looking at first venue!

DeliteSmith

Hi girls!  I'm still not sure when I'll be getting married, but I'm trying to start the ball rolling and hope it will start to fall into place.  We're going to look at Laurel Lane Country Club in West Kingston next weekend, I'm excited!  I haven't found much info online or any pictures, but have been asking around locally and have gotten positive responses.  If anyone has any experience there I'd love to hear about it.  As a general question, how many venues did you visit before deciding?  And...I made a Bio!  :^)

feblove

I looked at 4 - Quidnesset, Biltmore, Laurel Lane and Crowne Plaza and decided on the Crowne...loved the package and the coordinator

DansBride52911

Congrats!We looked at Laurel Lane and several others. Laurel Lane was too small to accommodate our guest list, and frankly, we weren't greeted in a professional manner and it seemed as though they weren't prepared for us to come in.We ended up with the Crowne as well for so many reasons!Here's a link to my blog post about our experience:http://k5becomesabride.blogspot.com/2009/07/church-hunting-for-reception-site.htmlHappy searching!!

jlsimon56

I've never heard of Laurel Lane but it's a pretty sounding name for a venue.  That counts for something, right?We are at the Roger Williams Park Casino and I really didn't want to have to write "casino" on my invites, haha.  I'm such a brat.  :-)  We actually visited two places: the Federal Reserve and the Casino.  We booked the Casino on the spot.  If we didn't like it, next up would have been the Crowne.  After that, I didn't have any ideas.  So total of 3 to look at.

jonnysbride2010

I think I went to visit about 20...we were really really really picky. But if you need info on any of the following places let me know!*Castle Hill Inn*Rosecliff*Astor's*Belle Mer*Easton's Beach Rotunda*Glen Manor (What we picked! )*Greenvale Vineyard*The Chanler *Linden Place*Atlantic Beach Club*Lakeview Pavillion*Blithewold*Eisenhower House*Saphire Estate*Newport Hyatt*Newport Marriott*Hotel Viking*Independence Harbor*Fort Adams*Aldrich Mansionhaha I think sometimes we just liked visiting places!

bunnyduck

We checked out three places.  For us the big factor was size and price, so that allowed us to do a lot of pre-screening beforehand.  We checked out Kinney Bungalow in Narragansett, the Meeting House in Little Compton and Twelve Acres in Smithfield.  We spent a lot of time making calls to places and vendors and trying to figure out if it was less expensive and easier to piece things together or get it all packaged.  In the end we decided on Twelve Acres because of their flexibility, what was included, how we were treated, atmosphere (outdoor pavillion), and price.I think finding the venue is the least fun task (at least I hope, since we are still at the beginning of planning), but a wonderful relief when we found the right fit!

Mrkyrain

I visited: Glen Manor Easton's Beach Rotunda Roger Williams Park Casino The Towers North Beach Clubhouse at Narragansett Beach and.. Regatta Place (my wedding was here...loved it) I may have looked at a few more that I'm not remembering. If you have questions about any of these, don't hesitate to ask.

JMD1121

Jonnysbride, I have to ask: did you decide on a place? Those all sound great!

Mrkyrain

Ps. You can call some and get prices over the phone. I did that with a bunch more venues and realized that they were not in my price range so didn't waste time visiting. GL

aishamf

Happy planning!  Picking the venue was by far our most difficult decision. We went to Belle Mer, Regatta Place, Eisenhower House, Rosecliff and we decided on Castle Hill! As soon as we walked into Castle Hill we knew that was the place for us!

aylee

Great job on the bio! We went to 6 venues. If we don't live too far away, we would have gone to more. It was actually one of the hardest decisions we had to make. I posted reviews on my blog: [url]http://www.ayleebits.com/tag/wedding-venue/[/url]. Good luck!

Sharpbride

We visited 3 sites: Kinney Bungalow, Roger Williams Botanical Garden, and Linden Place. We picked Linden Place over the other two because of the layout and the number of guests we need to accomodate. It happened pretty quickly and early on in our engagement. One less thing to worry about! Good luck!

jonnysbride2010

JMD: We did decide on Glen Manor! Actually, our first choice was Castle Hill Inn but when we figured out the price per person and saw that the overall total would be upwards of $70k we freaked haha. The Glen has the seclusion, vintage feel and gorgeous grounds that we were looking for! We will be staying at Castle Hill though so it's the best of both worlds!

Mrkyrain

Glen manor is absolutely beautiful. I loved it too but in the end went with Regatta Place. I only had to call Castle Hill to realize it was waaaaaay out of our budget...lol. Best of luck to you

DeliteSmith

I think you girls have the state covered!  :^)  Thanks Mrkyrain, I didn't know I could try to ask pricing info over the phone, that will definitely be helpful in narrowing the search down. It sounds like I should add the Crowne to my list!  Offhand does anyone know what the rental fee is for the RW Botanical Center? 

KB_RI

RW Botanical Center was like $4,400 for nonresidents and I think about $3,600 for residents. We looked at nine:Kinney BungalowThe TowersRW CasinoRW Botanical Slater MillThe Rotunda at Easton's BeachWhispering PinesMt. Hope FarmThe Meeting House in Tiverton (our choice)

AmyRI

We visited 9, and looked at info on a ton more. We had a very small guest list and budget, so it was hard to find a place to meet our needs. Alpine Country Club (our choice) Federal ReserveFratelli's at Fenner Hill Golf ClubFoster Country ClubKinney Bungalow Meadowbrook InnTwelve AcresVenice We looked into others, but never actually visited them. Venue was our hardest decision. Good luck!

SmileyInRI

I'm a Crowne bride and we are getting married next Saturday 10/10 so I will have reviews coming and I just have to say that Michele @ the Crowne has been beyond fabulous to work with.

smitbreit

I looked at 4 I think:Regatta Place (the only reason we didn't choose this is bc when I told the coordinator that I was going to go with another venue, she haggled the price...um no.. not classy.  Also there is no place to get married unless you want to get married on the dock which my husband did not like.  Other than that BEAUTIFUL venue!)Linden Place- Venue we went withGlen Manor (I did not click with the coordinator at all)Mt. Hope Farm (Way too much $$$-have to rent a tent etc)We decided on Linden Place-felt right, loved Susan and for our out of town guests it was the perfect venue!

eacosta1120

We live in WI, but I'm from CT and he's from CA and we got engaged in Disney World. So we looked at least 7 venues in Orlando (including Disney), 7 in WI, 4 in CT, and then 3 in RI (Astors', Castle Hill, Ocean Cliff). We were crazy, but we also weren't really sure what we wanted. We ended up picking Astors' after debating between there and Disney for a long time-we realized we weren't really Disney people and summer weather is FL is pretty awful.