Successful weekend!

We had a very successful weekend looking at venues! On Saturday we started off by visiting The Swan Club. This place was beyond beautiful and it was everything I hoped it would be and more. It's like a beautiful Rose Garden with a lake, and had a very intimate setting for a cocktail hour/wedding. I loved the person we dealt with. He was an honest, sweet man who clearly had a passion and love for what he did. I couldn't have been happier with the place. Unfortunately, it was a little small for our size party. Even if we cut down our guest list down to the room's capacity...it would just be too crowded. It was a shame, we were all sad that it wouldn't work out because we all loved it. Plus, the price was amaaazingly lower than any other place we've seen. Oh well, maybe we'll have our 30th wedding anniversary there!
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Next we went to the North Ritz Club. I have to admit...I felt a little weird going there because the Yale student who was murdered was supposed to have her wedding there just last weekend. The place was really nice and they definitely had the best ballroom by far that we've visited. It was huge! The bar was gorgeous, a long wooden bar stretching across one side of the room. Only one wedding goes on there at a time and as a result, it was a bit pricey for everything. The woman we dealt with was nice (though she was ALL business and NO play) But, none of us left really feeling that was it. It really is true that you just know, and we just knew that wasn't it. However, the real clincher it wasn't "the one" was that their Saturday night cocktail hour STARTS at 7:30 and then the recpetion goes until 1am!! That was just too late, half our party would leave before it's over. Everywhere else we've been the cocktail hours start at 6/6:30 So, we will not be having our wedding at the North Ritz Club. We were hungry at that point so had a lovely lunch at Patsy's. Chris' parents really wanted us to see Marina del Rey in the Bronx because that's where they got married almost 30 years ago. I called the place in the car to see if we could schedule a last minute appointment and they could take us at 2! Boy, am I glad we went! I'm going to be completely honest here: I didn't think I would like this place. The website was "eh", I haven't heard a whole lot about it except from what I heard from his parents and well, it's in the BRONX. Or should I say "'Da Bronx". However, IT.WAS.NICE. They are located right along the water and have a beautiful view of the Whitestone and Throg's neck bridge. The place inside is gorgeous especially the ballroom (which unfortunately was set up with a make-shift wall when we were there so we couldn't really see it) They have a hospitality center for anyone who arrives early to our wedding. We'd have use of the outside patio for our whole reception and (weather permitting) could have our Venetian hour out there! the only thing I could possibly complain about was the space for cocktail hour. It was just a room, nothing special about it..but that gets made up for with the reception space. Needless to say, Chris and I were very impressed and this has undoubtedly moved up to the top of our list.
We have 4 places scheduled for this weekend: Garden City Hotel, Russo's on the Bay, Woodlands and Sandcastle. That will be the last of the main ones I wanted to see. I still have a list of 5 additional places I'm curious to visit however, I think Chris is eager for me to cut this list down so I'm going to have to start doing some eliminating.

Last Wednesday we went to an open house at Jericho Terrace. At the time, that was our favorite place but it is now in second place. It was extremely fancy and at first I was smitten with that. But, after thinking about it more...I was worried it was just "too much". Too much food, too much selection. It was all very overdone. However, they were willing to throw in a TON of extra stuff (martini bar, ice luge, espresso and coffee bar, venetian hour, etc.) which were pretty sweet deals. I don't have an eye for any of this, but Chris' parents also felt the main ballroom was too small and that we'd be crowded and I certainly trust their judgment on that. The linens and seat covers were also very white...it was just white everywhere. We're seeing The Inn at New Hyde Park tomorrow after work and I've heard that it's unbelievably gorgeous. I hope I don't get torn between two or even three places. I hope that we just know where it needs to be...but only time will tell! We've successfully knocked through 11 venues in the past 3 weeks! PHEW!