Weddingbee Blog

If you remember bees, I was feeling rather consigned to holding our reception in a random church hall. In this moment, my amazing mother sent some of her inspirational emails that had—ta-da!–reception venue ideas!

Do you remember the fish fry room Mama Funnel Cake proposed? After she contacted them she learned it would be a shoo-in if we wanted to hold the reception there. They even penciled us in…

(Image via Our Lady of Victory)

Price: $1000

Time: 4-5 hour block

We could pretty much choose the time of our reception at OLV, just bearing in mind some parking technicalities to accommodate the Saturday evening mass. Without the most attractive surroundings at OLV, Mama FC suggested nearby places for portraits, including one idea at the only park in Columbus that Mr. Funnel Cake and I had a fight and I cried at.

My throat tightened. This sounded final… but I read on and saw my mother was thinking outside the box I’d drawn around our reception venue. I soaked in her ideas with surprise and delight.

(Image via Ohio State Alumni)

Price: $2100

Time: 6 hour block (additional hours $150 per hour)

Size: 152 guests

The Longaberger Alumni House is a fairly new space on The Ohio State University campus (dedicated in 1999) that is home to OSU alumni activities. It’s a beautiful building with lots of character and I had sugarplum visions of skipping off for a short jaunt to the main campus for pictures at beloved campus locations…

(Photo by Curtis Wallis)

(Photo by Curtis Wallis)

(Photo by Kellogg Photography)

(Photo by DGN Photography)

…that was before Mr. Funnel Cake swore we weren’t taking any wedding photos around the OSU stadium…

(Personal Photo)

My brother, a graduate from St. Charles who married in the Mother of Mercy Chapel, and his wife had their wedding reception at the Cavello Center at St. Charles. It’s not as large, new or grand as the Walters Commons at St. Charles and thinking back on the photos I took here I didn’t believe this venue had enough light for me. Pass.

(Photo by Curtis Wallis)

I’ve attended a fair amount of St. Joseph School graduations at the Confluence, including my own in 2001. It has a nice view of the confluence (Ha!) of the Olentangy and Scioto rivers. But in general, it is fairly expensive and as I remember it, dark. We didn’t make any inquiries.

(Photo by Curtis Wallis)

Price: $5000

Time: 4-6 hours

Size: 200 guests

Mama Funnel Cake mentioned the Raymond Memorial Golf Course in passing, but she said it was expensive and I had never heard of it so we didn’t look into it. Honestly, until I googled it just now, I had no idea how close it was to my hometown!

(Photo by Kiso Fotografia)

Price: $225/hour (11pm-midnight is $350)

Time: 8:00AM-11PM,  11PM-midnight

Size: 90 guests

North Bank Pavilion would be pretty if it was a nice day, but also expensive (that word is beginning to sound redundant in this search). Apparently you can only reserve it a year in advance and there is a lottery to decide. Noooo thank you. I think we’ll go somewhere that doesn’t involve gambling to get the venue. My mother was also really concerned about paying for parking for the guests here and how messy that could get.

(Image via Cosi.org)

Size: 300 guests

I tried and failed to take Mr. Funnel Cake to COSI on his first visit to Columbus, but we both thought maybe it would be a neat spot to have a wedding. I didn’t even realise you can rent out the actual exhibitions at the science center. How cool! Mama Funnel Cake downed the idea though. COSI is expensive and more importantly, hard to park at. Anyway, we’re not really science nuts, so I gave up on the COSI dream.

Price: $2000 from 10AM-3PM, $6500 from 6PM-midnight

Time: 5-6 hour block

Size: 170 guests

Mama Funnel Cake mentioned Franklin Park Conservatory as a possible location for pictures in case of rain, but as soon as she mentioned it I LOVED the idea and begged her to get a quote from them. Both the morning and evening times of the Palm House were available for booking, but the whopping $4000 rental would cost for the Saturday evening time slot were compounded with a mandatory $2500 beverage minimum. Yikes!

You could tell that my and Mama Funnel Cake’s priorities were different. She cared about parking lots and accessibility, while I cared about light for photo opportunities.

Mr. Funnel Cake (oh yeah, he gets a say in this too) was leaning towards an evening wedding, because he felt it was more appropriate, but I wasn’t so sure. Remember, light was my #1 priority. However, paying $6500 to rent a place like Franklin Park Conservatory was frankly too expensive. The daytime hours were much more affordable, but we weren’t sure if our church would allow us to have mass at an earlier time to accommodate the 10AM reception start.

Mama Funnel Cake seemed to think there was Saturday morning mass at St. Chris (while I thought not) and she preferred that we have a late-morning wedding followed by afternoon reception at Our Lady of Victory. But Mr. Funnel Cake and I both had fallen in love with the idea of FPC because I have actually taken Mr. Funnel Cake to see the conservatory on his first trip to Columbus. Just like St. Chris, it’s one of the few places in the city that Mr. FC has actually visited.

With all these venue options, we began brainstorming ceremony and reception times to figure out a solution that would fit our budget and give us peace of mind.

How many places did you think about for your wedding?