The Search for Shelter - Part 2

This has got to be the most stressful point in the two years of wedding planning.  The big stuff is squared away, but now it's all those tiny details, like what should our ceremony music be, or what should our vows be like?  You know, that silly unimportant stuff no one cares about.  Obviously.  ( /sarcasm) So in my head, all these not so little to-do items have been building up.

About a week after booking our first few nights at the Extended Stay America, the pressure was mounting and I HAD to book the rest of our nights, or the stress would eat me alive.  I was also stressing over the above-mentioned things, plus our lack of a limo driver, and not having ordered our wedding cupcakes.  I demolished those two tasks over a weekend, and decided to tackle this remaining piece as well.

Pay-off pictures under the cut!

I gently asked my dear fiance if he could spare some time in the evening over the weekend to sit with me and figure out our remaining hotel stay(s).  Of course he agreed happily, because he's awesome.  So we hopped on our computers and searched like mad.  He ended up finding a place, the Coral Reef Inn, which looked promising.

I gotta tell you, I sometimes wonder why I work on things by myself at all because this man is brilliant!  He's the one who insisted on checking out the hotel that we ended up choosing as our reception venue, even after I had sworn off all hotels because of their pricing and nickel-and-dime schemes.  But I was so wrong about this place, and he was so right.  The Country Inn & Suites in Brookfield is uh-mazing.  They have treated us like royalty and their prices and policies are incredibly reasonable and flexible.  Love them!  Good call, Super Fiance (soon to be Super Husband).

So naturally, Super Fiance zeroed in on this neat little place called the Coral Reef Inn & Suites.  It's not a chain, and is located in Alameda (about 30 minutes outside of San Francisco proper).  It has a pool, which is more than I can say for the Extended Stay America, and it has "suite-style" rooms with kitchenettes and "lagoon" views.   This looks like a pretty charming place, right?

I love the blue.  It looks like what I'd expect an ocean-side hotel to look like, minus that Miami beach feeling (which is a whole other matter entirely).

Even greater than this place's charming looks is the extra-charming price of $89 a night!  Compared to the $300+ per night that we'd be forking over to stay in San Francisco, that's a breath of fresh air.  And it comes with free internet, free parking, the aforementioned kitchenette (nice, since we can buy and cook breakfast ourselves).

Super Fiance saves the day once more!  We snagged three nights at the Coral Reef Inn, and booked our final night back at the Extended Stay America so that we'll be super-close to the Amtrak station for our 9 a.m. departure on our last day.  It feels good to know we'll have a place to crash for our entire trip now!  One less bead of anxiety sweat on my forehead.  For now.