The venue search is OVER!

Since we started planning this wedding a month ago, I've been saying, "When does it get fun?" And everyone's response is, "After you book the venue and get the big stuff out of the way." So guess what? I'm ready for it to be fun now! Because this weekend, we did it. We picked a venue, signed our lives away on the dotted line, and wrote a check to hold our date. Okay...Dan wrote a check, but I was cheering him on the whole time.

"Give me a D! D, you got your D, you got your D. Give me an A! A, you've got your A, you've got your A. Give me an N! N, you got your N, you got your N." And so on...

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw this tweet.

And then I left the 4 people who cared hanging and didn't tell you which one we picked!

Well, the pickle factory was adorable, and perfect in every way, especially in the price way, BUT it had one downfall and it's a big one. The decorations looked like they belonged in a nursing home at Christmas time.

I'm talking twig wreaths in the shape of hearts, fake ivy EVERYWHERE, and tulle. So much God damn tulle and you aren't allowed to remove any of it. Anything that was up on a wall had to stay there. Believe me, I asked 7 or 8 times. And the only tools you were allowed to decorate with is masking tape. Check out these insane rules. Even though it had the most adorable little museum in it for people to mill around during the cocktail hour, etc...

...I couldn't deal with the ivy, so we moved on to the loft space.

This space was gorgeous. It was pretty much a blank canvas to which I could do ANYTHING I WANTED!! It was the complete opposite of the pickle factory and way more modern than what I thought I wanted and I fell in love. Until I saw the price tag. At minimum, we would have spent $15,000 on the reception and our whole entire budget is $20,000, which I thought was a decent amount until we started actually looking into things. If we cut our guest list in half, we could have afforded this place. But Dan has 30 first cousins and his mom is 1 of 9, so we were screwed from the get-go.

And then we looked at the barns. They were rustic, but not dirty. They had an outdoor space for a ceremony and both came with half of the decorations I was going to buy anyway...paper lanterns, white lights, etc...

But one barn venue stood out above the other. I knew it was the place when we walked up and the owner had a cowboy hat on and not bedazzled jeans like the guy who showed us the loft space. And then I saw the bridal suite and the DANCE HALL, a separate space attached to the venue with a stage and a bar, and Dan's face said he loved it, too. It looks like it was meant for us. Sneak peek below. What do you guys think?

Bring on the food tastings and the dress buying! The two things I'm most excited about. :)