Weddingbee Blog

There’s no way that I can talk about EVERY venue we visited because let’s face it… we would never get to any of the details of our wedding, and I’d bore you to tears.

But I can provide the abridged version, featuring the serious contenders. It was very important to us to pick the atmosphere of our wedding before we got into many planning details, so that’s how I’m telling you guys the story!

Round One: Vineyards.

I’m not sure if you can tell yet, but Mr. Socks and I are obsessed with wine. Naturally, we looked at the local vineyards in PA/NJ/DE. Didn’t think there were vineyards out here? Oh! You were wrong!

We looked at 14 vineyards, so just a sampling of some of the larger ones in the area. Out of all 14, I was ready to sign with Hopewell Valley Vineyards.

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Sorry, this is the largest picture they have of their event room.

It was very pretty, brand new, and the wine was actually delicious (hey, I didn’t say that PA/NJ wine was always GREAT). Unfortunately, they were a little too new and didn’t really know how to handle some of my questions. The event coordinator seemed constantly frazzled, wouldn’t get back to me, and it just didn’t work. I knew I didn’t want to spend a year planning a wedding with someone that flaky.

Round Two: Gardens, Arboretums, Inns and Mansions

When I was in college, I worked for a very popular catering company in the Philadelphia area. Philly brides probably know exactly who I’m talking about—they dominate nearly every venue in the area. So I knew pretty quickly which ones I wanted to check out for my own wedding, but they had added a new venue to their list: The Lakehouse Inn.

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Oh. My. Gahhhhh. I still drool every time I see these pictures. I think I spent about 3 weeks with a calculator gripped in my hand as I tried to find a way to make it work with our budget. Saturday weddings were something like 26 grand—and that’s not including food!!

Well. I knew I had to move on, but… holy moly. I mean… a lake, a beautiful inn, an INDOOR WATERFALL, a fire pit with marshmallows after everyone else leaves? It should be a crime to want something so badly.

Alas, it was not meant to be. (But if you’re getting married here, you MUST invite me—as long as you don’t mind me drooling all over your wedding.)

Round Three: Restaurants

Here’s where our search for a venue turned expensive: not only did we visit a lot of the upscale restaurants on our list, we ate there as well. It was a fantastic way to get to know the Philly/NJ restaurant scene, but it was also a fantastic way to lighten our wallets.

As much as I wanted the Lake House Inn, I found something else…something wonderful…something that I wanted even more.

R2L.

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The coolness factor spiked off the charts for us. R2L is the highest restaurant open to the public in Philly. It’s on the 37th floor of 2 Liberty place, the view is spectacular, the food is to die for, and the atmosphere makes you feel like you’re a VIP. We went to the management about hosting our wedding here on the 2ND DAY after they had opened. Mr. Socks and I were going to get married HERE. I knew it. We had to. There was just no other place that we could marry at that point in our minds.

Of course, things didn’t turn out that way, but stay tuned to hear why…

Did you have a difficult time finding a venue or was it a cakewalk for you?