Hello all, I have a venue predicament and would love opinions and input from other people. My fiance and I found a great venue, but our guest list is pretty large and the venue space is too small for a traditional style reception (food/drinks/dancing together). The venue is a historic courthouse surrounded by a lawn, and the event room is located on the second floor of the courthouse. The first floor layout is four hallways which lead to a small common area. My question is if you think that this layout would work if...the ceremony is upstairs, cocktail hour and seated dinner are downstairs (under tents), followed by dancing upstairs (with some chairs/tables). *There is an elevator in the venue so that our handicapped guests can easily go between locations.* We were thinking that to have a better flow we should have two bars (one upstairs and one downstairs), so that guests wouldn't have to travel far for drinks, and having the DJ upstairs and an iPod with professional speakers and softer music downstairs if people want a quieter place to visit. Has anyone been to a wedding with this kind of layout? What were the things that worked and things that didn't, and how would you suggest utilizing this space to keep the reception flowing and fun for our guests? I would appreciate any advice you have. Thank you!