Brookstone Park/ Saphire Estate/The Log Cabin & Delany House

MaryannPimentel

My fiance and I are going to be checking out these venues within the next week or two and  I was wondering if anyone had any reviews or experiecnes with any of these reception venues. And food reveiws would also be helpful, wouldnt want to get stuck with a lovely venue and terrible food. We are planning to have our ceremony on site as well. We will have a lot of out of town guest so if anyone has suggestions on near by hotels (for Brookston & Saphire) that would be great as well.

 

Thanks!!!

mrsbanany

I am getting married at the Villa which is owned by the Saphire Estate (well the company owns both) and I can say that Saphire is super responsive when it comes to correspondence. We haven't gone to our tasting yet so I can't tell about food but they have TONS of options for meals, apps, and late night snacks. The only thing is that literally everything is a la carte so it can get pretty pricey pretty quickly.

MaryannPimentel

Thanks for the feedback Amanda! We actually have an appointment at Saphire for this weekend however we just went to see Brookstone Park this past Sunday in Derry and absolutely loved it! So I think we will just be going with that location. Good Luck planning your big day!

phira

We're getting married at the Saphire Estate (we had to do a second visit because we couldn't decide between the Estate and the Villa; as @amandaj424 said, both venues are owned by the same event group, so it's basically the same people, different location).

They were REALLY wonderful about working within our budget (they gave us a major discount to keep us under our maximum, including tax, and threw in some complimentary extras; we're an off-season Sunday). They're very responsive; if you email your contact and he or she is unavailable, you'll usually get an email or phone call from another person to try to answer your question.

We were able to try some appetizers when we were having our tour, and they were excellent. Since we booked, we've heard a TON of stories about both locations having amazing food. Our photographer loves working there as well (the Saphire Estate has really amazing grounds for photos).

As amandaj424 mentioned, yes, the prices can add up very quickly. Their basic package includes a lot, and it was certainly enough for us. We're considering a few upgrades/add-ons (some of the appetizer options cost $1-2 more per person, so that's an extra $100-200 for us), but one of the reasons it's not considered a budget venue is that it's very easy to spend $40k there.

They don't have any on-site overnight accommodations, which was definitely a downside. There are several hotels within 15 minutes driving, though, and if you're having a lot of out of town guests for a Saturday night wedding with booze a-flowing, you might want to consider a shuttle to a hotel where you've blocked rooms.

We've been using their preferred vendor list to find our bakery, and we may use it to get our wedding night transportation, but we did not use the list for a florist (no real flowers), photography (used apracticalwedding.com), or DJ. We tried using their list for DJs, and the people we got in touch with were GREAT, but we ended up booking the DJ from my future brother-in-law's wedding (cheaper and we already knew we liked him).

As a warning, if you go on Yelp, the reviews for the Villa are stellar, and the reviews for the Saphire are terrible. This made ZERO sense to me, since they're the same event group. After some more careful and critical reading, it looks as though a great deal of the Saphire reviews are from people who did not actually have their wedding at the Saphire (they wrote 1-star reviews explaining why they didn't pick it), and most of the reviews for the Villa are about things that are the same at the Saphire, like the food. All of the things I've heard from people who've been to either location (mostly the Saphire Estate) have been excellent. Especially about the food and service.

mrsbanany

@phira have you heard from your planner yet? I booked last month and I am not getting married until April 2015 so they said we would not hear from them until the spring but we literally have heard nothing so I am just wondering when things really get going.  The little binder they gave us says we won't hear from them until 4 months before the wedding that that is seriously worrying me because I am definitely type A and 4 months is just not enough for me! 

phira

@amandaj424 We have totally not heard from them. They've gotten back to us when we've had questions, so it's not like they're hard to reach, but yep, they said that usually they don't have their first meeting with us until after the tasting.

I feel like 4 months IS enough time because they've been doing this forever. But like I said, August and September are the worst months for us, so we'd prefer to be about 2 months ahead of schedule. Plus I really don't want to wait forever to order invitations, and we have to wait till we've approved the ceremony start time before we can buy invites Not a HUGE deal, but ughhhh.

We're planning on getting in touch by the end of May and hopefully have our tasting and meeting in June. We need a custom vegan/gluten-free entree for one of our options, so we're not sure how that'll work with the tasting.