Third times the charm ?! (or Our search for a venue part 3)

Ok, so I lied... third time wasn't the charm for us, but I did LOVE The Brazilian room.
It is in the Berkeley hills, in a Tilden county park, and is surrounded by trees, and flowers.


This is what the guests would see as they walked toward the building. Soo pretty, with the flower garden, right ?!






The ceremonies are performed out doors over looking a fabulous view of the hills beyond the park.




Here it is all dressed up for wedding. Those windows are floor to ceiling and also afford a view of the hills beyond and the patio courtyard area where the ceremonies are held.

It is run by the county park and recreation department, and they have "open houses" for people to come see the space instead of personal appointments.

At these open houses, they also have various "preferred" vendors showing their stuff. There were 2 caterers with h'or dourves and drinks, musicians, and 2 florists who had set up some pretty table scapes. All of this gave a much better idea of how the room looked when actually set up for a wedding.

I loved everything about this place. It would fit our 100 person guest list, it had a beautiful area for an outdoor ceremony, AND the rental fee is nominal, especially if you live in Alameda County (which my father does)

The problems were
Because it is an extremely beautiful place, at extremely fair pricing, it is VERY hard to get a date you want. We would've been limited to a morning slot, or a Friday evening wedding, and we started searching for venues a year and 4 months in advance. We didn't have a specific date in mind in the beginning either, just a two month span.

They also have rules about the music. They also are very strict about the ending time if your reservation. You can't even pay a fee for over time. There are more, but these are the ones that bothered me the most.

Because of the price, and the beauty of the building and its surroundings it still remained on our list of possibilities until we found..... THE place... More to come....