Introducing: Aimee and Michael

Couples have been carrying on the trend of creating their own engagement and wedding websites for years now. As a wedding venue, we've seen a lot of our brides and grooms create unique, amazing websites, and we absolutely love exploring them! From photo stories to fun descriptions, our couples have the best ideas! The purpose of these websites is to provide information about the couple, their wedding party, the location of the ceremony, and even their gift registry. We recently saw a couple's website that we just had to share: Aimee and Michael. They are getting married at Hidden Valley Retreat on April 21, 2012. Like all of our couples, they will be hosting their very own weekend wedding. 

Aimee and Michael's website stood out to us because of their description of our property. Their website not only explains how our property works, but gives specific directions on how the weekend will play out for each of their guests. They allow their guests to choose if they will be staying at Hidden Valley or at a hotel. They also give their guests the option of being part of the "cleaning crew" to pay for their stay, or to donate money to alleviate the cost of the property. 

Here is what they said about us:

"The Hidden Valley Retreat has some accommodation onsite to the tune of about 40 spots for April 20th and 21st. A little over half of those spots are group bedding situations: combinations of bunk beds and rollaways. There are 4 small single bedrooms, and then a combination of a few Queens and Twins to make up the rest.

Once we send out invitations and begin receiving RSVPs we will start divvying up the spots, prioritizing the wedding party, the out-of-towners, and the immediate family who are arriving at Hidden Valley Retreat on the 20th of April, and working out from there.

If you’re willing to actively participate in the wedding preparations and clean-up, then your spots at the facility are complementary for the nights of the 20th and the 21st. If however you would rather take that time to enjoy the surrounding countryside or the facilities of the property then we would ask that you instead make a financial contribution to the tune of whatever you feel is appropriate for the accommodation. Any money received in this manner will go directly to offsetting the costs of the facility.

It should also be noted that there are only six bathrooms on site and thus if you are a particularly picky person who wouldn’t necessarily appreciate the dorm type atmosphere you may want to consider alternative accommodation. There are hotels relatively near the site and once we understand how many people are interested in hotel accommodation we will begin looking into obtaining group rates and possibly a shuttle service to go between the wedding and the hotel."

On top of the great description they have about Hidden Valley Retreat, they also have fun descriptions of their wedding party, and stories about themselves. Following in the ways of the eco-friendly couple, they have the option of viewing their Save the Date online, and having their guests print it out themselves.. On top of that, they are holding a group cruise as part of their honeymoon, how cool is that?! 

Aimee and Michael are an exemplary couple, and we fully encourage our future couples  to emulate their description of our property. You can see how perfect their website is HERE.

More to come in April! Congratulations to Aimee and Michael, we can't wait to have you!