**Kerr**

JoesWife2007

Hi There!Congrats again to you and Kyle! Your pics turned out amazing! Can you tell me more about the struggles you had with NBP and about the lottery? We are looking to do our reception in either the end of September or beginning of October of next year? Also, do you know anything about how people do a dance floor? Thank you again and thank you for putting all the pics in your bio!

kerr

Sure!We had no problems with winning the lottery, NBP was just getting "famous" when we decided to use it, so it wasn't difficult to book then (back in May of 2008). I went down there are 7:30 a.m. exactly a year before the date we needed, paid them their money, and that was it because I was the only one who wanted it. Nowadays is much more difficult to get your date because many people will show up, so they do the lottery system. If you can win the lottery, most of your battle is over.We had our RD there, so there was only about 50 people there. What we did was pull the walls up and put the DJ outside, thus having the dancefloor outside near the water. The caterer and bar were inside with all of the tables, it worked out really well. If you have a lot of people in Sept or Oct, you may have to tent the outside to make room for everyone. I have seen brides put the DJ and dancefloor outside as well, under the tent.My only frustration with the entire NBP experience I explained in my review. I will repost my review below so you can read it, just be aware that if you rent the space out, make sure you rent it pretty late so you dont run into the problems that we did. Also, if you want to do any decorating yourself, make sure you rent out time for that! My review is below.. Any other questions just let me know!

kerr

North Bank Pavilion C UGH this review hurts to write. The actual venue and our rehearsal dinner itself was an A+ for sure, but the events leading up to it, surrounding it, and some other administrative details were an F!! Details: We rented out the hall from 7-11 on a Friday evening, with a liquor license as well. I had been down to Parks and Rec (P&R) several times to discuss the event and gave them our layout of tables, chairs, etc, which they asked for in advance. They (P&R staff) told me that the caterer and anyone setting up for the event could come into the hall two hours in advance to setup. At 5 p.m. (two hours early, like they said) myself, just a few family members, and Boardwalk Catering arrived to setup but there were no tables, chairs, or anything ready for us. The staff there told us we weren’t allowed in until 6 (when I was supposed to be at the church at 6:30 for our rehearsal) and were extremely rude to us. After many words, they finally got all the tables and chairs setup and let us in at 5:30; we hung only about half of the lanterns because we had to go to the church. I had spent a lot of time and money on lanterns for NBP and they would not let me in to hang them up, despite what the people down at P&R had told me. Later in the evening, the same guy tells me that even though we rented out the hall until 11:00 with our liquor license, that LAST CALL IS AT 10:10. NO exceptions. What??!!? I was furious. We were paid until 11:00!  We didn’t even get to NBP until 7:45 because of our church rehearsal, so our guests were allowed to drink for less than 2.5 hours? So at 10:15 he has the DJ get on the mic and announce the last call. So me being the assertive person I am, gets on the mic and tells everyone to get 10 drinks at last call and drink until 11:00 because we paid until 11:00 and we bought all of that liquor!! He pulled me aside and was NOT happy with me, but I didn’t care. At 10:45 he went around the entire hall and pulled drinks out of everyone’s hands and told me that if anyone had a drink in their hand at 11:00 he was calling the cops on me. RIDICULOUS. My friend had her wedding there the next day, and they DID call the cops on the entire wedding because they weren’t done drinking yet. I guess the cops showed up and her husband dealt with them.  So… if you have rented out NBP let it be known: they will last-call you 50 minutes earlier than what you paid for and pull drinks out of your guests’ hands, and if you are still drinking, they WILL call the cops on you. I am not trying to bash any vendor or start any drama, but there was nothing cordial or professional about my dealings with them the night of my RD. Nobody ever told me that this was going to happen or that last call would be 50 minutes earlier than what I paid for. We would have easily rented the place out until midnight if that was the case, but no one ever stated that in the whole year we had the contract. BUT, the venue was gorgeous and we had an awesome time! None of our guests new what was going on, they just thought it was kinda funny when I got on the mic and told them all to get 10 drinks, but I guess that’s not too off the mark for me! Boardwalk Catering did an awesome job, too. Any questions just let me know.

amyannosu

I had my Rehearsal Dinner at NBPP 3 weeks ago, I just want to say: we had no issues having time for setup. Maybe this is a mistake that they corrected, but, our room rental was 6pm-10pm, and I was allowed to come to the Pavilion at 4:30pm to make sure everything was going correctly with setup and my caterer, and I didn't have to pay for that time. Also, they gave us till 11pm to have everything out of there. We only scheduled our bartender till 9:30pm, and he began tearing down at around 9:00pm, so we didn't run into any "last call" issues there.