Skeptickle

Goal #2: Say our “I do’s” at Nestldown.

We first started looking at venues shortly after we got engaged. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand a long engagement but many of the best venues book up very quickly, sometimes two years in advance. I didn’t know where to start so I just made appointments to view venues that have been recommended on Yelp! and Here Comes the Guide. We had wanted to get married during a three day weekend so that guests from out of town can fly in on Saturday, attend the wedding on Sunday, and then fly back on Monday. We decided on Memorial Day weekend of this year and crossed our fingers that the venue that we end up choosing will have that day free. Our first venue visit was Nestldown, which was highly recommended on Yelp!. It was both a good and bad thing that we went to Nestldown first. It was good that we got to see it with fresh eyes and that we found it at all. Nestldown doesn’t advertise and is only heard about through word of mouth (thanks Yelp!) The bad thing (at the time) was that I fell in love with it right away and every other venue we visited thereafter paled in comparison. It was absolutely perfect and words really can’t describe it. There is a barn large enough for dancing, a mini-train that runs during cocktail hour, the ceremony area is surrounded with giant redwood trees, and they even had a small fairy-tale cottage! Here are some pics from our first visit. Sorry if they’re a bit blurry, we used an iPhone.

Phenomenal landscaping.

Deluxe-sized treehouse

Pond near the Barn

The tulips were abloom! Butterfly bench in the distance.

Outside of the fairytale cottage.

Inside the fairytale cottage. Aren't those chairs and table adorable?

These factors did not, however, stop Rob’s eyes from becoming bugged as soon as he saw how much the rental price was for May. The rental price did not include food, drinks, etc. so yeah, it was pretty bad. I admit that my love for it was totally irrational and I knew deep down that it’s not just my decision to make. However, it didn’t stop us from arguing about it for a about a week. We eventually compromised and planned on doing our ceremony at Nestldown and then have the reception elsewhere. We eventually settled on the Stanford Park Hotel for our reception venue for various reasons.

• A couple of our friends were married there two years ago and they recommended that we check it out.
• It’s a very classy and luxurious place.
• Our friends and family can go straight up to their hotel rooms after the reception without us needing to worry about them driving home safely.
• Christine, the event manager, is the most warm and genuinely caring person we’ve met during our wedding planning. In all honesty, her personality won us over more than the actual venue did.

The front of the hotel. We really liked the fountain, hehe.

As you can see, we didn't really bother to take many pictures here.

Rob really seemed to prefer this place over the other places we visited so we just went with it. For some reason he thought that I was really into SPH even though I thought it was clear that I don’t have much of a preference at this point because the one venue I cared about wasn’t an option. This was the big mistake we made. We signed the contract and put down our deposit. And THEN we figured out how the other felt about the place. Rob realized that I wasn’t actually as into it as he’d thought and I realized that he liked the place but wasn’t in love with the place. I had thought that at least one of us should love the place and I thought that that was him. Looking back, it would’ve been a logistical nightmare to have our ceremony in Los Gatos in the morning, have a several hour gap in between, and then have the reception thirty miles away at SPH in the evening. At the time it was more along the lines that we’ll figure something out, like maybe have a Chinese traditional tea ceremony in between.

But our situation went from bad to worse. I did some research and realized that almost everyone who wrote a review about them said that the food sucked. Rob and I went and tried out some of their food at the lounge area and it did indeed suck. Badly. I started panicking and didn’t know what to do. Rob and I are foodies. Good food is extremely important to both of us. We absolutely can not serve a sub-par meal to our loved ones, especially not at the prices they were charging. Oh well, we can’t get our deposit back so we’ll have to deal with having the reception at an “okay” place.

A few months of rumination later we finally decided that we no longer liked the idea of having our reception at SPH. We sat and tried to brainstorm what can be done to salvage the Frankenstein of a wedding we had created thus far. We went over all our options and discovered one that we hadn’t considered before. It would still be risky because we might loose our deposit but it would make everyone happy in the end if it worked out. We first emailed Christine and asked her what our options are if we want to cancel our reception at SPH. She sounded very sad and wanted to know if she can do anything to change our minds. We told her that we like SPH but that we are totally in love with another venue and were wondering if our deposit can go towards events other than our reception. For example, we still need a place for our rehearsal dinner and maybe the money can go towards that instead. She needed to ask her higher ups if that’s allowable and was somehow able to convince them that it was worth it. I have to give credit to SPH and especially to Christine. They totally could’ve taken our deposit and had the legal right to do so, but they were fair in letting that money go towards my bridal shower luncheon and our rehearsal dinner instead. A couple months after we signed our revised contract, they got wise and hired a new chef. The food he turned out for the rehearsal dinner was outstanding! Everything was delicious, from the blue cheese salad to the steak to the little macaroons for dessert. Now that their food actually matches the classiness and professional service of the place, I’m not going to hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a wedding or event venue. And honestly, if we had our reception here, it would have been good enough and we would have met Goal #2 anyway.

During all this, we had asked Brooke from Nestldown if there were any availabilities in March. We were willing to change our date in order to get married and have our reception at Nestldown. I don’t know why we didn’t really consider this option in the first place. Having our wedding during March cut the rental price almost in half of what it is in May! There were two availabilities and after consulting our wedding party, family, and our photographer, we picked March 7th as our new date. Final answer .