Weddingbee Blog

After looking at a number of reception venues, Mr. Pony and I decided that the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts fit our wedding dreams perfectly. But, perhaps you would like to get to know it a little better with some pictures and history?

This place has everything we want in a reception venue—character, beauty, and a great location.

{Pony photo}

According to its website, what is now the BCPA was built in 1921 and boasted the largest stage west of New York at the time. For six decades the BCPA served as “the centerpiece of Bloomington-Normal’s artistic and social life.” In the late ’90s, the center started to show its age and clearly needed to be updated. In 2000, the city started a project to restore the BCPA back to its original grandeur. Now, the BCPA is the anchor of Bloomington’s downtown cultural district and offers performing and visual-arts education programs. And it will also host the Pony wedding reception!

In addition to the wonderful stage, the BCPA has a magnificent ballroom where weddings and special events have taken place for decades. Even though the ballroom is huge and kind of plain, we are hoping to turn it into an intimate, warm space for our reception. I’ll show the hive soon what our plans are for turning this vanilla space into a colorful, fun, and elegant reception space.

The ballroom—please disregard the ugly chairs and piano cover (personal photo)

The doors leading to the ballroom (personal photo)

Photo credit: City of Bloomington

Here’s the place spruced up for other weddings:

Image and event design by I Do Events

Image by Mark Romine / Event design and florals by Simple Elegance

In all honesty, I was worried about finding a venue in my little hometown that lives up to those seen on wedding websites, but I was pleasantly surprised to find something that struck the perfect balance of elegance, beauty, and fun so close to home (and at a great price). The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts is, as cheesy as it sounds, everything we wanted for our reception venue. And, due to its great downtown location, I get to drive by it every day on my way home from work and dream about all the good things that will happen there on the Pony wedding day!

Do you love your reception venue to pieces?