So you wanna get married during Track Season?

I talk a lot about track season in my blogs, and I realized that some of you may not know what exactly that is, so I'm going to try to show you.

ahhhh the track, located in Saratoga Springs New York, the bane of my existence...

Track season begins during the last week of July and goes through the first week in September.

When you decide to go to the track, you make a day out of it and plan on spending lots o' money. The track is cool though because you are allowed to bring in your own coolers and chairs and pretty much anything you want as long as it's not glass. Bringing your own cooler with drinks and food will save you a lot of money.

This is an outside view of the track, the front before we go inside. It's so pretty. Once you enter, madness ensues, but out here it's peaceful.

Once inside, you buy a program that includes all of the races for the day.

You decide on which horse you're going to put your money on, and you head up to the window to place your bet.
There is always a huge line, but you suffer through it, place your bet, and then go patiently wait for the race to start.

This is the seating out front. The benches are free seating (you will get so sunburned sitting out here in the hot sun all day) and the building behind that is the "clubhouse" seating. You have to pay to sit in there. There is also seating indoors with TV's set up all over-- however you do not get the same feeling as sitting out front watching it unfold in person. There is seattin out back with large TV's set up all over the place. It's more shaded in the back. You need to get to the track early to get a good seat out back and set up your own chairs to save your spot. Be prepared to be crowded and for people to pretty much sit ontop of you out there.


This picture captures the essence of the busyness of the track. Anywhere you go it usually looks like this:

As soon as the race starts you're standing on the benches screaming for your horse to win and it looks something like this



What does this have to do with weddings? Well, nothing normally, but it does effect my wedding since my wedding falls in the middle of track season. Track season brings in hoards of out of towners and is really great for Saratoga. It brings in a lot of revenue for the year. People come and rent out hotel rooms for months. Prices go up on everything, and for those two months it is torturous to drive anywhere in Saratoga. People who come back every year secure their hotel for the necxt year when they leave.

My biggest concern was securing a hotel block for my out of town guests. My family is basically all located here, but The mans is all coming from out of town, out of state, and will need somewhere to stay.

Despite my first decision to not make "Save the Dates," I quickly changed my mind after trying to unsuccessfully secure hotels for my guests.

Stay tunned for the Save the Date project....