Wine Wine Wine

My FI and I have been talking about the wedding for awhile before the engagement but still there are only a few things we know for certain about a possible venue right now. First off, we want the ceremony to be outside in a lovely setting without being too pretentious and after that great food, dancing and beer. The combination of these musts with the extra constraint of a small budget has made finding a reception site a little difficult. A state park would be precisely the sort of venue we would like the ceremony as far as looks, however there are two problems with a state park...no where to go in case of rain and no alcohol allowed. The first could be fixed with a tent, a little on the expensive side, but manageable. The second requires somewhere completely different. My next thought was a vineyard. Generally excluded gorgeous rolling hills and if you do you're homework you can find one that does large parties on a regular basis. Again, we run across the problem of not being able to bring our own alcohol (many vineyards don't allow you to serve any alcohol but their wine). The possibility still existed to hold the ceremony at the vineyard and the reception at a different place if necessary.
For those who were not aware, there are actually a number of vineyards in New Jersey. You can find a lot of them at the Garden State Wine Growers Association site. So yesterday my FI and I set off for the closest two vineyards to his house in Jersey that had the space for a large event. The first was Unionville Vineyards. It was absolutely gorgeous and very experienced in large events. So, what's the problem? Apparently Unionville Vineyards is prohibited by the state to hold weddings at their site, any other event is fine, just not a wedding. But we did taste all of their wine, very tasty. They were very friendly and let us know of a few other vineyards in NJ (and right over the river in PA) that would be able to help us out.
The next step was Hopewell Valley. Our initial impression of this vineyard was not as great as Unionville. It was hopelessly flat and we had our heart set on those rolling hills and pretty trees. It didn't help the situation that the woman we spoke to was just plain rude. She was no one particularly important and took my information so that someone could get back to me. In the mean time she let me know that no outside alcohol was allowed, when i said "Really?", in an inquisitivevoice, "Even kegs?" she replied very sarcastically "Yeeeeees! Beer is alcohol!". Something about her just rubbed both of us the wrong way so we set off on the road again sort of dejected.
Along the road however, we came across the subject of my next post....Put put golf!!!!
In the mean time, what sort of things did you consider when choosing a ceremony and reception venue?