Wedding Blog
1. Neither Mr. Pineapple nor myself belong to a church.
2. Most of our guests would be traveling from out of town and out of state.
3. We love to eat.
These were the drivers for our venue selection. We wanted to find a location where we could have both the ceremony and the reception. We also wanted to find something fairly quickly so we could get a Saturday in October. In all honesty, the location was not that important to me. It had to suit the three items above and it had to affordable. I did most of my searching online and we ended up only visiting two places in real life.
This first place we visited was absolutely gorgeous, Springwood. (Their website is awful, you have been warned…)
Pros:
• ceremony and reception in one location
• on-site catering
• on-site sound system
• beautiful, especially when we visited in the fall
• both inside and outside spaces to entertain
• not too big and not too small
Cons:
• the ceremony would have to be outside and I am afraid of the weather
• rain site was an outdoor tent - still scary and moist
• it was located about 45 minutes out of the city
• there were no Saturdays available for all of 2008
and the one that broke the camel’s back
• expense, it would have been almost twice what we wanted to spend
The second and final place we looked at was in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh, The Rivers Club.
Pros:
• Indoor ceremony and reception
• Close to our home
• on-site executive chef
• per guest cost includes food, open bar, cake, linens, china, dance floor, sound system and 5 candles per table
• no restrictions on decor
• no minimums
• no time restrictions, we have access to the entire club, including gym, all day
• within our budget
• on-site event planner
Cons:
• the curtains in photo 2 
So, the winner is… The Rivers Club! There are 3 spaces - the dining room (photo 2), the bar/lounge (photos 3 and 4) and the ballroom (photo 5). We are going to hold the ceremony in the ballroom and the reception in the dining room. There is also a large space downstairs where we can get ready (or run on a treadmill if we want).
The decor is a bit fancy 1990s, but it will do. Mr. Pineapple took me to the club for dinner on Valentine’s day and the food was amazing. I cannot wait to do our menu tasting in a couple weeks!
So, we chose our location after just two site visits. Yay for the internet!
Is anyone else planning a ceremony and reception in the same location?
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Share this post: The Venue - Short and Sweet
Our wedding and reception are at a winery….both will be in the lawn/patio area, with the vineyards right next to us.
Yup, we’re doing the ceremony and reception at the same place. The venue has lots of experience setting up the ceremony and then converting the space for the reception. I wanted a pretty casual wedding and it was the views of the lake that won us over (they have a photo gallery)…the best part is they have a dock area so we can do a boat getaway!
Definitely! Neither my sweetie nor I are particularly religious, so no need for a church ceremony. In a decision that was one part budgetary and two parts stress reduction, we decided to go with a garden location. The ceremony will be at the gazebo, with the reception just across the way in an indoor/outdoor space (reception can be moved entirely inside in case of weather).
We are doing our ceremony and reception at the same location too. Easy! I have eaten at the River’s Club numerous occasions. LAst time was for my Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. It was lovely!
I just had to say, Miss P you and I are on the same wavelength…. when I saw the picture for #2 (your choice) I thought well the con I can see is those drapes, but seriously after you decorate for your reception no-one will notice them
Yes! We will have the ceremony in one room and then move next door for the reception. Plus, it’s a small inn so our closest friends and family will be sleeping there, too.
Yes! We’re having our whole shindig at a school/art gallery in DC. Ceremony in gallery downstairs; dinner/dancing on the rooftop and in the beautiful, window-filled, hardwood-floored open space upstairs.
I’m doing ceremony and reception at the same venue too. My pro-con list for the venue looked a lot like yours, except instead of curtains it’s an ugly carpet. Oh well, not everything can be perfect
Yay for a downtown wedding! Its so easy for guests…taxis everywhere, lots of stuff in walking distance, easy access from airport…
Of course I’m saying this and having my wedding in BFE 
hahaha. Oh well. I cant wait to see how you spruce up the place with your own style!
We’re doing both at the same venue, too. But all outside. I’m just hoping it won’t rain!
Yes! We are too! Ceremony in an outdoor location overlooking the Continental Divide in Colorado and reception in the ballroom of the estate http://www.lionscrestmanor.com.
Yep! We’ll be at a restaurant. Since the ceremony will fall between a cocktail hour and dinner, we will have reception seating for the vows. I have my fingers crossed that it will work!
We’ll be having our ceremony and reception in the same place. We have a similar setup, all things are included. Food was a big huge thing for me. We are both vegetarians and wanted to have the reception meal be entirely vegetarian. As nearly everyone I know coming to the wedding is a meat eater, the food had to be impressive - and budget friendly. It doesn’t hurt that the place turned out to be a castle set in a stand of big, old beautiful trees. Should be beautiful for our October wedding.
We’re having the reception and ceremony in the same room at a local botanical garden. The plan is to have a standard ceremony setup, so lots of chairs in rows, then the coordinators at the garden will come in after the ceremony and move all the tables out to where we want them. Right now we’re planning to do lemonade or something right outside the building during the setup change. I would love to have a part of the day be outside, but we get a lot of pop-up thunderstorms here in the summer, so I don’t want to risk it!
We’re also doing the ceremony and reception in the same place. I’m totally not in love with our ceremony space (as I keep telling people, it lacks DRAMA) as it’s essentially a large meeting room (technically it’s a small ballroom), but I’m hoping I can make it a nice, intimate space for the ceremony. Then we get to go to the cool funky ballroom for the reception. There’s also a cool bar/lounge up the stairs from the cool ballroom, where our smoking friends can smoke (we have a lot of smoking friends) yet still be part of the party atmosphere because the lounge isn’t completely closed off from the goings-on downstairs (if that makes any sense, lol)
Yep, us too. We rented out a great B&B in the local mountains for this October. Both the ceremony and reception will be outdoors and they include heaters!
Your venue looks gorgeous! We’re doing our ceremony and reception all at the hotel we’re staying at. I have so many OOT’s and people not familiar with the area and we will be serving alcohol, and I can’t stand the guilt of people driving afterward. So everything is at one place and is all inclusive. No renting of anything, I think it really does ease the stress a bit. However, I have not planned a wedding where everything isn’t at the same place. But anyway, we are scheduled for an outdoor ceremony right now, but if it rains, we have the option of being inside.. again, less stress!
We are doing both our ceremony and reception at our country club. They have a lot of experience with both, and have been fantastic about the details of setting up for the ceremony. We chose our florist in part because she works there a lot, and she will supply everything we need to turn the dance floor into the altar area - its going to be fantastic. Plus super easy for the guests (and for us) as we can just wander to the next room for cocktails after the ceremony and before dinner… Altogether I am really glad to avoid the headaches of decorating two venues and driving all over town and working with two sets of people. It was definately the best choice we made so far, and is just perfect.
We looked at Springwood Villas too. I loved the location but it was WAY overpriced. The worst part was that the crazy wedding coordinator that runs the place wouldn’t give me pricing over the phone. She insisted that I had to setup an appointment to get the prices. So I sat in traffic for 1.5 hours to get there after work to find out that this place was definitely out of my price range.
[...] of the main reasons we chose our venue, was because of the food. We had never eaten there ourselves, but we had heard wonderful things! [...]
[...] cake is included with the rest of the reception package from the Rivers Club, so that is one less vendor we have to choose. We have not yet met with the baker for a tasting and [...]
[...] Mr. Pineapple and I first chose our venue with the fancy schmancy food we were living rent-free. As part of Mr. Pineapple’s job at the time [...]
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Mrs. Pineapple, Pittsburgh
Age and Occupation: 24, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Student Affairs Administration
Engagement Date: August 4, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: April 14, 2008
Venue: The Rivers Club
About Me: Being a transplant from sunny south Florida I am learning to live with all four seasons while playing with our cat collective, line dancing, and doing a ton of DIY projects for our wedding (seriously, like a thousand)!
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