FOR SOME REASON MY POST KEEPS GETTING FLAGGED . PLEASE EMAIL ME OR MESSAGE ME AND LET ME KNOW WHY . ITS JUST A REVIEW ON A VENUE .
THANKS
Ok, let me first say Brookside Farm is an expensive, but very nice venue ....
rolling hills , a stream , an old farm house , 6000 sq ft barn for the reception, very nice bathrooms, lookout tower on top of the barn , etc etc.
It will accommodate 300 people, which is great for me and my fiancé’s 200 guests, with enough room to have the ceremony indoors if the weather is nasty.
The barn is nice , they’re putting a bunch of work into it. They just installed a new bar area, new lighting, security system , smoke alarms, handicap ramps, a patio to be built later this year , and so on .
The barn costs $3500 to rent on a Saturday and $2800 on a Friday or Sunday .
It’s completely booked up on every single Saturday from now until November 2013 .
While it’s a nice place (much larger and nicer than Botzum) , their price is quite high for what your getting (botzum is $2500 but has many hidden charges and a deposit) .
If you can get a hold of Crystal Brook Farm in Bainbridge it was only $1800 a year ago. It’s wonderful. Not as rustic as Brookside, but more chic . But a relative had a wedding there so we couldn’t copy them .
Brookside rents the chairs for $2.50 a chair and 5' round tables for $8 . That’s a good price and they have them onsite so that makes it convenient .
Anyways, I wanted to tell you about the place if you were planning on booking , and I know information is somewhat scarce about the farm on the net.
Now , for some hidden issues . . .
the farm house is $300 extra to rent, but that’s to sleep in overnight.
We assumed the bride would be able to use it for a few hours before the ceremony and that’s included in the steep $3500 price tag , but it’s not. They still charge you.
When you rent Brookside for the day , you get it from 9am until 1am . That’s a long time ! but , there’s some fine print . . .
alcohol MUST stop by 10pm , music by 10:30pm , everyone gone by 11-12am, and clean up time from 12am until 1am .
After me and my fiancé were told about the 10pm liquor rule our hearts sunk. We wanted the ceremony outside at 3 , cocktail hour with a bonfire etc at 4pm, dinner at 5 and dancing from 6-11 . This would be a 7 hour window that someone could have a cocktail... quite common in some halls I have been to where they serve till even midnight .
We were told you’re only allowed a 4 hour window AT MOST for pouring alcohol . Now , don’t get me wrong , we are all in our late 20s and early 30s and still like to drink and dance and have a good time, but anytime I have been to a reception where the alcohol stops at 10pm , it’s terrible.
People end up leaving the reception and meeting up at the bar or the hotel to hang out more since that 4 hour time you have to dance and mingle flies by !
We were under the assumption that when we had it to 1am, it MEANT 1am.
The crazy part is the 3 owners have little to no responsibility whatsoever in regards to liability, the bride and groom do .
We were going to have a security guard (required) , professional bartenders(required), a shuttle looping back and forth all night to the holiday inn 10 minutes away etc .... But it didn’t matter, these were their rules.
We were then told that they would bend a little to 10:30pm- a whopping extra 30minutes- but there were to be NO SHOTS the whole night .
Again, I don’t know about you , but if someone in the wedding party has to sneak a quick shot to celebrate with me during a reception... this isn’t the place for me .
Weddings are supposed to be responsible fun, not full of restrictions.
in closing , im not here to bash the farm in ANY way , it’s just it would have been nice to know these rules and restrictions before driving 2 hours to check the place out , getting our hopes up, and then being bummed out about things we should have been told over the phone .
My suggestion to the owners would be to have a contract in a PDF form to send anyone who is interested so they know these things up front .
Our hearts were broken . But we’ll find our venue , we know it’s out there....
I hope this helps someone out there
Here is the link to Brookside Farms.
www.morethanjustafarm.com