1451 Renaissance Place

StephJean83

I've searched on here for info on 1451 Renaissance Place but I guess I didn't find what exactly I was looking for. I saw that alot of people looked at them but decided against them because the price and the bar minimum. My FH and I are in the early stages of planning(we have just over 2 yrs til the wedding) and are debating getting married in the Milwaukee area(where we live) or the Tomah/LaCrosse area(where he is from). I say this because I have posted about locations in the Tomah area. I know looking at venues would be easier if we had a more concrete guest list(but trying to get even a rough guess from my FH is like pulling teeth, he has this fear of leaving someone out and hurting some friend/relative.)

I know that 1451 Renaissance Place offers an open house on the first Wednesday of the month and if my FH can get out of work and home with enough time for us to go, we were going to check it out tonight. Has anyone used it? Did you go check it out and decide against it because of budget/pricing? I know I will have to speak to them directly for their pricing especially because we are looking at a November wedding date vs a summer wedding. Was the place not big enough/too big? The estimate number is upwards to 350 guests and I know they have said they can accommodate up to 400 people. Anything that could help is appreciated

russ0002

Hi Steph!
We did look at this venue, it was actually our number 2 choice out of like!! The hall is gorgeous, and the service there was wonderful just from the tour/walk-through. It will DEFINITELY be able to accomodate your guest list. We really liked that we could do both our ceremony and reception there. We liked that the guests get to go into the cocktail lounge downstairs while we are taking pictures in the reception hall (also where the ceremony is held) and they are flipping the room over, rather then having to shuffle them out of the building. I didn't like that I would have to walk down stairs, in my dress and heels, to enter for the ceremony. That just made me nervous, I'm a clutz! The bar bill is a bit scary, but you can do options like setting a limit for how much you want to spend, and they keep a tally for you and let you know when you are approaching your limit during the night. We were excited about the opportunity to find our own caterer, but we were disappointed when we discovered how expensive a lot of the caterers in the Milwaukee area are, if you want something nice. Other than that, the place was great!
Now, why we ultimately changed... We ended up seeing another venue, Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center, just a week or so later, and we fell in love! We loved that our wedding ceremony could be held in a live theater in their building, which was gorgeous! The dining room for the hall is beautiful! We loved the character of the old building. The caterer is on site and their food is fantastic, based on tasting. Also, so far, they have been incredibly helpful in making all our dreams reality. Last, was price. They offer several flexible packages that can be adjusted based on your wants and needs. We were very happy with this venue and will be very excited to have our big day there next June!
Hope this helps!

StephJean83

Hi Russ0002,
 Thank you! It helps alot. We did a walk through last night and it was beautiful. It has everything we want; old elegant charm, downtown location and lots of space. The caterers cost does scare me abit, however a customer of mine at work has a catering company and I thought we might use them, their prices are less and the food options are ones that I like vs ones I have a hard time saying or not knowing what is it. I'm a very picky eater and I have friends who are vegetarians and some of the places didn't offer (at least not on their websites since I haven't even started looking at caterers in person) much for vegetarian.

My FH is concerned about the price for sure, especially the intial deposite of $2500 and that does make me nervous too. I were looking online at couple other places and the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center came up and looked just as stunning. I want to find a place that we can do everything at from preceremony cocktails to the ceremony to the cocktail hour to the dinner and dancing and not worry about another party disrupting us or unwanted guests. I've been to far too many weddings in hotels/ballrooms where the place wasn't booked for just the wedding and they had wedding crashers up the wall. The hotel weddings seem to be the worse because they advertise it at the front desk and the other hotel guests come and help themselves to food and drink. Or they have two events going on at the same time and as one wedding is in dinner/toasts the other wedding is in full dance mode with load bass and the wedding is disrupted and guests can't hear all toasts.

At the the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center do they do mulitple events in one day at the same time? Did you look at any other places? We are going to start looking more over the next couple weeks and just don't know where to go. Surprisingly my FH said that if we found a place with a 300 cap, he would cut his list(my list tops out at 145 vs his that is over 250 people). He wants to look at The Dooms but I know that you can't get in there until 5pm on a Saturday and you have to use a certain caterer. There were a few other places he wants to go check out but quite a few required certain caterers(most required the same) and I just don't know how much I will like them. I see great reviews for them online and on TK but something about not knowing what I'm eating scares me. We just started and I'm ready to pony up whatever I'd have to get one of David Tutera's wedding planners out here to help plan it.

russ0002

Hey there!!!
No worries!! I promise, the venue seemed like the hardest part, and once we got that out of the way, everything else fell into place!

We absolutely loved Humphrey, because of all those reasons... There is only one event in the building on that day, so no other peeps wandering in and out of your wedding day. The packages are incredibly reasonable as well. We are also doing our rehearsal there and the rehearsal dinner. They have a tavern/pub in the building that we are booking for our rehearsal dinner that offers great fun pub food, like fish and chips, burgers and pizza, so we could go for a more releaxed dinner after the rehearsal (and cheaper ).

We did look at the Wisconsin Club, but you can't have your ceremony there. We looked at the Rotunda, but it seemed really small and made me nervous about fitting even 250 people in there. Also, we didn't like how they shuffle the guests outside of the building to flip the room after the ceremony. We thought about looking at the Grain Exchange, but Bartolotta is the caterer you have to use, and their food may be fantastic but OUTRAGEOUSLY priced. They are also the caterer for the Milwaukee Domes. Hope this helps, don't hesitate to ask any other questions!!! We are planned and booked already, so its smooth sailing for me!
Ash

StephJean83

Thank you for the tips!!! We are trying to set up a few more dates to go look at venues. I'm hoping we can decide on one or two places to go look at when my parents are visiting so we can get some feedback from them since they will be helping pay for the wedding. I know that Humphrey was on the list and I think we thinking of looking at Palm Garden at Lakefront Brewery. I emailed Humphrey and just waiting to hear back to set something up.

I saw pictures of the Rotunda and that looked neat but didn't seem big enough if we go with our current estimate guest list. There are so many beautiful places but some feel like they will either be too big and grand or too small and cramped.

russ0002

I think you will really like the Humphrey Scottish Rite, let me know what you think of it when you get to see it finally!

StephJean83

We saw the Scottish Rite Center last night! OMG! It is beautiful and everything we want. The price for the building is amazing! Food prices seem pretty standard and its items I can pronounce and have had before! We might have to set up an appt to show it to my parents when they're in town visiting. The outside doesn't give the inside any justice!