The Women s Club is housed in an early 20th Century Craftsman home, with all the simplicity and elegance that entails. Lovely wooden floors, Arts Crafts-style lighting fixtures etc. That appeals to me aesthetically very much.
The down side is that the description I read led me to believe there were two rooms, each of which could hold ~150 (i.e. one for the ceremony and a second one for that many.
So basically, there is a logistical issue with trying to handle their max. capacity, and shift between a seated ceremony set-up to a reception set-up. It can be done, but it might be tight.
The S.O. guest list, while I am not entirely opposed to the idea, more from a Pro:
-Convenient mid-Peninsual location.
-No Parking lot, but lots of nearby street parking and two close-by city parking garages.
-Simple, but attractive surroundings.
-There is a stage and grand piano, in case we really go for the recption-concert idea.
-They provide furniture and a good kitchen facility, but we can bring in everything else we want.
Cons:
-Issue: How crowded will it be to set-up for the ceremony, with the reception tables shoved toward the back of the room, hidden by screens? How l,ong will it take to shift?
Where do people go while that shift is happening?
-Lowest cost so far, and most accessible (unlike the museums, which only become available after closing time.)
-Bringing in your own caterer is preferable.
Having to bring in even a sound system? More of a pain, than a benefit.
So, we have three more venues to check out, all in downtown SJ.
My goal is to pick the venue, and therefore the date, by the end of Site #1: The Triton Museum in Santa Clara, CA
This site visit started with a small snafu, because a woman from the catering company they use basically told me to just show up and look around, and that there is always someone there to talk to. Well, the guy at the desk wasn t so pleased with those instructions, telling me that it was really someone form the catering company I should be talking to and meeting with. Luckily this guy was a fount of knowledge about how weddings are set up and done, and since the space is fairly contained, he was able to show us the three rooms that would be used without ever leaving site of his front desk.
There a large airy open foyer with floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall, looking out into a garden. This foyer would be used for the ceremony, and then while we were at dinner it would be set up as a dance/concert area. There are two galleries that they would use, one to set-up the buffet and one for the sit-down dinner, if applicable.
Pro:
-Very convenient to home.
-Big parking lot.
-Art on the walls eliminates need for lots of fancy decor or over-use of expensive floral budget.
-The Foyer space is very modern, open and airy.
-Perfect capacity capabilities.
Cons:
-Required use of particular caterer (yeah, the one who gave me the bum instructions to show up.
)
-The art collection itself didn t seem extensive or fascinating, but one of the galleries was under construction for a new exhibit.
-Issue: After the ceremony if we have a brief cocktail hour before dinner, where do the people go? They need to clear the foyer to create the cocktail/dancing area.
If we take even 30 minutes to do some photos, where do we send people so catering staff isn t knocking into them with chairs and tables?
-The Museum is open every day until 4Pm, so no access before then.
-No piano on site.
Who even knew this museum was here, in the heart of downtown redwood City!? It s actually a really cute museum with exhibits about the peninsula and its growth and history.
The building itself was the County Courthouse and features a fantastic dome...
impressive from the inside and outside.
The ceremony would take place in this rotunda beneath the dome, pictured at left. And then dinner would be upstairs in Courtroom A , which is an actual restored courtroom.
There are beautiful wood posts and boxes, separating the galley from the litigating space, and they would leave the judge s bench and the jury box as is...
which is kind of fun.
There is the same issue as with the triton..
.where do people go while the downstairs rotunda space is being cleared from the ceremony and set up for cocktails and dancing? But at this museum it seems like it would be much easier and more interesting for folks to disperse and check out the more varied exhibits and galleries.
-Not as convenient to home.
-Terrible downtown parking situation. I fear we d have to go with valet parking, which would be pricy.
-Like the Triton, a lot to see, so little need for additional decor. And more exhibits.
-Can use a caterer from their list or BYO.
-They can also set tables up around the rotunda upstairs, so folks who feel like watching the dancing from a bit more distance, can.
-Perfect capacity capabilities. -It s a more old fashioned space.
..and lots of steps.
(Yes they have disabled access, but still, most people won t bother.)
-The surrounding area of downtown Redwood City is not very charming..
.especially since it s been under construction for what seems like years. Of course, they say it should be done by next fall, but who knows?
-The caterer would not only be responsible for all food and beverage, but for set-up and tear down before during and after. The facility does not provide that.
-Issue: same as the Triton: After the ceremony if we have a brief cocktail hour before dinner, where do the people go?
They need to clear the foyer to create the cocktail/dancing area. If we take even 30 minutes to do some photos, where do we send people so catering staff isn t knocking into them with chairs and tables? In this case it seems more likely dispersing folks to check out the museum would work.
-The Museum is open every day until 4PM, so no access before then.
-No piano on site.
You ll note that I haven t mentioned cost.
I don t have enough information yet to understand the costs...
especially since I haven t talked to either facility s either required or recommended caterers.
Next stop: 4 locations in downtown San Jose.
And that s going to be it.
I d like to secure a venue before the end of January, that s for sure.
out to get as much money out of you as they possibly can..
.as the authors point out they can t rely on repeat customers, they get you one time only!.
..I have calmed down a bit since my last post.
watch out for and what questions to ask. More than that, it helped me in. Clearly I don t want a videographer, given how quickly I decided to skim over that section of the book, for instance.
And I can definitely say that traditional head wear of any kind...
veil, tiaras, other hair crap...
hold zero appeal for me. I was also glad to hear that wedding favors are far from required..
.i ve never quite seen the point of them.
I hope, once I ve stopped hyperventilating, that this book delivers a lot of value to the actual planning process.
marketing/customer outreach (since that is, after all, part of .) I got an IM from none other than one of the authors. Just reaching out to say, basically: hi, sorry we freaked you out, don t get discouraged, you can do it, and thank you for writing about our book, even if in a freaked out way.
So, frankly, I didn t realize Vox had been around long enough to be so easily indexed in Google. In fact i don t see my post in the first few pages of a Google search on the book title, but it comes up number one on a technorati search, so they must be doing some smart tracking of mentions of their book.
Sure, this was good smart outreach to a blogger.
Sure, I m sure they hope for a post just like this one, mentioning the book again and their outreach. Doesn t matter if that s their goal..
.it was still a really smart thing to do, and I appreciate it, both as a marketer, and as a You know how I was thinking of adding in my mundane wedding planning experiences to my mundane vegan food journal to make this Vox blog my one true self-indulgent and totally-uninteresting-to-anyone-but-my-closest-friends- and-family (and not-even-really-to-them-but-they d-be-far-too -polite-to-let-me-know)?
Yeah, well, the reason that hasn t happened is because I ve pretty much done zilch on that front.
Oh, OK, I plunked down $25 to buy Here Comes the Guide, the bible for Northern California wedding locations. And I did go through it and dog-ear about a dozen potential sites.
You may well ask why I bought the book rather than visiting ?
Well, I find their site s search UI clunky and annoying. I d rather flip through the descriptions on paper. I guess I m a Luddite :)
Anyway, I guess my next step is to get the S.
O. to check out the dog-eared pages, make any vetoes he wants to, check out the remaining sites and narrow it down to only a few to drag him to. BUt if we re really targeting September 07 there are those who would tell me I am already very much behind in this venue-selection process.
And no, I haven t started thinking about budget either. But I know I don t want to spend $25K, which is apparently the average cost of a wedding in Santa Clara County. Can that be true?
??!
!!
Oh, we did accomplish two other things.
I got my ring. Which rocks my world. Oh, I am so shallowed and so seduced by the shiny.
I also asked my sister to stand up for me, but that was kind of a given, a no-brainer, a duh moment.
But I really must plan at least one productive thing around this in December, or I will genuinely start freaking myself out. Where should I start?
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