Greater Seattle orientation

We've had some people asking whether they should stay in Seattle or elsewhere in the greater Seattle area when they come for the wedding. We would strongly recommend Seattle itself (either downtown or Belltown), for two main reasons:

1. The reception venue is in Belltown and very close to downtown; we live in the same area, and we're likely to have the ceremony itself close by too.
2. Personal bias: we think downtown Seattle is much more interesting than the rest of the metropolitan area; so much so that we chose to live near it even though it gives Melinda a fairly long commute to work.

The main thing is that if you stay on the west side (looking back at that map, the ribbon lake in the middle is Lake Washington, and eastside and westside are relative to that) you'll have a much easier time getting to everything. The two bridges across the lake create a significant traffic bottleneck, whereas once you're on the west side most things you might want to go to can be walked between.