Why I Love My Venue

Because I was in Charlottesville, I got to prowl around my venue, Clifton Inn, and take photos.  Since we're planning this wedding from a distance, I think it's really important to have photos to remind myself of what the spaces look like and what I want to go where and so forth.  The folks at Clifton couldn't have been nicer, letting me wander all over and take pictures more or less wherever I wanted.

As I said before Miss Capitol Hill did a tour of Clifton last year, and I don't want to repeat the terrific work that she did.  But the weather this week was exquisite, and the leaves were changing, and so I thought I'd take a look at the beautiful setting and the wide array of things to do and see on the property.

I love driving up to Clifton and seeing this beautiful old house.  It doesn't scream or shout at you, it's just quietly elegant. 

And in case you were wondering whether or not you're nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, you can turn around in the parking lot and reassure yourself that you are.  

This is the croquet lawn, where we'll be having our ceremony.  We figured it would be easier for our out of town guests to have the ceremony and the reception in the same place.  Also, the crape myrtle trees you see at the top of the picture will be blooming with bright pink flowers.  I think it will be beautiful, as long as the sun is shining!

Here's the ceremony space from another angle.  The building in the top right corner is one of the rooms at Clifton--the one I'll stay in, I hope.  There certainly won't be much distance to travel between getting ready and walking down the aisle!  We are thinking about having the chuppah in the middle of the space and arranging the seats around it so everyone can get a good view.

We've been told that Clifton is planning to permanently cover their back deck. If the weather's nice that weekend, I'm seriously thinking about opening the doors to the verandah that you see on the right and turning it and the deck into an indoor-outdoor space for dinner, and then we'll have dancing down below on the lawn.

We'll put up lots of citronella torches and maybe some lanterns and just dance the night away.  I think it would work well.

I'll have more pictures coming up later.