Finding a Reception Venue = Determining Wedding Style

I'm one of those people whose personal style is generally safe, although I prefer the term "classic" (I truly live in black sweaters, shirts, and blouses). However, I envy those who are able to put together colors and patterns that are seemingly un-matching to create an ensemble that is beautiful. In addition, the styles that I envy are extremely wide in range -- from kitschy homemade items to modern and simplistic clean lines. Therefore, when I began my wedding venue search, I knew that the style of the venue would determine the style of my wedding, which would also determine the types of DIY projects I would take on.

Of course, before beginning a wedding venue hunt, we had to put together a tentative guest list. Let me start by saying that neither my fiance nor I live close to our families. Out of our probable attendees, only about 20 live where we do. We are a solid 8 hours driving time from most of my large family and anwhere between 2 and 8 hours away from Jeff's (also very large) family. However, we are pretty sure that we will still have well over 250 guests in attendance. This venue needed to be large enough to house that many people.

Venue Choice #1 and Why We Loved It: A rustic renovated barn and farmhouse. Jeff and I both fell in love with the charming dance floor of the renovated barn, the fact that the farmhouse could sleep 10 of our close friends or family, and that we envisioned the decorating to be incredibly inexpensive. I was inspired by this mason jar centerpiece I found on The Knot and felt that everything would be so casual that we wouldn't need to spend much money at all.

Venue Choice #1 and Why We Decided Against It: After meeting with the coordinator, the $6000 price tag didn't offer us anything BUT the use of the facilities. We had to hire our own caterer and bartender service, plus we needed to do all of our own setting up and tearing down, including cleaning the farmhouse and the barns by 12 noon the morning after the wedding. NOT my idea of a stress-free wedding. Our music had to be contained within the building (doors and windows closed) after 10pm. We also weren't sold on the fact that the barn would house 250 people comfortably. And last but not least, the venue was 20 miles from the nearest hotel. This creates a problem because we know our reception will be a PARTY for our families and we were having a hard time deciding how to handle this (hire a bus to shuttle people? hire a group of people to be DD's for the night?) and it became a stressful thought.

Venue Choice #2 and Why We Loved It: After touring many different hotel locations, I found a Hilton that I originally thought was out of my price range. But I loved its style. Their lobby and pre-function area is made up of plush white couches with black and white accents. I loved that it was so neutral, which was a breath of fresh air from the other hotels that I had toured with ridiculous orange and red carpeting or bright green chairs.  

Venue Choice #2 and How It Became OURS: We did a lot of calculations and comparisons of the things included in packages, and we discovered that the Hilton was actually our best choice. In comparison with our rustic barn option, it was a $6000 price tag that included a TON of stuff. They had a wide variety of dinner choices and offered a free projector set-up and dance floor, along with servers and cake cutting. It amazed me that so many hotels offered those things for additional fees. The most important thing was that our guests would be able to stay at the hotel and drift up to their rooms with tired feet from dancing.

So I went from having a home-made and rustic feeling wedding to a classic wedding reception with one swift decision.

There you have it.

Theme: Classy/Classic
Colors: Black and white with accents of silver