I have another blog called the indecisive bride, but since I'm trying to build this blog up more I think I'm going to post wedding planning entries over here too.
Yesterday Tony and I went over to St Augustine to scout potential locations there. One location that I like the idea of is the beach. Though, we are in Florida so there are all kinds of beaches. And, no, a beach is not a beach. We ruled out the one we visited on Sunday. I'd forgotten it was one that people could drive on. I don't think that would work so well. lol.
We didn't have a plan when we went over there, just looking around. It started raining once we got over there so that kind of sucked, but we drove around after we checked in to the hotel. We drove toward Vilano beach [this was before I remembered it was one people drove on lol]. We were driving down A1A just to see if something stuck out to us as a potential place. There were a couple places we saw and wrote down to look up later, nothing impressive enough for us to stop, until we saw....
A castle! In St. Augustine...it's across A1A from the beach. So, just an idea, but if we end up having the wedding there we could go across the street to the beach to take some pictures also before the reception. Tony thinks it would be awesome to have a unique/different wedding location such as this one. Unfortunately I forgot my SLR camera battery at home [OMG! such a crime to be in the nation's oldest city without my camera...besides cell phone camera lol. But this trip was more about time with Tony and I so I guess it's all good..lol]
We didn't get a closer look because it's private property, but we will definitely want to schedule a tour.
The ironic thing about this is, Tony had been talking with someone at work about finding a unique wedding location. We this guy told Tony about a castle, and Tony came home and told me to look up a castle in Villa Nova. I'm a Googlemaster, but I couldn't find it. As we were driving we see this one. It was down the road from the carousel, which is a landmark the guy told Tony about. So this was the one he'd been talking about. How he got Villa Nova from Vilano I have no clue. LoL.
I was reading the history of the castle on their webpage. It was built by two guys without the help of other laborers. It was done in remembrance of Jesus Christ and modeled after Irish Castles of 1000 years ago. They consulted with historians to created a castle that would resemble an Abby or early Christian Church. It was done as an expression of art, and not a tourist landmark. Another interesting fact, especially from a photography point of view, is the 88 windows in the building with no glass at all. Oh, how I imagine the natural light! [Even if we don't end up picking this as a wedding location I so want to ask if they would let me do some photography- anyone want to model if so? ;c)]
If you are interested to know more about Castle Otttis you can find it on their website. :c)
From what we did get to see, the castle looks very pretty. The above picture was the only one I got from my cell phone, plus it was still dreary from the rain. From the pictures online it looks awesome.
Near the beach! |
Who knows if we will go with St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Gainesville, or...Italy? Guess we will see! lol. At least we are looking at all options and making a decision together.
Day 7: I am thankful for the roof over us :c)
Let's See what develops.