I like making plans.  It gives me time to look at most options and determine what's the best fit for us as opposed to blindly selecting something that looks nice but has no practicality.  Unfortunately the world doesn't seem to want to work with us.

Karen and I got married last October by a local magistrate on a Sunday morning.  No frills, no fanfare, just us, our marriage certificate and sixty American dollars.  Since then we've moved to Florida permanently and wanted to put together something so that we can share this occasion with our families and friends (chances are if you are reading this, you already are very aware of this).  We've been working on the details for a while, we've got our plans for catering, cakes, photographers, clothes, everything except the venue.  The venue has been the biggest limiting factor of putting this together and those whom provide this service aren't making it much easier.

We have a simple need.  We want a quick easy casual ceremony on the beach followed by a low key casual reception.  No $20,000 chandeliers, no designer tablecloths, no 30 person choir, just a room and a place on the beach.  With the Gulf coast as beautiful and popular as it is, almost every possible venue offers only the giant "wedding package" that contains all the nonsense that everyone typically wants for a full out wedding.  Not to mention trying to get any information about pricing basically outputs a "call for further info" message where I'll undoubtedly be connected with some planner that will talk my ear off about how wonderful their facility is and what all they can provide that I don't need and certainly can't afford.

The other option we were looking at was a full blown rental property, perhaps for a weekend or so.  Again, most properties need you to rent it out at least a week (some do have 3 day weekend options) and anything that is actually beachfront is ridiculously priced, even for October.

It probably doesn't help that this is our first time ever booking any type of social gathering as well as being in an area we've only lived in for a few months.  I just didn't expect it to be this challenging.

Perhaps I need to go rent 'The Wedding Planner' at my local Redbox for some insight.  Silly me, that'll only teach me to be a terrible actor.