So, related to my post from almost a year ago, I am engaged. It all happened last February and everything went off without a hitch.

Now, though, we are running into roadblocks in finding a place to get married. Michelle and I don't live in California, but the majority of her family does - including her grandparents who can't travel much - so she wants to have the wedding in CA. Her family mostly lives in the Santa Barbara area, but we'd much rather have the wedding in the Monterey/Big Sur area because of our fondness of the area. The problem is I'm having a very hard time finding a lot of info on the web. Searching for "getting married in Monterey" returns a few good places, but I know there are so many more that I don't know about.

So I turn to the BBS as I do whenever I'm confused about something.

Can anyone out there list off some places in the Monterey/Carmel/Big Sur area that would be a great place to hold a wedding and/or reception?

Here's what we're ideally looking for:

- We'd like to have the ceremony either on the beach or overlooking the beach/ocean.
- The reception area would also ideally overlook the ocean, but doesn't have to.
- The wedding is going to be next summer. June/July 2005
- We're looking at 80-100 guests, so the reception hall has to accommodate that.
- The reception needs to be completely indoors since it gets so damn cold there at night.

That's about it, really. If anyone has some good ideas, I'd love to hear them! We are also going to have to find a reasonable place to reserve a block of rooms for the wedding party/guests. So if anyone knows of some great hotels that would work, I'd love to hear about that too!

Thanks, guys/gals (do we still have some gals on here?) for any help at all!

This is the scene of last wedding I went to. Unfortunatly, it's a private backyard, so don't get too attached. The Carmel Highlands are beautiful, however. The Highlands Inn and the Tickle Pink Inn are both right around there. Which brings me to reference my last Monterey post, here , though it only covers vacationing there.

There are plenty of places in the area to get married, of course. They range in price wildly, and I have no idea what you're looking to spend. I've never really researched wedding locations, so I'll just throw some ideas out there.

The Aquarium does host wedding receptions, which is supposed to be neat, especially if ou like that kind of thing.

Just about every large hotel does wedding receptions.

The carmel beach is very pretty, and does allow wedding ceremonies and such.

Though I've never seen their wedding area, I'd highly reccomend checking out the asilomar conference center as it's in a beautiful area of pacific grove, and is a state park with Julia Morgan designed buildings. (The same scenery as Pebble Beach, without the cost)

I've got to run at the moment, but I know plenty more about the area and will try and post more later.

Matthew

Hey, thanks for the info! I'll start looking into these places. A reception at the Monterey Bay Aquarium sounds like a really neat idea. I'll have to contact them to find out more.

I did contact Asilomar already and they have no availability, unfortunately. They are actually one of the few places that came up in a search so I imagine they get hit up for reservations the most.

Thanks, again!

I stayed at the Tickle Pink Inn on my honeymoon (post referenced in matthew_k link above), and while it was a beautiful location, I don't think they have any areas that are large enough to accomodate a wedding or a reception of that size. Certainly, they would be short on parking.

Having only been there a single week, I can't offer any alternatives however.

Out of the box. Try calling a few caterers in the area. If they don't know where the hotspots are... Besides you can get a jump on who to line up for that part of the show.

You know, that applies for the whole wedding retail business. I'll bet Photogs would be even more hip to good looking places.

Both Ventana Inn and Post Ranch are possibilities--pricey,though. Also Nepenthe on Big Sur, with Deetjens, an old, quaint, inn with separate theme cabins in the redwoods and an incredible breakfast just across the road...then there are some of the old Victorian inns in Pacific Grove (sandwiched in between Monterey and Carmel.) Don't know if Esalen does weddings, but the setting is unequalled...