After Brian and I got engaged, we started talking about where and when we wanted to get married. I should note here that I moved around a lot growing up and thus don’t have a “hometown” where I would want to get married. We knew the wedding had to be in the fall or winter to avoid Brian’s season, so we started thinking of places that would be nice that time of year. We initially talked about having the wedding in San Diego at Torrey Pines (my parents live in San Diego) – it’s beautiful there and would have been a fun destination for our guests to visit. The one main drawback is that we would have been limited to only 100 guests and ultimately we decided that we’d rather have more of our friends and family there than have it in California.
The other idea we had was sharing the beautiful NC mountains Brian and I both love with our friends and family. One weekend we made a trip up to the mountains in North Carolina to look at some possible locations up there and we fell in love with the High Hampton Inn and Country Club in Cashiers, NC. We went there first and could immediately envision our wedding as we walked around the property (which was gorgeous despite being the middle of winter and the inn being closed for the season), but we knew we should check out some other places just in case – what if there is something even more amazing than this place?! Of course there wasn’t and on our drive back home we decided that this was “the” place.
Ok, enough gushing. Here are some pictures of the beautiful High Hampton Inn and Country Club (all courtesy of High Hampton):
(Set up for a wedding, with the Lodge in the background)
(the back patio of the lodge with the lake and Chimney Top Mountain in the background)
(inside the pavilion, where our reception will be held)
(outside the pavilion, where the dancing will happen!)
We called both of our parents who were, as always, supportive and we booked it that week. The best part is that it has felt just as perfect as it did that day throughout the planning process. Caroline Meads, who handles all the events at High Hampton, is a godsend. She patiently answers all my questions (which I collect and share with her during our monthly call – yes, she and I schedule a call each month, she’s that wonderful), she shares pictures of other HH weddings as they take place and she seems genuinely excited about my wedding. I wish all brides could have a person like Caroline to work with – it really has made everything about my wedding easier because I know she will be there to make everything happen perfectly on November 7.
What do you think? How did you know your venue was “the one”?