Hotel or Catering Venue??

[Sujuann]

I am in a huge confusion and I thought I could come to my Pricescope family!

We are down to our final three choices for the venue - a mega hotel that just opened twenty days ago and has a ballroom with a second level balcony; another hotel that has beautiful tall ceilings with elegant wall decor and a ceremony site with water and trees surrounding (also on Disney property); and last a reception hall that mirrors a hotel feel but has only space for one bride at a time.

I got a weird email from the mega hotel and she said that she was unable to secure the room for us. Not because it will be in use on our date... no that would be easy... the room is free. But they will not let us book it because they MIGHT get a convention that week. Not that any company has inquired about using the site on that date but they want to basically get as much money as they can and won''t book a wedding for 150 when they can get money for 5000. Not too happy about that but I guess business is business. But I don''t think that is fair. But whatever. She said that we can "gamble" with it and call in April to see if it is booked on our date... October! Six months?!?! They are mad!?!? So this place is out unless I want to change the date and I really don''t.

The real reason I am asking a question is what you all think about hotels versus catered halls. Do you think it really saves money? Has anyone else had this hard of a time answering this question? I am getting a headache trying to pick this!! I am over it! LOL Anybody have any advice or feedback?

Thanks!

 

[indecisive]

Hmm I don''t really know what to tell you about that but I agree with not going with the mega hotel. If they are going to be this unaccommodating now imagine how they will be with all the wedding planning. Plus they will probably try to suck as much money out of you as possible. Good luck!

 

[labbielove]

Hi there,
sorry about your dilemma, everyone is different but the best advice i could give is "go with your gut"
that is, what is important to you?

for me, as i was calling around places i hated when they sounded like THEY were doing ME a favor by sending me information, etc.

I am huge on customer service, and it''s especially important on our wedding day.

I''m having it at a venue and bringing in my own catering company.

Depends on the management where you are looking. Our Hilton here in town (huge) does wonderful weddings, but usually they are for 200+ people. We are having 100-120 max so wanted to go with a smaller place. I knew we made the right choice when the coordinator was giving examples of other weddings and using the bride & grooms first names...

 

[Sujuann]

Thanks, ya''ll!! Unfortunately, I am the type of bride that has to see everything and wants to make sure that I have made the best decision. But I think I wll go with what both of you said... definite no to the mega hotel. We went there today to see a wedding and it was beautiful. But then we started really looking at what other things we wnated and the place didn''t ahve them. I only loved the balcony! And I really didn''t like the way they handled us. (The "denial" email saidn "sorry" in the subject line and the message was "I was unable to secure your venue. Best wishes to you whereever you go and knwo tha tyou will be a beautiful bride." That was it... nice message but I needed to understand more... and I called and she broke and told em the conference thing.

I''ll also take the advice of going with my gut. Now if I can get my gut to help me pick!

Thanks, ladies!!

 

[monarch64]

Su, I''m glad you decided against the mega-hotel...your description of it just screamed to me: "we are not looking out for your best interest!" And that is exactly what you DON''T want a venue to do. I like what you described for your third choice, that is, a venue who is a one-bride-only type hall. To me, it was very important that I was the ONLY bride being taken care of on that day, during the hours I''d paid for. I''ve been to other weddings at gi-normous halls where the receptions were fabulous, but had shared ladies'' rooms where you ran into every other guest (and every other bride--sometimes up to 3) during a 4-6 hr. period. Yikes! I wanted everyone''s memory of my wedding reception to only be of me and my DH...and we chose a site pretty much according to that.

That said, we did have to pick and choose what we were willing to cut back on, financially. It came down to choosing a site that only had one bride at at time, and was waaaaayyy too expensive on a Saturday for me (and my family, who was paying for the reception.) DH and I ended up falling in love with one particular site and having the ceremony/reception there on a Sunday to cut costs, but have that venue. It all worked out for the best. We got so many compliments on our day, and we couldn''t have been happier. And no other brides or their friends and family were there in the ladies'' room to distract our guests, lol!