Ashley & Danny – Married at Forest House Lodge

Ashley and Danny were married at the gorgeous Forest House Lodge in Foresthill, Ca.  This venue is somewhat “local” to my area so it’s always a nice treat getting to stay so close to home.  I want to give a huge thank you to Lisa and Trizza for assisting and shooting with me.  It’s always a blast.  Vendor infomation is at the bottom of the blog post and a some words below from Ashley on their big day!

Enjoy!

“While choosing a venue I didn’t even know where to begin! We looked all over California trying to figure out which area would be the best in terms of convenince for both our families, his being in Southern California and mine being in Northern California. We searched the Napa Valley, Monterey, Southern Cali area, and a million other places but nothing “jumped out” at us. We both LOVE being in the mountains and we are both fairly simple, down to earth people. I also loved the idea of an all inclusive venue which are far and few. We decided we needed to book a venue that was convenient for us and those who could come, would be there. I found our first venue which was also located in Foresthill that I was going to tour. When telling a friend about where I was going to look she told me I MUST at least go check out the Forest House Lodge while I was in the area. She had gotten married there years ago and said it was an amazing venue. My mom, Godmother, and I took the day to go tour these two places. We went to venue “A” first and it was beautiful but it just wasn’t “us”. I didn’t get a friendly vibe that I was hoping for from the coordinator and it just seemed too small and not what we were hoping for for our wedding. We made our way to the Forest House Lodge and as soon as we walked in the door we were greeted with hugs and smiling faces. We were swept off our feet by Brett and he made us feel right at home. We toured the venue and then he took us up to the ceremony site….SOLD! It was breathtaking and I just KNEW I had to get married there. He also mentioned to us that the wedding packages were a minimum of 26 hours of wedding fun and the guests could stay right upstairs in their unique little rooms. DOUBLE SOLD! We didn’t want our wedding to have an end time per se, we knew our crowd and knew they would want to celebrate all night. The venue was amazing, the staff is phenomenal, and the food/dessert menu had so many options, and it kept coming literally all night long. One of the greatest parts was it was all inclusive, meaning I had very few things left to do in terms of outside vendors. The Lodge did everything for us. It is also full of beautiful decor and character so I had very little decorating to do. They had tons of vases and other wedding decor all available for me to use to my job was made so much easier. The coordinator was always available to me via personal meeting, phone, or email willing to answer any questions I had and to help me as needed. Nothing ran late, if there were any bumps along the way I didn’t know about them, they were very accomodating and they made all our guests feel right at home. It truly is a dream venue and I would reccomend it to anyone looking for a wedding venue. The team there truly enjoy what they do and it shows.”

Ceremony location: Grand Sierra Pointe, Forest House Lodge
Reception location: Forest House Lodge, Foresthill, CA
Brides dress: La Soie
Grooms suit or tux: Men’s Warehouse
hair: Kayla Simons with Hairitage, Bride’s best friend (for Bride), Crystal Vosefski with Mane Street Hair, bride’s friend (for bridesmaids and flower girls)
make up: Jessika Ferrari, MAC makeup artist, Bride’s friend
Flowers: Linda Manzer, family friend
cake: Forest House Lodge
caterer: Forest House Lodge
furniture rentals: Forest House Lodge
photobooth: None
DJ or band: Brian Taylor with Swerve Entertainment
videographer: Scott Jones, family friend
Coordinator: Kathryn Gardenhire, Forest House Lodge
officiant: Ed Smith, Bride’s Godfather
centerpieces: Linda Manzer, family friend
invitations: Rebecca Callahan, Bride’s friend and bridesmaid
any other details or credit you want to give to family and friends

To our parents for making it possible for us to have the wedding of our dreams. Without them, we couldn’t have done it!

To Misty Fraser, she has been a part of my (Ashley’s) life for over 12 years, she is most definitely like a second mother to me, and her generous contribution to our wedding helped us make the day even more special. Thank you!

Also to Ms. Becca, one of Ashley’s best friends and bridemaids, she handmade all the invites and the many inserts required for our invites. She also spent an entire weekend dedicated to helping cut and assemble the invites. Becca also made the “Eat, Drink, and be Marry” cards for each place setting, as well as the cute “Do not disturb” door hangers that were hung on each guest’s door that stayed at the lodge.

Last but most definitely not least, to my wonderful husband for being so amazingly supportive throughout the entire planning process. It was a tough year and a half of planning, very stressful, and he was very supportive and loving throughout the entire thing. He did everything he could to make sure I had just what I wanted and the day was perfect. If it wasn’t for having him in my corner I truly would have lost my mind.