As with everything in my life, I am a little inconsistent...even though I thought I would do this more often. Life kind of happened....
Anyway, a few weekends ago we headed south to look at some venues on the Peninsula. I have to say I was so enchanted with Sonoma (partly because we just had such a lovely weekend) and the places we saw there, that my views of the 3 spots we saw were a bit tainted.
However, after picking up my shiny new ring at the Jewelers' Bench--man does it sparkle! I tried to keep an open mind for round 2--so we headed towards Santa Cruz on some windy highways to our first stop, Nestldown. A private Estate 'nestled' in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
I was really hoping to just love this place and solve our numbers woes. Here are some pluses: We'd get the whole estate to ourselves for the weekend, we can have up to 250 people, and there is a BARN--maybe never was a real barn, but it is really cool on the inside, great place for dancing up a storm. There is also a lovely lawn for dinner and a nice little pond outside the barn and next to the lawn. We'd get married in a redwood grove. Which is cool. I love redwoods. But somehow it's just not as enchanting to me as having vineyards and sloping hillsides as the backdrop to our nuptials. So that brings me to downsides: 1) It's not Sonoma--so that means people are headed to Silicon Valley for a weekend. Yes, Los Gatos is a cute town, but it's just such a different feel. 2) There is no 'view'...I really wanted a vista, something that took your breath away and said, "holy cow this is an amazing place to get married, and of course she lives in California now, who wouldn't with views like this?"...yes, it's gorgeous, but it is truly nestled in the mountains so you are down low, not up high. 3) It just doesn't have the same ranch/country chic feel as the places we saw in Sonoma. It's more woodsy. 4) there is a weird 'make believe' cottage with small furniture. Not that that's bad, it's just weird.
Here are photos: