Weddingbee Blog

One of the first things that we took care of was finding a venue, since we couldn’t really set a date and get the ball rolling until we did that. Initially, I kept saying that I didn’t really care that much about the venue and that I just wanted something affordable. We even looked into having a tented reception in our best man’s backyard (he offered). But - as we started looking at places, the more we realized that we DID care and that we are actually very picky people. Who knew? 

There were certain things that we decided we wanted early on. We wanted someplace “scenic” that didn’t look like a mall, as Mr. Radish put it, something preferably near the water (Syracuse has several lakes and rivers), and someplace that could incorporate a vegetarian/vegan menu (I’m a vegetarian and Mr. Radish is vegan). It was, however, rather difficult to find a venue that fit these criteria that was also within our price range. We really didn’t want to spend more than $45 per person including open bar. Luckily, in Upstate New York this is possible but we still had to do some digging.

While on a trip home last summer I went with my Mom to look at some of the more popular venues in the area first. Mr. Radish wasn’t able to come with me but I took many, many pictures for him to evaluate later. We looked at all the hotel ballrooms, country clubs, banquet halls, etc., all of the more “common” places that advertise heavily in the local wedding planning magazines and websites. We came across some nice enough venues that would’ve been great for some brides, but nothing that really got me excited and Mr. Radish didn’t seem to like any of those places at all.

I came back to Chicago feeling discouraged and started to do some serious internet research to find more options. I came up with a list of about 10 more venues that seemed to be worth checking out. I scheduled all of the necessary appointments and then me and Mr. Radish planned another visit home last August with the goal of choosing a venue… and we did - The Wellington House in Fayetteville, NY!! It is a beautiful old Tudor-style mansion that is on the registry of historic places. The entire house and grounds are at our disposal during the reception and there are beautiful gardens in the back next to a pond (so there’s our water). It’s full of antiques, stained glass windows, and beautiful woodwork. There is just something about it that is very “us.” Also, and I know this is kind of a silly thing to care about, but it has very nice wicker-backed wood chairs. I HATE those metal/vinyl banquet hall chairs. So now I don’t need to worry at all about chair covers. Yay!

Here are some pictures:

Above photo by Douglas Lloyd (from Knottie EEC1979)

I stumbled upon the Wellington House by seeing it mentioned on a local disc jockey’s website on the list of places that he had played. I hadn’t seen a single advertisement for it and no one in the area who I talked to mentioned it as a place to consider. I found the website and I was immediately intrigued. It seemed to have everything we were looking for and it appeared to be in our price range. I figured there had to be a lot of hidden fees or something…but nope, it really is within our price range. Mr. Radish was immediately impressed because it can customize a menu for us and they have a great chef who can do very gourmet-style vegetarian food (no pasta primavera!).

The only problem with the place, and this is probably the reason they don’t advertise to brides very much, is that the main dining room can only seat about 80 people and there is no room for a head table. I’m fine with doing a sweetheart table, but I know that we are going to have more than 80 people attending. There is an adjoining room that can seat up to 25 more people and there is a tent off of that room that can seat about 100. So, altogether we can fit at least 200 guests in there, but they won’t be able to sit in the same room. My mother hated this idea, but we decided to just work around it because we liked everything else about the Wellington House so much. Life is all about compromises, right? We still have the option of renting a large tent and putting it up on the lawn if we end up having more than 200 people RSVP. That would cost us about $3,000 more, but I don’t think it’s likely that more than 200 people will come so we should be okay.

So what do you think - is it horrible to have to seat people in different rooms during the meal? Did you have to make any compromises when it came to your venue?