Grand Ridge Manor: Featured Venue

Grand Ridge Manor is a great venue! If you live north or south of Bellevue, this is a great venue to check out! This gorgeous mansion is located in Issaquah, Washington. It provides the perfect wedding in a secluded area but with very easy access to the city. The venue is surrounded by a beautiful scenery of forests and a view of Cougar & Tiger Mountain; perfect for wedding photos! The Grand Ridge Manor has a private 35 acres that has a natural pond with a running waterfall and fountain in the pond.  We have had a wedding planned with Karly and Brett, the couple that I wrote my previous blog on. I was an intern when I worked with this lovely couple and I was truly blessed to be working with them to make their day and night as perfect as they wanted it to be at The Grand Ridge Manor. The cooks and staff were so amazing and extremely helpful. I can honestly say that, this venue was one of the most beautiful venues I've ever seen in my wedding planning career! 

Here's a little tour of the place and some pictures taken of Karly and Brett at their wedding!

The Seattle Freeze!?

While I was eating lunch today I flipped on the TV and 'New Day Northwest' was on.  I would have changed the channel but they started talking about the Seattle dating scene and it sounded kind of interesting. A woman was on talking who I found out was dating coach Barb Morgan and she mentioned that " the most recent US Census reveals that Seattle has the second highest number of single households of any US city." Wow! That is insane! Her and the host and the other two guests who were two singles going through her program "60 Dates in 60 Days" then started talking about how maybe it was because of the Seattle culture and how it was hard to meet other singles. The male on the show mentioned he was from California and he was not used to it being so hard to meet people.

This actually blew me away because it reiterated a point my boyfriend tried to make to Christina and I the other day after he came back from a 25 day trip to Louisiana. Him and his friend said the people there were so friendly, unlike people here. That you can just go into any bar and start chatting with someone, whereas if you did that here, if a guy went up to a girl she might give you a dirty look and turn away or say something rude.

Barb Morgen recently launched the site www.60DatesIn60Days.com to encourage singles to get out and find someone already. She says that’s harder than you might think in a city where singles outnumber married folk and the term “Seattle freeze” is common.

So, what is this Seattle Freeze phenomenon or theory we have been talking about?  According to Urban Dictionary Seattle Freeze is:

A phrase that describes a local public consensus that states the city of Seattle and/ or its outlying suburbs are generally not friendly, asexual, introverted, socially aloof, cliquish or strictly divided through its social classes, thus making the city/ area difficult to make social connections on all levels.

Hmmm...really...what do you guys think. Do you find this to be an accurate portrayal of Seattleites? Also, Morgan asked this question and we are also wondering what you think-" Has this disproportionate number of singles has made it so easy to live an unmarried lifestyle that many just never get around to getting hitched?”

Let us know what you think!

-Ashley

Sources: UrbanDictionary, Seattle PI, New Day Northwest