the Venue

We began looking for places to have the wedding almost immediately after we got engaged. We looked at places in Iowa City, Des Moines, and Ankeny....hotels, arboretums, golf courses, and many more places. We quickly narrowed it down to a few places that would accomodate our group and also had the look we were going for. Ideally, the look I was looking for was outdoors.

here are a few pics of inspiration

However, with the weather in Iowa being so iffy we threw that idea out the window. I still wanted the place to be comfortable, fun, "not stuffy", and bright. The place we chose is as close to the outdoors as we could get.

The venue is the Enrichment center on the Ankeny DMACC campus. I remember when my mom first found the place. She was on the phone talking to me about different venues in Ankeny to go visit. She was still looking online at places as she was talking to me, too. When she came across this she said "oooooh!! No I just found it. I found the place!" I was a little bit hesitant at first, but now I do believe it is the perfect fit for Sean and I.

Overall, the place is a white, modern, blank slate for us to make beautiful. The first area that you walk into is a large atrium that is floor to ceiling windows on 3 of the walls. One of the walls even has like a garage type door that can be opened to the outside. This is where the ceremony will take place. Also, it will be conveniently be converted into the coctail hour location. A large glass stairway is in the middle of the room. These are the stairs that I will hopefully NOT be falling down during the ceremony.

This is kinda the lay out for the ceremony site...well you can kinda get the picture.



The reception room right down the hall has TONS of windows that face west so we can watch the sunset :) (hopefully it will be pretty that night).

I'm not a fan of the chairs provided nor do I like chair covers....yuck. So we are renting fancy-shmancy white chairs that will be used for both the ceremony and the reception.

A few other important things this place has is plenty of nice bathrooms and tons of parking. :)