saratoga country club

jane221 · February 2010

I am considering the Saratoga Country Club as a possible location for my ceremony/reception. Has anyone been there to check out the site or been there as a guest for a wedding? It's a little pricy and I'm trying to decide if it's worth it.

Lindze75 · February 2010

The Saratoga Country Club was our 2nd runner up and we decided on Villa Ragusa based on cost savings.
My mom and I met with Linda on a weekend to tour the facility and go over packages/pricing.
TIP: No jeans are allowed. Linda did not tell us this and we showed up in jeans (with cute tops and heels) and upon entering the club there is a big sign saying no jeans. It made us feel really uncomfortable that we were not dressed appropriately.
Anyway, we were looking to have just the reception there because we are having a religious ceremony. They were having a total steal on the facility rental fee which is why we were considering it. I think with this venue a lot of the value comes in the food. They have a highly acclaimed chef and you're paying for a wonderful meal. There really isn't anything else included and we went back and forth about it and asked Linda if there was any flexibilty with the amount of time in the space or the drink packages. She said there wasn't so that kind of made the decision for us. The view is beautiful if it will be light enough for guests to enjoy it (I'm thinking it will if you're going to have an outdoor ceremony). The room is nice and neutral and bright which I really liked. There wasn't a real nice bar area, just an ordering window which made FI more excited about Villa Ragusa but I didn't think it was a big deal. Where the dollars added up was that there was no cake, dj, or centerpieces included in packages. Also, the linens provided were only ivory (no white) and they were not floor length so you could see the pedastools of all of the tables which didn't look good. And there was a cake cutting fee as well as additional tax and service charge on top of quoted rates (VR it was all included). All of this added together added up to about $3000 of savings for VR and VR was a closer drive from our ceremony site.
The grounds however are really nice. As everything does - it comes down to budget I think it's worth the money if you have it but for us the value of the other packages worked better for us. Good Luck!

Lindze75 · February 2010

Oh I forgot to say that the flexibility we wanted was an extra hour thrown in for the reception because they only give 4 hours and they have a schedule outline of how the reception should go which seemed kinda rigid and rushed to us. All of the other places we looked at gave 5 hours not including set up or break down.
And the drinks are on an as cosumed basis. This is good if you don't have a lot of drinkers but we liked the drink packages that provided drinks for a flat rate per person per hour because we were sure that we had enough budgeted to provide alcohol for the duration of the event as opposed to telling the bartender to cut people off at $1500 or whatever and have that be far too early in the reception.
Let me know if you have any questions.

jane221 · February 2010

thanks for the input! i'm a little worried about the timeline too. my relatives aren't exactly punctual so i'm worried we might go beyond the scheduled time.

saratoga country club

Re: saratoga country club

Choose Another Board

Search Boards