The Bridal Breakdown

I am sure to have many of these in the next coming year (that's right folks, we've set a date!  Well, we've narrowed it down to three months in 2011 AND the engineer is talking wedding) but last night I had my first bridal breakdown.

My dad informed me that most of my family will not attend my wedding if it exceeds the borders of Alberta or British Columbia.  Not because they don't want to come, more that travel for them is not really in the books.  Which promptly made me cry.

Of course I want my family at my wedding.  That's the whole point right?  To be surrounded by family and friends?  So I spent a total of FIVE hours online searching all the possibilities around the province that fit our criteria.

Apparently our criteria is a bit rigid.  Firstly, we are not having our wedding in Rainy City.  Just not an option.  You have to end at 12 or 1 AM, and not that we are party animals, but no one wants to end the dancing at midnight.  We aren't Cinderella here.

Therefore we are looking for a venue that (A) is pretty (B) has accommodation on site and (C) allows for late events.  Good luck.

There actually are several options.  Unfortunately those several options hold weddings of about 80.  Ugh.

Fine.  So there are still several options for big weddings. But then we spend our entire wedding budget on a so-so wedding in a so-so place.  With so-so run-of-the-mill food.  And we all know how I feel about that.

I suppose I would rather use our money to have a full week's experience and a magical wedding.

Nothing in Canada is really sitting right.

You know how they say you know your wedding dress is the one when you put it on?  That's how I feel about venues.  There is a feeling I get when something clicks and I just know that's the place I want to get married.  The place where I commit my life to the Engineer can be nothing short of magical.  I am all about the magic.  Hence the sunset over Tuscany.  Or fireworks over Epcot.

Why am I finding magic everywhere else that isn't my home?  Sign perhaps that it's time to move to New York full-time?

Hence the bridal breakdown of calling my dad five times.  Then talking to the Engineer in the middle of the night.  Who, amazingly enough, shares the same need for magic (he just doesn't call it that).  He too will look at a venue and say, 'well, I guess it's nice . . . enough'.  Enough?

I want stars and fireworks and dancing in barefeet until the sun comes up!  Therefore, if you can think of a place in Western Canada that fits these things, please pass it on . . . . .