Location, Location, Location!

I often think that P and I are super lucky or have good karma (this I am attributing 100% to him, I get too riled up and threaten too many shop clerks to accumulate much) and this has been evident so far in our wedding planning. Our wedding reception venue is one of the things that just fell into place. The venue is the Tsakapolous Library Galleria in downtown Sacramento, CA. It’s quite perfect for us for several reasons, where it is, what it is, and what it represents.

We try in our everyday life to be eco-conscious, deliberate in our choices and mindful of our spending. Sacramento is a great town for us to have our wedding in because unlike a destination no one will have to board a jet plane and many of our Bay area friends can car pool or even take the train! It’s close to most of our family and a hidden treasure of a town, and probably where we will end up settling down once we have the city out of our system. P and I also met in Sacramento so it’s fitting that we get married there too.

The Library Galleria itself is fabulous. Neither of us had been there before although it’s in a prominent location downtown, next to the courthouse and Cesar Chavez Park. It’s a 5 story atrium that can fit 500, although we expect about half that number. It is part of the Sacramento Library System and we also feel excited that our money goes to support the Public Library System and not the faceless Hilton’s of the world. It has black granite floors and commissioned sculptures and art that is native to Northern California.

I found myself a few months ago looking for museums and art galleries in Sacramento on the web and discovered the website for our venue www.library galleria.com The pictures are misleading since it’s hard to get a real feel for the space and sometimes it tends to look cheesy from the outside. One weekend when we were visiting family P and I made an appointment to peek at the space on a Saturday. We drove up on Friday evening and cased the joint – we walked around the Library at night and tried to imagine a raging party. I promptly decided that we shouldn’t even show up the next morning. It looked dark and cavernous and not like an awesome dance-until-you-drop location. P had more faith and dragged me to the appointment the next morning where we A) promptly proceeded to fall in love with the vaulted ceilings and spacious dance floor B) fell in love with the wedding coordinator and C) write that woman a check to reserve our date!

Definitely a pretty painless endeavor, our first wedding reception venue visited was the right one for us. I hope the rest of our planning goes as smoothly!