A Weekend In Santa Barbara

I had planned on writing this blog on Monday. And then suddenly Monday turned into Friday. How does that always happen???

While I feel like most people experience "wedding season" from late Spring through Summer, Joey and I are experiencing a mini wedding boom right now. We have back-to-back weddings: Joey's cousin's wedding last weekend in Santa Barbara and my close friend's wedding in Denver tomorrow. 

You would think post-divorce I would be pretty cynical about weddings. While the first wedding I went to post separation was more emotionally difficult than I expected, I typically love weddings. In fact, I think having been married, I have even more respect for the commitment and love these couples are taking on than I did in my younger years. It is a special thing, and I am always honored when I get to witness it. 

This past weekend we packed our bags and spent three days with Joey's family to celebrate the marriage of his cousin Kyle to the beautiful Madeleine. It was my first time visiting Santa Barbara, and I was excited to visit a place I have heard incredibly romanticized things about. 

The rehearsal dinner and wedding were stunning. As someone who does event planning for a living, I can at times be picky about venues and coordinators. In this case, the venues were phenomenal. The Santa Barbara Yacht Club is not only situated in a beautiful locale on the beach, but they did an excellent job executing a high-quality buffet and welcoming bar. The wedding was at a private residence with one of the most impressive views of the ocean I have ever seen. There were actual dolphins swimming past during the vows - does it get any more spectacular than that?!

Venues, however, do not make a wedding. It's the people. And this wedding had phenomenal people! My assessment is not even coming from a biased place just because it is my boyfriend's family. These were all genuinely wonderful people who were there to celebrate this couple. 

While we left with amazing memories from our time with family, I have to say I was not inspired by Santa Barbara as a whole. I do not think it lived up to any of the hype, especially considering how pricey it was. I left scratching my head, "Did I do it wrong? Did I miss something?" We stayed at the local Ramada and hung out along the coast stopping at Stearn Wharf and Goleta Beach. Is there stuff I missed and should revisit for? Please comment below and let me know!

What was a delightful surprise during the trip was our stop in Solvang!

I had heard about Solvang - I feel like I always see it on the Travel Channel whenever they do shows on road-tripping California. Joey and I probably would not have picked this town for a day-trip, but I am so glad his mother suggested it. As we pulled into town with all of it's adorable Dutch styled buildings (I felt like I had been plopped into Epcot - as it had a delightful "Stepford Wives" feel with all the identical buildings in a row), I logged on to TripAdvisor (a favorite of mine for last minute travel research) to lookup the local bakeries. Even though the old Travel Channel shows were fuzzy in my memory, I did remember that this town was known for pastries. Of course I forgot about everything else...but the pastries. I do love me some pastries!

I also saw on TripAdvisor that the town has a vintage motorcycle museum. Joey has been working on illustrating his own motorcycle encyclopedia for a couple of months now- so the timing could not have been any more perfect! Not only did we get to see all the bikes Joey has been illustrating, we also realized this was the collection featured in our favorite coffee table book! It was such a pleasant discovery, and we had a really memorable time. Joey could of stayed all day - but sadly we had to move on to lunch.

We had already indulged in danishes, but since we were in a Dutch town we just had to try the sausages too! We ate lunch at the Copenhagen Sausage Garden where we split the three-sausage platter (perfect for a couple) and had some potato salad (probably did not need to order that as we had too much food, but it was delicious). We then wanted to pick up some candy for the rest of the ride home (We kept saying the candy was for the kids, but we both knew it was for us). We stopped at the Swedish Candy Factory. Handmade, unique Swedish taffy? Uhm, YES PLEASE. The owner was so personable and it was wonderful to hear the story of this family business. I highly recommend it.

While I was expecting a cookie-cutter tourist town, everyone we met was so authentic and the businesses were unique and genuine. If I was to pick a pit-stop on my next road trip down to LA - I would take the detour to Solvang over Santa Barbara any day.

Have you been to these places? What stops do you like to make on your California road trips?

(Photo is one I took at the rehearsal dinner at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club - As you can see it was a spectacular night)