wait to get out. I also realize Vegas in July would be horrible and my mascara likes to run when the dial gets over 85 - can you imagine what I would look like if it hit 105? Yikes.

Crap. I guess the only solution is to call it quits on my personal search and turn this all over to Chris to decide. If he doesn't like the places I pick - then he can deal with it. Yeah, this sounds like the best plan I have had in a long time. Phew - now I can go eat my bon bons and get Desperate Housewives off the Tivo. Oh happy day!


Photo credit: SouthernmostHouse.com

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