Before we get into the post...I know, I
know. What's with the long hiatus?! Isn't your two year journey over by now?!
Let's just say that life happened and
distracted me from blogging.
And yes, my two year journey to sanity
DID end already and I'm already approaching my 1 year wedding anniversary
soon...but I think it's still worthwhile to document what I recall from the
whole wedding planning process!
Now, back to the topic at hand....
The venue I ultimately settled on was
Greentree Country Club.
Making the decision was a tough one and
involved multiple spreadsheets laying out the pro’s and con’s as well as the
cost differentials. Ultimately, I felt more comfortable with Greentree since
their costs were much more transparent than the other venues I visited.
The
Venue
Greentree Country Club is located in New
Rochelle, NY, right off of the Long Island Sound. There are about 3-4 other
potential wedding venues along the same road and for good reason -- the area
there is beautiful!
There is an outdoor area right by the
beach for outdoor ceremonies and 2 indoor reception halls. For cocktail hour,
the location can vary based on which reception hall you get. If you book the
larger hall (which requires a 250 pp minimum, you can have an outdoor cocktail
hour right behind the ceremony space (very beautiful!) and if you book the
smaller hall, then you can have the cocktail hour in the space that's right
outside of the reception hall but overlooks the ceremony
space/pools/beach.
I booked the
smaller hall since I wanted to keep my wedding relatively small. My wedding
venue coordinator/planner was Harrison, who was great to work with. However,
midway through, Harrison left Greentree for another job and I ended up getting
someone named Anthony, who honestly, wasn't as great as Harrison in terms of
responsiveness. Nonetheless, the whole coordination with the venue went pretty
smoothly.
Here are some pictures I took during my first visit:
The Process
After deciding on the venue, we emailed
the venue right away to secure our date as well as to schedule another in
person meeting to discuss logistics and next steps. During the process of
discussing the contract, Harrison even threw in a couple hours extra for our
reception and also threw in three chocolate fountains for our dessert buffet. I
have to say, the chocolate fountains and the dessert spread was fantastic. It
was beyond what I expected and just looked so heavenly!
The one thing with Greentree that DID
irk me was the fact that they didn’t do any tastings. If you wanted to sample
what they had to offer, you had to attend their wedding expo. In addition to
that, at the wedding expo, Greentree only provided us with samples of their premium
selection (i.e., they only let us try the stuff we would have to pay extra
for). As such, I was a little worried about the quality of food that my guests
would be offered because the premium food samples they provided was pretty
mediocre at best. However, the one upside to attending the venue was sampling
all the different cake variations they had. This made it easy for us to
pinpoint which combination of flavors we wanted for our cake! And of course,
rest assured – when the day of the wedding came, the food ended up being
fantastic! Either that or I was just REALLY hungry.
Decorations
I’ll have separate posts later on for
how I decided to decorate the venue and also a few wedding DIY’s for all your
DIY enthusiasts out there! Some thoughts I wanted to share in this post with
regards to decorations are:
- Don’t overthink it. Venues are generally very beautiful already because it’s what they’re selling. You really don’t need to overdo it when it comes to decorations or it might end up being way too much. I would focus on just center pieces and just small details for the ceremony and guestbook/sign in table. Aside from that, you really don’t need to think about things for background/walls, etc.
- Pictures, pictures, pictures! Remember to take pictures of the venue when you visit – they serve as great reference points on what canvas you’ll have to work with!
- Check out their website for ideas on how other couples have decorated in the past – this is a great way to draw inspiration and see what works and what might have not worked quite as well (but let’s be real, if it didn’t work out well, it probably wouldn’t be on the website!).
Have a great week!
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