Save the Date

Finally! Julie and I have set the date and location for our wedding. It will be June 13th, 2009 at The Sonnet House (http://www.thesonnethouse.com/).

After many hours spent thinking of potential places, talking to them over the phone, taking numerous tours, including one day where we went to a handful of places and braved the aftermath of one of the southeast's numerous hurricanes/tropical storms this season (it literally rained that entire day) we were told one day late last week about The Sonnet House.

Weeks ago we had initially dismissed TSH because we thought, "Leeds? That is too far away." So we never gave it a second thought. The initial places that made our first cut were Rucker Place, Gabrella Manor, Aldridge Gardens, Alabama Theatre, Donnelly House, Summit Club, Redmont Hotel, The Tutwiler and Carraway-Davie House plus a few others. All had great things going for them but all had something that gave us pause as well, too numerous (and in some cases too excruciating) to name here.

After deciding on the Carraway-Davie House and putting a hold on the date, we received the contract for review. But (thankfully) it wasn't meant to be as a couple of Julie's friends mentioned The Sonnet House to us and we decided to give it another look. Their website was great and the pics were unbelievable. As fate would have it they were having an open house starting on Friday the 5th-7th so we made plans to go as soon as the doors opened at noon. It turned out to not be a far drive at all as it was ~20 minutes from downtown Birmingham.

Two of the owners were there and they gave us a tour of the place. TSH turned out to be everything we were looking for: beautiful grounds, large space for the ceremony and reception, flexible times for the event and the ability to choose any vendor we wanted. Basically, here's the house, do with it what you will.

Julie and I were the first people there for the open house but a handful of other people came in shortly after us. We sat in the car and talked about and whether we wanted to stick with CDH or go with TSH. All of May and half of June was already reserved so we knew any available dates wouldn't last through the weekend so I went back inside and put our name down for June 13th and had them email me a contract. Julie, her sister Elizabeth and their Mom went back on Sunday to take a look and they both loved it as well.

Here's a pic of Julie from their visit on Sunday. This is one of the benches upstairs that Julie obviously loves.

Finally, we found a place that we were 100% confident in and offered everything we were looking for. So put it on your calendars, we're 9 months away...