Searching for a Venue Again - Close, but no Cigar

With my new list of requirements for our ceremony and reception space, I started looking in Connecticut for something that could work.  


First stop--the Lounsbury House in Ridgefield.  

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This beautiful venue was actually built in 1896, and served as the home of former governor Phineas C. Lounsbury.  I loved the tie to Connecticut history.  

 

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Here is a picture of the beautiful staircase--it's the first thing you see when you walk in. Full disclosure, I don't have any pictures of this site.  I was so excited after I signed the contract with our current venue that I went back to my camera and deleted all pictures of venues I had visited.  It was a momentary lapse of sanity.  So I'm making due with pics from the internet. 

This beautiful wedding from Style Me Pretty gives a pretty good idea of the space.  It's elegant, it's warm, and it's just gorgeous.  But unfortunately, it wasn't a fit for us. Again, I'm deferring to my list, here:

1. Close to home - Check!  It was less than thirty minutes door to door. 

2. Easily Accessible to Travelers - Yes and No.  If you have a car then it's a yes.  But if you don't, you would have to rent one. 

3. Cost! - The site rental here was a whopping 4k less than our original venue.  Major cost savings in that department.  But--

4. Flexibility/Simplicity - The words "site rental fee" make me cringe. Because essentially, we'd be renting the facility, and their china.  We would get the use of their tables and chairs, but I didn't really like them all that much. So that means we'd have a bunch of things to rent.  And we'd have to bring in outside caterers.  And probably a day of coordinator to keep everything straight...It just wasn't as simple as I'd hoped (or needed).

Additional things that didn't work: the space could only hold 110 people.  While we're trying to keep ourselves to that number, booking a place that has a maximum capacity of 110 makes me nervous.  Would the space feel crowded?  Lastly, there is no "grand ballroom," or "great room."  It's an old house.  There are small rooms and they all have a different look and feel to them. Some guests would be seated in one room and the rest would be put in another. The staircase up there?  That would pretty much be the location of our dance floor.  So I wasn't really feeling the flow of the space, for us.  

The people there are great, they were quick to respond and very easy to speak with.  If we decided to have a wedding of 50 or 60 people, this would have been a great choice.  But it wasn't meant to be.  

So, onward!