Charleston Wedding

aprilzta1

I am thinking about a simple wedding and reception in Charleston, SC.  Does anyone know of a moderately priced location for us to get married with about 50-60 guests and possibly a yummy restaurant that can accommodate us all for dinner in a private room afterwards?

aprilzta1

By the way, I would love to get married outside if possible!

nlhauer

You must check out McCrady's.  It's on East Bay Street right in the heart of downtown.  The food is great and the private dining areas upstairs are gorgeous.  Very old Charleston feel to it with exposed brick and beautiful lighting.  I really wanted my reception there but the space wasn't big enough to accomodate all the guests (having 120).  There are a lot of spots to get married outside along the waterfront park (a short walk from McCrady's) however, it's City owned property and they can be very picky with regard to any set up and number of people allowed so you may want to call and check with them.  Good luck.

katydid2014

Our wedding was in the Confederate Home garden on April 10 and we loved it.

Here is a link to some of our pics: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150160693428723.292785.90704383722&type=1

I had thought about using one of the public parks b/c they are so cheap, but then realized we would be screwed if it rained.  You do need to have some patience trying to get ahold of someone at the Confederate Home.  It houses elderly women on the upper levels and the woman who runs the office I think lives there also so she kinda comes and goes.  Their office hours are extremely limited, but just keep calling during the hours it says on their answering machine and you will eventually get an answer. 

The good thing about the Confederate Home is that they also have beautiful historic rooms on the property as well (a few of them quite large) so if you wanted your ceremony inside you could do that.  We had ours in their garden, but liked knowing we had the rooms as back up in case of bad weather.

It also helps to hire a coordinator just for the ceremony who has done weddings there previously.  I used Candice at Yoj Events and she was great and offered a really great price for just ceremony direction.  She also handled setting up the rental chairs and setting up all of my decorations I made and then clean up after.  She will do a rehearsal with you as well. 

And then most of our guests walked from there to McCrady's for our reception.  That is a really nice area of downtown to walk through (if you have nice weather   We had our reception in the Gallery Room for 30 guests and it was the perfect size.  You could def do 50-60 and maybe get both rooms upstairs to have more space to spread out if you want a sit down dinner.  We had a bar and dj set up with room to dance and we had plenty of space.  We did a lunch reception to save on costs.

On a side note, there is a Charleston board where you can find a lot more info.  I have posted quite frequently about our vendors and venues.