On Finding a Church Part 1.

Despite the fact that Mr. Manatee had very clear intentions of being married in a church, he didn't really have any specifications of which church. Spoiler alert: This was the first time his mother and I had ever actually butt heads over anything. She wanted us to get hitched in a gorgeous church in his hometown (Southlake) that they attended on occasion, and I had my eye on a church about two blocks down from our reception location. Both of these churches were Methodist, but that's pretty much where the comparison stops. Always eager to keep the peace between Manatee-In-Law and I, I usually would have just agreed to use White Chapel. However.

SL White Chapel

There were several roadblocks between us and wedded bliss at White Chapel.
1. The DFW Connector 

The connector is actually the job site that my darling fiance receives his paychecks from. It is also the biggest pain in my road-rage-prone butt. Ideally, this 3 billion dollar fix cleans up traffic throughout the Metroplex and eases the cluster-truck congestion in Grapevine. In reality, it just fatally confuses any GPS that attempts to navigate it and any normal driver that comes across it.This job has been going on for years, has little chance of being finished by June 1st, and skyrockets my blood pressure every time I'm behind the wheel. It is also right smack in the main roadway between White Chapel and the Sanford House, and it's the last thing I want to involve our out of town guests in. No. Bueno.

2.  It's HUGE. Or tiny. 

 
We had a bit of a goldilocks problem with this venue. The Sanctuary holds...wait for it...2500 people! With a guest list of around 100-120, we were going to hear crickets. The wedding consultant half-heartedly suggested we could turn off the lights in the side wings. She did tell us about a small, historic little chapel that was part of the main building, and it was so adorable! The downside...it only held 65 people, and we were restricted to 3 BM and GM. At that point, we each already had 4, and we couldn't imagine asking anyone to step down. The walk down the aisle was, as you can imagine, about 10 steps, and that didn't much fit into our vision either. It sure was cute though!

White Chapel

3. It was expensive.
When I requested the information be sent over about pricing, my eyeballs just about popped out of my head. 'Mr. Man' and I started out on this search naive to the cost of getting married in a church. We ignorantly assumed that a holy house would be so thrilled for us to tie the knot before the eyes of the Lord they would just let us slip in with a hundred people on a Saturday. Not so! The fees to use the church were as follows:

	Non-Members	Members
Sanctuary	$2,400	$1,850
Chapel	$1,500	$1,000

Holy Crap! Mr. Manatee's family, thankfully, were members, which softened the blow... But not by much! In their defense, this included a pianist and the use of the minister. However. Considering that we had (just in case) allotted a pitiful $600 in our fledgling budget for the use of a church, even the tiny chapel was way out of our budget. The Manatees were already financially helping us and my family out with the wedding more than traditionally called for, so we weren't about to strain our budget any further.

Thankfully Manatee-In-Law saw that I really had given it a chance, but the cons to this option couldn't be ignored. We agreed to put White Chapel behind us.

Did you have a established church at the time of your engagement, or did you consider a few before booking a ceremony space?