It doesn't get much better than that does it? But just because you may not be able to afford to take your family and friends across the world for your wedding, doesn't mean you can't find beautiful venues in your area. Do your research and visit as many places as possible before officially booking your venue.

Morgan and I visited probably 5 or 6 venues before going down to Sarasota to the Ringling Museum to tour the facility. It was there that I fell in love with the venue and so did the rest of the family. We all knew that nothing else was going to top it. Here are some of the pictures from our beautiful venue, the Cà d’Zan Mansion, part of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

My word of advice to you is to take your time in choosing a site, make sure that you have looked at a number of options and make sure that you are able to fit the location into your budget before signing anything. Also, be sure to book the venue far in advance, if you have the time, because venues book more than a year out and sometimes the date that you want is already taken. This actually happened with us and we are now having our wedding on a Friday evening. Not really that big of a deal, but of course we may lose a few more guests because of constraints with work.

In the end, you will know when you find the place and everything will fall into place. Never give up hope!