Weddingbee Blog

By now, most of my ‘maids, my mom, and Wolfman’s family have been able to tour the venue. They love it, but I suspect when we first sent them our choice, it was a little hard to picture. It’s very apparent that it’s a historic house and doesn’t totally lend itself to a natural flow…

So, I figured I’d explain how this thing is gonna go down:

(Click to enlarge, image via The Whittemore House)

This is the first floor. You walk in the front door into a small foyer with a great fireplace and lots of wood detailing. Immediately to your right, in the Post Room and the Hamlin Room, will be the ceremony. The rows will be slightly angled, but the aisle will be straight back through both rooms (the opening between both rooms is much bigger than the floor plan leads you to believe). Once everyone is seated, we’ll close the doors between the foyer and the Post Room so I can come down the staircase and walk in through the back.

Then we get married, I guess (!).

After the ceremony, we’ll leave out the back and probably sneak into the ballroom while all our guests go upstairs for cocktail hour:

(Click to enlarge, image via The Whittemore House)

The bar will be at the top of the stairs, and our guests will mingle throughout the front three rooms: the Library, 1870s Room, and the Blair Room open into each other and have lots of great seating and details to look at. (In fact, have you ever seen the video for fun.’s “Some Nights Intro”? I imagine our cocktail hour like that.) Restrooms are conveniently located in the hall.

The Harriman Room is where I’ll get ready with my ‘maids. It’s designed for this purpose, with a beautiful bathroom vanity where I’m excited to have some pictures taken. It will also be nice to have a place to store our getting ready materials—and to hide while guests are arriving.

After cocktail hour, everyone goes back downstairs and heads to the Stevenson Ballroom. Our escort cards will be on a table in the entryway and the tables throughout the front half of the room. The DJ stage and dance floor will be toward the far end of the room, and the main bar/buffet station will be closer to the kitchen. We’ll set up some cocktail tables near the garden area (directly off the ballroom, near the kitchen).

What about the rest of the house? Well…we don’t need it. We thought about moving the reception into the upstairs pub room, but there was no reason to squeeze when there was a giant ballroom downstairs. I also like the transition of going up and down the stairs—it’s a pretty impressive staircase and moving throughout these relatively small areas will make the whole thing feel intimate. One of the dangers of a small wedding is that it feels too small, and I think our venue helps solve that worry. What do you think of this flow?