Vinogger

If you love wine and want a unique memorable venue for your wedding then consider getting married at a winery or in wine country. You can choose a winery close to your home or you might want to consider a destination wedding and find a venue the Finger Lakes, Napa, Monterey, Santa Barbara or even overseas at a winery in Italy, France, Australia New Zealand or Chile.

To determine your best options, pick the area you would like to get married in and do an internet search for wineries and venues in that area. Once you decide the general area where you want to hold your wedding consider what time of year you want to get married and your guest count.

Most wineries have beautiful grounds and gardens and if they do allow weddings they are well equipped for outdoor weddings. Many wineries have gardens and meadows where you can get married outdoors and then have an outdoor reception. Others have space for indoor receptions in their caves or barrel rooms which give you an outdoor/indoor option and a contingency plan in the event of rain.   You should also consider how hot it will be if you are planning a summer wedding.  If you are getting married in the Fall or Winter you will probably want to find a winery with indoor facilities and the bigger your guest count the harder it may be to find a winery to accommodate you.  But with some reasearch you can make it happen.

If your wedding is large you may want to consider an event space in wine country as opposed to a winery or have your ceremony off site and then your party at the winery as many wineiries do not have two separate event spaces.

Be sure to take into account that if you do get married or have your wedding at a winery you will most likely need to serve that wineries wines at your reception and you will typically have to pay retail prices for that wine so be sure to pick a winery whose wines you like, are happy to serve and that fit your budget.  If you want to bring in your own wine then consider a non-winery venue in wine country

Wineries can be expensive by the time you pay for the event site and bring in a caterer and tables and other equipment. But keep in mind, where you look will definitely impact your costs. In California, Napa and Sonoma are some of the most expensive places to get married so consider Santa Ynes, Paso Robles, the El Dorado foothills, Lodi or Livermore all of which have numerous wineries and event spaces that will be much more cost effective and still be quite beautiful. 

I am fortunate to be getting married in January and I knew without a doubt that I wanted a wine country wedding.  After a great deal of research, I decided on the Palm Events Center at Mitchell Katz Winery in Livermore Wine Country as my wedding venue. The Palm Event center is a beautiful venue set amidst vines in a gorgeous building and it can accommodate both an onsite ceremony and reception. Mitchell Katz wine is tasty, the Palm Events Center food is good and so far the staff has been very helpful and knowledgeable.

Bottom line, figure out when you want to get married, the size of your wedding and your budget and with some flexibility you too can sucessfully plan a wine country wedding.

If you want to consider the Palm Event Center, ask to speak with Clay who will give you a tour and take good care of you (tell him I sent you). And, if you have a great wine country venue to suggest where you got married yourself or where you have attended a  wine countrywedding, please post and share it in the comments section for others to see.   There’s nothing better than recommendations from first hand experience.

I wish you the best of luck in your search and planning!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 at 10:41 am and is filed under Apellation, Wine Passport Event, Winery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.