Weddingbee Blog

Since we spent such a long time looking at venues, and since I spent WAY too much time lamenting over some of the ones that didn’t work (R2L? The Lake House Inn? Hopewell Valley Vineyards?) I thought I’d go over all of the reasons why we LOVE the venue we ended up choosing:

1. It’s in the city, which means our guests don’t have to rent a car from the airport to get where they’re going! We know it’s a trek for everyone, so it was important to try to save them money anywhere we could.
2. We had very specific visions, including a custom wine menu and a custom gourmet food menu. Ladder 15 has been very accommodating of our preferences, so we’re getting EVERYTHING we want for the same price as other places we looked at, which is invaluable!
3. Jen, the event coordinator, answers all of our questions in a timely, thorough manner. We met with the chef and the GM as well, and everyone was on the same page in regards to what we want and how it’ll happen.
4. The place is just cool. It has two fireplaces, windows that open up, a DJ booth already in place, a mix of brick, stone, wood and leather… it’s beautiful and modern with an urban feel to it.
5. The food is DELICIOUS! David Ansill is the new chef at Ladder 15 and not only can he give us what we want in terms of the food they offer, but it’s all absolutely mouthwatering! The Korean Tacos, the truffle fries, even the wings were all delicious, and he has a lot of experience with upscale fare as well, so it’ll be a fantastic mix.
6. Three floors=space for a ceremony & cocktail hour and a space for dinner and dancing. The evening will flow nicely with this setup!
7. I mentioned that they have a DJ booth, but I didn’t mention that they have an on-staff DJ! Their DJ will be available for us to use at a much lower rate than it would cost to get an outside DJ.
8. It’s smack dab in the middle of the city––many hotels and fantastic photo op spots are nearby!
9. Now, I’m not as big of a beer person as I am a wine person, but I do love a good flight of craft beers, and they do that well. It kind of fits with our specialty wine/specialty menu theme here: we want to ingest the best of the best!
10. They’re shutting down the restaurant for the whole day. This is good because it’ll give us time to set up, and if we want to take any pictures in the restaurant before our guests arrive. Jen also said we could get ready there if we’d like.
11. They “get” us. They know that we want to have fun. They know we want to throw a good party and we don’t want it to be too stiff, but they also know that professionalism is in order and planning is key!
12. After party, anyone? IF we find that we need to move the party somewhere else after we shut the place down, we’re right near a multitude of good party options: Nodding Head Brewery, Marathon Grill, The Happy Rooster, not to mention a million pizza and cheese steak joints!
13. Ladder 15 is a perfect place to let our guests get a little more familiar with Philly. Many of my family members have not spent any time here, so giving them an up-close and personal view of what makes the city so great is a major plus.
14. They want our business. It seems simple and obvious, but trust me, it wasn’t as simple to find this as I thought it would be.
15. It just feels right. I’m excited, I’m psyched, Mr. S is excited… it was a long road to get here, but this place feels right and we know we’ll have a great time here.

And now, I leave you with some eye-candy:

This is the upstairs bar––the TVs might just have the Eagles game on since they’re playing the night of our wedding! Maybe even the Phillies will be in the playoffs…

Oh, and I’m sure we’ll have a slideshow of our faces going on, too!

Wider shot of the upstairs bar––cocktail hour will be in this space.

We’ll probably do our ceremony in front of the fireplace. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but we’ll make it work!

This is the 2nd floor…at the end of the hall are bathrooms and the DJ booth.

Perfect place to dance, huh? I can just picture the cool above-shots now! (Those tables won’t be there, BTW.)

Here is the downstairs bar–more Eagles, Phillies and pictures of us?

We’ll be using a mixture of these booths and rented tables for dinner.

Getting cozy by the fireplace? Yes please!

Korean Tacos? Nom Nom Nom!!

All images from Ladder 15’s website

So excited!

Did you choose an nontraditional spot for your wedding?