I've commented a bit in other threads, but I'm consolidating everything here now that I have answers to a lot of our questions.
WICKED SPOON - We are planning on doing a morning wedding with brunch reception. Before our trip, I kept going back and forth on the private room. We have no fear of meeting F&B min because we will have 50 guests. But the images I had seen of the private room looked awful. It looked (from images) that the private room was a plain jane ballroom. Wicked Spoon is my all time favorite restaurant and I really wanted my guests to have the experience of being at the restaurant (not a wedding reception).
I am SO GLAD we went and checked this out, because the private room is way better in person. With the walls down, it actually looks like a part of the restaurant with the same classy decor. In the photos, the chairs looked awful but they were fine in person (would not upgrade). I also hated the linens on the table, which gave it that "wedding reception" look I'm trying to get away from, but underneath the linens the tables in that area have the same glossy finish as all other tables in the restaurant. The "free" option is to have the tables set just like other table in the restaurant- no linens w/ placemats. Perfect for me!
By our count, one section of the private room will easily sit 50, could probably seat 75 if it had to. We met with the management staff since it was a holiday and group sales was out of the office. It seems to me they will bend over backwards for any requests we have, including setting champagne and OJ on the table for unlimited mimosas (which will allow us to have a champagne toast...this is something group sales was going to charge us extra for).
If you decide against the private room, it sounds like they will either seat you in the private room area (if it's not booked) or at a group of tables over on the far right side of the restaurant, near the dessert area.
We know we're going to take the private room now, but haven't decided on whether or not to put the walls up. I really want to keep it open to the restaurant because I think it feels more like you're a part of Wicked Spoon that way and you can more easily access the buffet. But I also would like to have toasts and for that would probably need a sound system and the restaurant probably would want the room partitioned off for that. So I'm not sure what we're going to do yet (open to suggestions!).
TROPICANA - We visited all their venues that would accomodate our size of a wedding. Personally I hate their chapel. It's stark white and would require a lot of addition of flowers or fabric. But I think if you want a beach/tropical theme, it would be great. I did like that the room was long. Having a long aisle is important to me. Next was the terrace. It has a nice view of the strip but we don't want an outdoor wedding.
Next was the garden chapel. I will say this area was absolutely beautiful. If you're looking at venues for an outdoor wedding I would highly recommend it. We ALMOST changed our minds and had the wedding here because we both loved it so much. The wedding party crosses over a bridge with a waterfall backdrop to get to the garden courtyard. Overall I had a "take my breath away" moment here. If I wasn't so concerned about weather, bugs, sunshine in our (or our guests) faces, I would totally do my wedding here.
Finally we arrived at the Havana Room. The entrance area is cream colored with dark wood floors. There are some TVs where you can have a rotating slideshow. It's also very closeby to the "local's entrance", a side door entrance to the casino. This is perfect if you or your guests are making direct arrivals or departures from the ceremony (or reception!). The long walkway that serves as the aisle has dark wood floors, the room is HUGE and punctuated by a gigantic chandelier in the middle. It is gorgeous and extra dramatic. It's almost too much WOW if that's possible! There are a couple of weird caveats. One, there's not a real "get ready" room for the bride. There is one back at the chapel offices but it's quite a walk. The area where the bridal party waits is separated by a curtain and is just a small dark room with a bar area. Another weird caveat is that the lighting color of the chandelier rotates (?!?!) between orange, purple, white, blue, red, etc. I thought it was a silly question to ask if we could just set the chandelier to a single color and our coordinator informed us we'd have to pay an A/V union worker to come and design a custom light show (...) to have the chandelier set to white for the entire ceremony. Est cost = $280. This is just so silly it makes us angry, particularly because in order to use this space, you have to either pick the most expensive package or pay a venue fee of ~$1000 already. Just ridiculous. Finally, the curtains in the room can either be opened or closed. The view is out to their pool area and is EXTREMELY BRIGHT at 11am, which is the time of our wedding. One other concern is that this space is SO large that even for my group of 50, it might feel empty.
Lastly we saw a pavilion by the pool. Totally simple out there, again, flowers or something else would be needed to spruce it up.
It's worth noting that Tropicana can put together a room block for you pretty easily.
Overall, I think Tropicana has some beautiful venues and the price is definitely right on their packages. Great value. One last note is that the coordinator told me they don't double book ANY venues at tropicana just in case something happens.
ARIA - I thought I'd like the chapel much more than I did. It's a bit of a walk from the main casino area. The getting ready rooms are fantastic and luxurious. But the chapel to me, feels small and crammed in. I went and stood on the stage and there are some bright lights shining in your face, I'm sure it's good for photos and the webcast but would be hard not to squint (or sweat!) the entire time. They were setting up for a wedding and had some flickering electrical candles that looked a little too fake and gave it a "cheap" look in my opinion. But I loved the modern feel and comfy-looking chairs. We were informed that weddings are done on the hour and only even hours. You are allowed in 1 hr before your wedding. So you sign up (example) for a 6pm wedding, you get the chapel area from 5pm-7pm but actual ceremony is at 6pm. There is no flexibility on this and unfortuantely, this didn't work with our schedule. Overall, I felt that the price was too high for what was received as a part of the package, and I just didn't love the venue as much as I thought. Oh - also - I had pinned a photo of the Aria chapel to my pinterest page that has a beautiful setup of red roses throughout the chapel area. Come to find out that is a $4,000 (yes, THREE zeroes) floral upgrade!! Absolutely insane pricing happening over there.
COSMOPOLITAN - We really wanted to love the venues here because it would be so convenient to do both the wedding and reception at the same hotel. Point Loma is a conference room, plain and simple. We both travel a lot for work and spend a lot of time in rooms like this, and just couldn't get over the conference room feel. Ugh. The view, is SPECTACULAR. Frankly if we were having an evening wedding...there's a chance we could have gotten over the conference room feel.
We then went up to the wedding suite. In photos, this place looked really weird to me. I couldn't wrap my brain around a wedding like this. But once we were there, I had a change of heart. It's unique and beautiful, and has a stunning view of the strip for photos. I particularly loved the corner of the room where the wedding would take place. Classy and simple and would require nothing more. There is also a bridal room to get ready which is equally gorgeous with tons of mirrors. Finally, there is a bar area in-suite which can be used for a post-ceremony champagne toast. Unfortunately, there's only enough seating for 25, the rest of our guests would be standing, for a maximum of 40 people. I couldn't get over the half sitting/half standing thing and felt that our (very few) older guests (but more importnatly the ones who contributed financially) would be pretty put-off with how non-traditional it was.
I really loved the woman who showed us around, she's the person who would actually coordinate the wedding day-off. She was laid back and knowledgeable, and was the only person who asked us how we were feeling about the venues and we felt like we could be honest with her. I wish we could just hire her as our coordinator!! She passed on our feedback to our contact at Cosmo, and in an effort to win our business they sent us a video of wedding where they had placed additional seating in the wedding suite. I thought that was a nice touch for them to go out of their way to win us over. I felt like we got the most personal service from them.
Overall I think Cosmo really needs to step up their game. So many people want to get married there that they could really bank on a slightly more traditional, but with modern touches, wedding chapel.
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After our first day we just weren't sold on the venues we had seen.
Havana Room and Aria were pretty tied but we didn't get "that" feeling
about either. After a night's rest I was set on Havana Room. But we were going to incur numerous extra charges there: including the A/V tech, and transportation for our guests over to Cosmo for the reception. Frantically, we searched for venues that would be walkable to Cosmo.
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CHATEAU AT PARIS - Kudos to the staff at Paris, who received my harried e-mail and were willing to meet with me that same day to show their chapel. I wasn't interested in their chapel, but actually Chateau (their nightclub!). I got redirected to the events person at Chateau, who was out of town, but then one of the managers at Chateau e-mailed and offered to show us the space that night. GREAT SERVICE and communication overall from the Paris staff.
The entrance to Chateau is cool itself, with a dramatic black staircase which would be perfect for photos. Chateau's "chapel" area is like a mini Havana Room! It also has a curtain entrance, dark floors, and a chandelier over the main area. The "altar" area is a white fireplace. This area was small, simple, dramatic, and beautiful. But, you're clearly in a nightclub, with bars and VIP tables nearby, so there's that. Overall, I felt like I would be getting the Havana Room experience on-strip, and less "massive" feeling. Outside, they have a BEAUTIFUL outdoor venue with a great view of the eiffel tower and the bellagio fountains, which would make for a great wedding venue itself or fantastic reception venue. Unfortunately they don't have standard packages or pricing and we would have to wait a few days to find that info out.
Turns out, the cost to rent the space is $4,000 - just the space. Everything else is on top of that: chairs, flowers, photography, etc that is normally included in the Vegas packages. So- one huge pro here is that you can bring in whatever vendors you want (including photopgraphy! OMG). On the downside, you'll have to coordinate that all yourself- stress and expense. If you've got the cash, I think it's a good on-strip option (and is probably the same for other nightclubs, in case you are also not pleased with the traditional venues the strip has to offer). Additionally since our wedding was going to be in the morning, we were going to have to pay an additional $1200 for extra cleaning crew to get the space cleaned up from the night before in time for our 11am wedding. Sometimes the club keeps rolling until 4 or 5am and it can take the cleaning crew until 7pm the next day to get it ready for the next night. In other words, this venue just got really expensive for us.
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After all was said and done, we decide the ultimate best value for us was at the Havana Club at Tropicana. Even with adding on transportation and the A/V tech, we are at the same price as the Aria package (when you include the add ons/upgrades we'd want there) AND we're getting extra items, like a hotel room that's included in the package.
I didn't expect to like Tropicana as much as I did because I feel like it is so BLAH and boring from the outside. But if you're looking around don't count it out just because of that!
Attached are all my pics! I had to be selective but I have a lot more I can share with anyone who needs.