Getting flustered

a2joy

How many places did you look at before deciding on a ceremony/reception location?  I am scheduling appointments to look at places next weekend & I had a decent sized list at the begining, but now it's dwindled down to 2 options.  The main problems I'm running into is that we want a Saturday wedding next May and we're only expecting about 100 guests.  It seems most places have a minimum of 150 or 175.  I don't want a hotel because I want to have windows in the reception hall, and I want the ceremony location on site.  Plus, we're on a fairly small budget, and many places are already fairly booked up for May.  (Changing to a different month isn't really an option for us for various reasons)  I'm looking mostly around the northwest Oakland County area or east Livingston County.

Any suggestions?  How many places did you look at before deciding?

stebbe81

Not sure if they are still available but we had our at The Mansion at Pine Knob.  The minimum they tell you is 130 but we negotiated down to 120.  The price pp is about 76 but that includes dinner, bar and gratuity.  You can have your ceremony on site for a little bit extra.  It is a gorgeous location!  Let me know if you want more info!

cmkuno

This was by far the hardest of part of the planning process for me.  I had a similar issue to you - only having about 110-120 guests, and that didn't meet the minimum for a lot of places.  

Have you looked into Waldenwoods in Hartland?  Greenmead in Livonia?  Barnstormer Banquet Center in Whitmore Lake?  Longacre House in Farmington Hills?  All of those places were very affordable for the size wedding you're talking about.    

I'm not sure if Bloomfield Hills is in the area where you're looking, but we ended up there at The Heather's Club, a private golf course.  They have no $ amount or person minimum for a Saturday night.  They offered us 10% off bar package, no service/rental fee and free cake cutting.  The buffet is $25/pp and the full bar package is $22.50/pp.  Even their gratuity charge is low by most standards at just 17.5%.  It's a VERY nice dinning room area that (IMO anyway) has a very elegant, almost vintage feel.  They include white linens and the chairs are really pretty so no chair covers needed (that was important to me).  And the event coordinator, Rachel, is very nice and responds to emails very quickly, so it's been great working with her.  There's a pic in my bio.  Let me know if you have any questions!  

ladysunkissed

I'm getting married at Greenmead in Livonia and the reception is at the Radisson Livonia. They have a small, but beautiful, ballroom that can accommodate 125 people with a dance floor. The wedding coordinator there is super sweet too. Let me know if you have any questions or would like pics.

This was my most frustrating part of the planning...the nailing down of a venue on a budget sucks! It will work out, though!

Gwenwhyfare

We looked at two places for our ceremony and I guess two locations for our reception. Initially, we were going to have our reception in FI's parents backyard but decided against it and am holding ours in a hall.

There is also the River Birch Lodge in Hartland. I didn't know about this place when I was researching locations and wish I had. I don't know if you like the idea of rustic, but it's basically a private lodge that you can rent out. I'm pretty sure you have to bring in your own caterer, linens, etc. but it might be worth looking into.

msblumoo

We looked at two. Check out the Lafayette Grande in Pontiac. They have a chapel on site and are very accomodating. We have a guest list of approximately 50 people and instead of having our reception in one of their ballrooms they are letting us rent a room usually reserved for rehearsal dinners ect. As I said very accomodating. 

mordacious

I looked at one but I knew what I wanted. That said, The Dearborn Inn (hotel) can accomodate 100 people and a ceremony outdoors. The grounds are beautiful as is the hotel. We plan on having around 100 people and our room has an entire wall of windows so I wouldn't count hotels out.

Sue-n-Kevin

a2joy, while it's not in the general geographic area you mention, look into Greenmead in Livonia. It's run by the city of Livonia parks & rec department,  has lovely gardens, great places for pics. The max capacity at the chapel and banquet facility is 100, I don't think there is a minimum. The rental fee for both was $1000 for a Livonia resident, I think about $1200 for non-resident. You bring in your own caterer and alcohol, and then they have an additional fee of 10% of the food costs once you have that nailed down. This was really the ONLY facility we wanted, because it's convenient, has a lovely "old" look, and it didn't matter to us what type of chapel we had.

http://www.ci.livonia.mi.us/tabid/189/Departments/Community%20Resources/Greenmead/NewburgIntersection.aspx

They have a non-denominational chapel onsite, short walk to the Alexander Blue House that has reception capabilities up to 100. The rental there includes tables & chairs (I think white linens too). There is a "caterers kitchen" that allows the caterer to keep foods hot or cold, have a freezer there, but the caterer can't do any cooking onsite. Nice restrooms as well. They have picnic tables outside that they set up. We are planning on adding a tent outside, which they allow, right next to the Alexander Blue House for the DJ & dancing, but it's really not necessary. The chapel & Alexander Blue House are heated/central air.

It's really a lovely facility. If you are somewhat flexible for your dates, they may have one where you can get both facilties available near the date you want.

Good luck.

lynne425

Indian Springs is beautiful.  It is one of the metro parks, but they have an indoor nature conservatory.   I went to a wedding there, they had just over 100people.   You have to use Crank's catering,  but what we ate was very good.  It is kind of "far" (depending on where you're coming from), and I don't think there are lots of hotel options if you have out-of-town guests.  We looked into it for ourselves (sorry I don't remember all the details), but it didn't hold enough people for us. 

a2joy

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions!  My list now has three options: Brentwood Golf (White Lake), Indian Springs Metropark (White Lake) (these were my original 2 options on the list... my parents live in White Lake) & Heathers Club (Bloomfield Hills).  I currently have feelers out to Longacre House in Farmington & the Opera House in Howell as well.  I'm sure one of these is sure to work... thanks so much, some of these suggestions I hadn't yet thought of!