Alex and I are fairly enamoured with the idea of having the wedding at my parent's house in Anacortes, but we're just starting to check out sites. There are really 3 next steps on the "find reception site" front. For those of you who are program managers, we could parallelize those 3 steps. *smile* Here they are...

1. Look at places around Seattle
   
   • Pike's Place Market
     
   • Century Ballroom
     
   • Stimson Green Mansion
     
   • Union Station
     
   • Salish Lodge (Snoqualamie)
     
   • Pickering Barn (Issaquah) (OUT: it's in a mall)
     
   • Daybreak Star Center (Discovery Park)
     
2. Check out at least one other far-away location (leavenworth? sequim? semiahoo? whistler? what else?)
   
   • Mountain Spring Lodge (Leavenworth)
     
   • Semiahmoo (Blaine)
     
   • Scimitar Ridge (Anacortes)
     
   • The Cutting Garden (Sequim)
     
   • Harbor Creek Lodge (Gig Harbor)
     
   • Lord Hill Farms (Snohomish)
     
   • Alderbrook Resort (Hood Canal)
     
3. Figure out whether or not mom & dad's house is a viable option
   
   • need a tent guy to look at their back yard
     
   • need someone with experience to look at ceremony options (doc, deck, pergola) to understand how many people could stand at each place
     
   • is there a good off-site ceremony location in Anacotes? Chapel? Community Center?
     

Finding other locations:

• TheKnot.com listings
  
• MySeattleWedding listings
  

Alex and I spent Saturday looking at wedding sites in the San Juan Islands. There were 2 big learnings: #1 It's a pretty big schlep getting out to the San Juan Islands & #2 My parents have a prettier view than any of the wedding sites out there. The best of the lot was the Orcas Hotel where the manager was a really nice guy, and you could do a reception for 100 for under $10,000. Second place goes to Lakedale Resorts with a laid back compound atmosphere.

Here's the full set of sites we looked at:
San Juan Island

• Lakedale Resorts
  
• Roche Harbor
  

Orcas Island

• Rosario Resort
  
• West Beach Resort
  
• Deer Harbor Inn
  
• Homestead Orcas (we didn't visit, but we'd been there before)
  
• Orcas Hotel
  

For a full list of wedding sites in the San Juan islands, check out Travel San Juans (.com) or San Juans: List of 10.

Possible wedding sites:

• San Juan Island
  
  
  
  • Lakedale Resorts
    
  • Roche Harbor
    
  
  
• Orcas Island
  
  
  
  • Rosario Resort
    
  • West Beach Resort
    
  • Deer Harbor Inn
    
  • Homestead Orcas (basically a B&B)
    
  
  
• Non-Seattle
  
  
  
  • Mountain Spring Lodge (Leavenworth)
    
  • Semiahmoo (Blaine)
    
  • Scimitar Ridge (Anacortes)
    
  • The Cutting Garden (Sequim)
    
  • Harbor Creek Lodge (Gig Harbor)
    
  • Lord Hill Farms (Snohomish)
    
  • Alderbrook Resort (Hood Canal)
    
  
  
• Seattle
  
  
  
  • Pike's Place Market
    
  • Century Ballroom
    
  • Stimson Green Mansion
    
  • Union Station
    
  • Salish Lodge (Snoqualamie)
    
  • Pickering Barn (Issaquah)
    
  • Daybreak Star Center (Discovery Park)
    
  
  

Other site listings:

• Travel San Juans (.com)
  
• San Juans: List of 10
  
• TheKnot.com listings
  
• MySeattleWedding listings
  

Mike's Amazing Cakes