Our (wonderful) venue is locked in. Phew!

HE SAYS:

We only get one crack at marrying so the where part is really important.

We didn’t realise how many factors need to be considered from size and style of venue to the ceremony options. The list seems to go on and on…

The location of our wedding ceremony ended up being the most important thing for both of us.

Jess and I have in common a love of coastal views (who doesn’t really?).

Living in inner-city Melbourne, our closest beach is St. Kilda. What’s uncanny is that the best venue for our needs, Encore, also happens to be on St. Kilda beach and it’s brilliant.

We researched a few options and, I have to admit, some were absolutely stunning.

We searched throughout the Melbourne CBD and went down the coast to Elwood. After nutting out each venue’s pros and cons, we settled on Encore. The only hitch is that the date we were hoping for was already booked.

We weighed up going with another venue and decided changing our proposed wedding date was well worth it to have our wedding at Encore.

Encore has a roof-top public area you can book for the ceremony and this is ideal for what we had envisioned.

The reception area is so humongous (300 capacity). We will halve it with a dividing wall to accommodate our guests.

After a meeting to discuss food/drinks, music, timing and layout/decorations, there is simply no doubt this is where we want to marry.

We are stoked with this is the place and glad it is where we will spend the most important day of our lives surrounded by all our favourite people

SHE SAYS:

Quickly family and friends started asking us if we had ‘set the date”, so naturally we were excited and got right on finding a venue.

The venue was an easy decision (or so we thought….).

Jared and I had always loved the St Kilda Pier Cafe, so it made perfect sense, not to mention the fact that we both agreed!!

We organised the usual meeting with the folks and, after creating a rough guest list and determining that we needed space for approximately 150 people, we unfortunately had to rule out the St Kilda Pier due to capacity…. So naturally, we needed a plan B and were pretty gutted!

So, we decided to go for a walk along the esplanade and, literally, stumbled across Encore at the St Kilda Sea Baths.

They happened to be setting up for a wedding that afternoon so we had a stickybeak through the windows and both fell in love with the place.

It was by the beach that we love and had a lovely modern feel to it.

But, being the type of person who likes to make a decision having seen all the options, I dragged Jared around to quite a few of the local reception venues. However, nothing seemed to compare to Encore, which was exactly what we were after and ticked all the boxes!

Weather permitting, the ceremony will be held on the rooftop, overlooking the beach and the reception is then held down below.

We have booked the Bay View room which features a wall of windows that overlook the beach. Views don’t get much better than that!

So, we had the perfect venue, now we just had to choose a date. Easy enough, right?

Ummm, no, apparently.

I wanted March, 2013 and Jared didn’t mind provided it wasn’t in the middle of his footy season. Blokes!

Encore were pretty much fully booked and could only offer us the long-weekend In March (which, unfortunately, didn’t suit).

Mid April, however, was available so I immediately put a hold on the date and called Jared to tell him the good news!!

That’s when he told me that it was round 1 of football!! FOOTBALL?

Jeez! But I know how much it means to him so we decided to wait until November, 2013 when Spring is in the air!

So, now, we’re having a beautiful spring wedding by the beach. It’s going to be absolutely perfect.