Walking Through It

In the past two weeks I've done two walk thrus at our venue Hollin Hall. The first walk thru was done with our caterer and the venue coordinator to go over where we wanted to setup all the tables, the buffet, the bar, the cake table etc. We also discussed our rain plan since our ceremony is set to take place out in the gardens. We actually came up with two alternate rain plans depending on the extent of the bad weather.

This past Saturday Kristian and I met up with my mom, her cousin and our three Day of Coordinators at the venue again, this time so that the ladies could see the site in person and so that I could go over the plans with them since they couldn't come to the meeting with the caterer. We also discussed how we wanted the tables decorated since that will be their big job. They brought a bunch of decorations that they already had and came up with some really great ideas to incorporate the items I've bought and items they can provide. They even came up with a great plan for decorating the hideous chairs that the site provides...unfortunately renting chair covers or new chairs is not in the budget.

Below are some pictures of our venue and an explanation of our plans.

This is a picture of Hollin Hall which is the highest point in southern Fairfax County, it was once part of a 2,000-acre plantation owned by Revolutionary War patriot George Mason. George Mason's son, Thomson Mason, built the original Hollin Hall home which burned in 1824. In 1916, industrialist Harley Wilson built an elegant new Hollin Hall. Many prominent Americans, including Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Carl Sandburg, visited the home and its brick-walled gardens

This is a picture of the boxwood garden where we will be having our ceremony (weather permitting)

A picture of the trellis the wedding party and I will be walking thru and down the "aisle"

Our backup plan if let's say it's raining all morning and the grounds are soggy or muddy but then clears up in time for the ceremony. We will have the ceremony on this terrace, that way we won't have to worry about the guests or myself having to walk on muddy grass but we can still have the ceremony outside.

What the terrace looks like setup with chairs.

After the ceremony the guests will move to the Wisteria Arbor behind the main house for the cocktail hour. There is also a little maze garden to the right of the picture that guests can check out.
If it's raining the cocktail hour will be held in the fireplace room inside the house. They also have small receptions in this room.

This is the Meeting House which is the building next to the Hollin Hall. This will be the building where the reception will be held.

Once you enter the Meeting House you come into the entrance room where the buffet will be setup along with escort card and guest book tables.

This is the main room where the dinner and dancing will take place. The tables will be placed in a circle as in the picture with th dance floor in the middle. Unfortunately these are not the chairs that come with the site, we would have to rent these for about $6/chair.

We will be doing one long head table similar to this with the whole bridal party (and their dates) seated on both sides of the table. Since the bridal party is made up of our closest friends we really wanted to be able to sit with all of them. The cake table will be in front of those double doors leading outside.

This is a view of the other end of the room. The stage is where the DJ will be setup. Now if it's raining during the ceremony we will get married in here, facing the direction of the stage with chairs on either side creating an aisle down the middle. This definitely is not ideal since we'll need to have some of the already setup reception dinner tables lining the back wall. There just wouldn't be enough time during the cocktail hour to setup all the tables, they need to be setup in advance. Fortunately the tables wouldn't be in any of the pictures taken from this angle so it's not a huge issue. They would then turnover the room for dinner while the guests are next door at the house for cocktails.

So those are our plans. What do you all think? Any suggestions? I'm going to try to post pictures at some point of our centerpiece mockups which I think will be really pretty.