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 Adventures of An Intern

Wedding planning is a dangerous job... 

There were real sweat, blood, and tears. Now it's not as gruesome as you're picturing it right now so let me set a scenario for you. You get pulled around by the families and loved ones, making sure everything's going smoothly, being pricked and poked by all the bountineers that have to be pinned on the groomsmen and fathers, dragging around all of the props that are needed through the ceremony, holding the brides' and bridesmaid bouquet, veil, and belongings, ext.  The pressure of making sure that everything runs smoothly. Then at last there is tears of joy and happiness because you can just feel the love in the air between the bride and groom. There are so much more to do and I've definitely underestimated what a wedding planner's job is. 

After my first wedding planning experience, I am very determined to get to where my goal is: being Beyonce's little girl, Ivy Blue, plan her future wedding! ( A girl can only dream right?) Anyways... it's not about the money or the fame of helping throw the biggest most spectacular Jay Gatsby kind of party, but it's helping a couple make the best night of their life and to celebrate such a thing called love.

All this inspiration talk is cheesy and corny, but its the actions what count. Let me tell you the day I had on my first day of interning at a wedding, Christina, my wonderful boss, and her husband Ben, and I were on our way to Ballard's Lutheran Church at around 12 pm, we were going to set up a few hours before the wedding and making sure the families and loved ones were getting ready and situated! As we are making our way down to Ballard, we stopped a light right past Dick's drive in and we were stopped a red light, RIGHT ON SCHEDULE, if I might add. Then all of a sudden a minivan rear ended us out of no where! Christina had a scrapped elbow, Ben and I had some whiplash and our head hit the back of the seat really hard. The lady who hit us didn't even say anything to Ben when he got out to exchange information and insurance. How rude!! Anyways, we were back on our way to the church, not even a little fender bender will stop us from going to the wedding. We finally get to the church and we're making sure the photos were being taken, the make up of all the brides made were done and the dress and veil was looking FLAWLESS. The ceremony was so beautiful! The flowers and the huge organ in the church was just so beautiful! 

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Ballard First Lutheran Church 

After the ceremony, Christina and I were in charge of collecting all of the belonging that were left behind by the groomsmen/bridesmaids and also the flower arrangements down the aisle and putting them into the car to take with us to the reception venue. Then we were to meet Ashley at the venue where she was setting up for the reception. So once we loaded all of the flower arrangements in the box, Ben, Christina's husband was helping load the car as I handed him the flowers in the glass vases one by one... You can guess what happened next. He accidentally grabbed the flowers instead of the vase and the vase just shattered on the street! Next thing I know is Ben saying, "Uh I think your foot is bleeding..." I looked down and said "Really?" Turns out the glass shattered around my foot and all I got a was a itty bitty cut on the top of my foot. It was so small that I didn't even notice it! Christina said, "You're gonna scare our intern off by hurting them like that!" All laughs and jokes!! 

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Then, we arrived at The Canal, where the wedding reception was and all night long, it was laughs, hugs, a lot of eating, drinking  and LOTS OF DANCING. It was such a blast that all of the things that went wrong that day had been forgotten! 

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Jewel Hospitality catering ft my #OOTE for the wedding!! Dinner was delicious!

Being hit by a car and dodging shards of glass was not how I planned my first day of interning to be but it really made the day more interesting. New thing that I learned that day is to always prepare for the worst. It's someone's special day and if something goes wrong, you fix it real quick, bandage it up or something and just keep going. You got to be innovated and think on your feet. You also probably have to sustain the hits of a vehicle and have shields of steel for a foot like me! 

What has been the craziest and unexpected thing that has happened to you on the day of a wedding you were attending to?? I would love to hear your story! :) And if you guys are interested in a wedding #OOTE (Outfit of the event) put below in the comments!!!

Next time on The Adventures of An Intern,

Kailin C.