Weddingbee Blog

Let me just start out by saying that I love, love, love our venue. Almost as much as I love Mr. CS. It is perfect in absolutely every way. Some brides dream of their dress or their flowers; I dream about our venue.

Our wedding venue is Congress Hall Hotel. Warning: going to their website will inevitably cause venue envy. I have mentioned before that the CS family used to spend our summers down in Cape May. Prior to investing in a house, we used to stay at the Congress Hall Hotel. This was way before the renovation, and rooms could be rented for $500 a month. For about four years during my childhood, I spent my summer at my wedding venue. Congress Hall is not only gorgeous, but it seemed like it had just the right notes of sentimentality, too.

Even though having the wedding at Congress Hall was a no-brainer for me, Mr. CS needed a little convincing. He wanted to take a little spin around Cape May to see what else was out there just to be sure. After making appointments with all the possible venues in Cape May that fell in our size and budget limitis, we had five places to visit! I said, “Only five?!” Mr. CS said, “We have to go to five places?!?” Clearly I was way more excited about the venue search than he was.

We started our venture with a lovely ride on the Lewes/Cape May Ferry with the pickle puppy. Cape May is a two-hour car ride with a two-hour ride on the ferry from our hometown of DC.

Gratuitous puppy photos!

After the lovely ferry ride, our first appointment was with the Grand Hotel. The hotel was nice, but there was really nothing special about it. We were a little early to our appointment, so we wandered around the lobby for a minute. We found the “cocktail hour” space, which was right next to the indoor pool. I am sure you can imagine how that smelled. They pretty much lost us after that, but the real kicker was the menu. Our options for starters were soup or salad. They didn’t try to make them sound fancy or anything. Appointment over.

Grand Hotel (Image via Cape May Times)

Grand Ballroom (Image via Cape May Times)

The next hour brought us to the Chalfonte Hotel. This hotel was really beautiful with a great wraparound porch where I can picture our guests lounging during cocktail hour.

The Chalfonte (Image via The Chalfonte / Artwork by Marie Natale)

Image via The Chalfonte

The price was good, and it definitely had that Cape May/beach feeling we were after. The Chalfonte didn’t have a lot of parking, and the bathrooms were not handicapped accessible. (They might have been the original bathrooms from when it was built…not good.) The ballroom was a very interesting oblong shape, which was unique but left little space for the dance floor. Finally, the outdoor space for the ceremony was minimal since most people get married on the beach. So our options for the ceremony were the beach or the beach. I don’t like those odds.

Ballroom at the Chalfonte (Image via Down the Shore with Jen)

Mr. CS was starting to get frustrated and we broke for lunch. I couldn’t believe he was ready to throw in the towel after only two venues, but I guess that is what I get when I try to “overwhelm” my groom with options.

Coming up…more venue visits and convincing Mr. CS that Congress Hall was the one.

Did your fiance get “overwhelmed” at the beginning of the wedding process? Did you laugh at him and try to tell him how much further you had to go?