Engaged: Anissa and Brett!

My close friend Anissa is engaged!!! Brett proposed to her at a 3-D ultrasound for their upcoming baby!! How exciting!!! Congratulations Nissers and Bretters!

Upcoming Visit to SLO

Unfortunately, in our early October visit, we were unable to see Holland Ranch – this fabulous barn/ranch in the Edna Valley area because they were having a wedding late Sat afternoon and the property manager was going out of town early Sunday morning. We are hoping to view it in next weekend when we return to town for the Central Coast Bridal Show.

We are considering a few other places – Eagle Castle in Paso Robles, Castoro Cellars in Paso Robles… and are also open for suggestions.

Our hunt continues!

Venue: Tiber Canyon Ranch

After that we drove out to Tiber Canyon Ranch – an olive oil farm. Rustic. Outdoors. Woodsy. Wonderful. 


Tiber Canyon is run by a husband and wife. The husband showed us around the place. His wife was out of town for the weekend. We loved it. They have this great barn, a really nice layout for the ceremony and reception areas.. and a suuuper cute “bridal room.” They also had this adorable dog [a corgi!] following us around the property and fetching sticks as Zac threw them. We liked this place a lot. We could picture exactly what envision for our wedding here. The one things we missed at this location was the great vines that are at the wineries we’ve visited. So, we’ll see. It’s definitely high on our my list. [I think I liked it a bit more than Zac.]


Check out the barn:

The Bridal Dressing Room:

View of Dining Area and Ceremony Area:

Venue: Edna Valley Vineyard

Next stop: Edna Valley Vineyard. There was a wedding going on there that day, so were able to see exactly how things might be set up. We’d been to EVV before, and their wines had not won me over initially, but their beautiful views had.  So, we came back for the views. Their event coordinator, Tina, gave us a great tour of the facilities, and afterward we did a little wine tasting. This time around I really enjoyed the wines here. And, I know Tina would be an excellent wedding/event coordinator. She is very on top of her game! This is a good possibility as the place is GORGEOUS, but again, not a clear winner.


Check this LINK out to see some pics by David Pascolla from a wedding at EVV. I bet it was very a fun event!

Venue: Pear Valley Vineyard

After visiting Eos Winery, we hit up Pear Valley Vineyards. I had never heard of nor been to this place before. But I was browsing through a friend of a friend's pics on Facebook and had seen some great pictures taken there, and decided to check it out. Pear had some good things going for it – but as we soon learned also had one or two things that held us back from exclaiming, “this is the place!” Pear’s event coordinator showed us around the location. Absolutely gorgeous. They have this brand new HUGE building that is their tasting room, and an event room to the side.. with this really cute patio off of it [for that excellent wedding reception dancing that I am oh-so-overjoyed about]. They also have this great little “hill” – perfect with views for the ceremony. Turns out, since they are so new, they have not finished designing the ceremony hill, and are considering putting up clear plastic around this arbor thingy which is where the ceremony would take place. In my head I am picturing this would ruin the wonderful views up there, but without seeing the final product I don’t want to be too quick to make a judgement. Unfortunately, they don’t really have a time line of when the plastic will be installed. Wine tasting: the wine was good. Stay tuned.


We loved the building at Pear Valley:

And the reception room was gorgeous:

If we don't have our wedding here, I know we will be back to visit. 

Venue: EOS Winery

We were unable to meet with their wedding/event coordinator as she is not in on Saturdays. She assured me this would not be an issue, and it wasn’t. Zac and I showed up at Eos in Paso Robles [on 46 East] and as we pulled in the driveway I recognized the place immediately. Turns out I had been wine tasting there a couple years ago. I remember loving it at the time, and this was still true. We walked into the tasting room and everyone there was very friendly.. It was 10am, and we planned on viewing the property and of course, tasting some wine. That’s when we met Chuck [tasting room wine pourer extraordinaire]. Guess what? Chuck is the man! He showed us around the winery, showed us some photo books from weddings that the event coordinator [Meghan] had set out for us… and then he took us through one of the best wine tasting experiences we have had. [And, that's saying something as you all know, I've been through quite a few wine tastings.] Okay. So, our reactions go something like this: Location: great. Wine: excellent. What’s the one hang-up you may ask? In their wedding contract that I had received by email prior to our visit, it says something about having to rent your own porta-potties. ???!! I simply cannot picture myself having to use a porta-potty while in my wedding dress. And not to mention asking our 100 or so guests to use one that day either. But, I’m hoping there is some better solution than the blue porta-potties you see on construction sites, because that is exactly what I am picturing. At this point EOS could be a winner. I need to talk to Meghan first. Either way, I know Zac and I will be visiting EOS again someday, and possibly joining their wine club. As I said before.. Chuck is the man.


Great pictures from previous weddings at Eos:
This link got me interested in having a wedding at this venue in the first place. You can find it HERE.
A Blake Photography -- I absolutely love her work.

Wedding Venue Mania!

This past weekend we made the trek down to SLO to see some wedding spots.

We came away with pros and cons from each location, but didn’t have a clear “winner.”

See following posts about each venue we visited.