For Better or For Worse: Snowstorms, Venues, and Vomit

Greetings from South Boston, where streets are plowed and neighbors, while territorial about their parking spots, will do nice things like anonymously shovel your walkway when it snows while you're out of town for the holidays (thank you kind stranger, whoever you are!).

As many of you already know, I spent most of the last week in Brooklyn visiting my family with Dave, who was home from Scotland for just one short week...a week that felt even shorter due to climate-related impediments. Dave was scheduled to arrive early evening on December 23rd, but because the Brits sit down and flail their arms and cry whenever it snows in the UK, he missed his connecting flight in Heathrow and had to wait an entire extra day to fly into Boston. So Dave made it into Logan at around 6:30pm on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, his bag (with all of the Xmas gifts in it, I might add) did not arrive until around 10pm. He was fall-down-drunk by the time I picked him up, having exhausted the British Airways club lounge for all his business class ticket was worth, but I'd missed him so much that the slurred speech with intermittent sessions of snoring was more adorable than annoying. By the time we made it into Brooklyn, it was 2am; dinner and gift opening were already over, and we basically missed out on Christmas Eve festivities. It could have been worse, though...he could have missed Christmas entirely, so I'm grateful he was able to make it back at all.

The plan was to return to Boston on the 27th to visit with Dave's family and our good friends here in New England before heading back to BK for New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, Mayor Bloomberg also apparently sits down and flails his arms and cries whenever it snows (but he masks it in a way that attempts to convince us there's nothing at all amiss and our panic and anger are unfounded), and we were stuck in NY for an extra day waiting for the streets to get plowed adequately enough to get to the highway and drive home. Granted, it could have been MUCH worse. If my car had been parked in my parents' driveway instead of on the avenue, then I would have been stuck there for days. Still though, it threw our entire time table off, and the rest of the week felt extremely rushed. Dave just flew back out on Sunday night, but I feel like he was here ages ago only because it went by so fast.

In spite of Mother Nature's interference, we were still able to handle two very important wedding planning details while Dave was home: we picked a venue and booked a date! Before I reveal these most important of details, let me provide you with the background information.

The weekend after Dave left for

Scotland

, I headed to NY for some venue hopping with my mother and sister. In fact, within a few days after getting engaged, my sister had emailed me inquiring what venues I was interested in checking out. Before I knew it, I had two days of back-to-back appointments planned out for me. Feeling a bit guilty, I pointed out that she should be worrying about her own upcoming nuptials (April 30th...very close!), but Steph impatiently explained that all of her arrangements were already made and she was currently in a state of wedding planning withdrawal. Apparently planning someone else's wedding is just what she needs to slowly wean herself off of the habit. Thank goodness for her or I'd still be staring at my ring going, "Wait, I'm engaged?"

Anyway, I drove into New York specifically to look at venues all weekend long. Some of you may be wondering why I'm getting married in NY if I live in Boston. For one, I dropped everything to move to New England to be with Dave, so he owed me one. Two, we did a rough draft of our guest list, and there are about 120 New York guests, and about 30 from Boston. Three, I knew that I wanted a venue that could alleviate a lot of my stress by handling all of those reception necessities--catering, open bar, linens, chairs, tableware, etc--for me in a packaged deal we could afford, freeing my time and energy to work on some of my quirkier ideas (we'll get to those in a future blog, don’t you worry!), and I knew that every venue I’d ever been to in NY offered those kinds of packages. Also, food is a key part of any celebration in Italian culture, and I needed a venue that could cater to my family's very large appetite. And there's no denying that in order to have a big fat Italian wedding, you need to go to where the big fat Italians are, and I'm sorry but we are in greater abundance in New York!

My sister booked me five appointments for that first weekend looking at halls: The Fox Hollow, Crest Hollow, Dyker Beach Golf Course, Westbury Manor, and El Caribe. The first two were in Long Island, so we had to leave early to drive out and make the first appointment on time. Unbeknownst to me, however, my sister had gone out and gotten herself obliterated the night before. When I first saw her in the morning, she was hanging over the toilet, alternating between giggling and spewing (BEHOLD! My classy maid of honor!) while my mother just shook her head and tried hard to look disappointed instead of amused.

Steph was still too drunk to follow the original plan in which SHE drove and I relaxed, but she assured us that she would be fine once we got into Long Island. My mother took a heavy duty plastic bag with us just in case. Later, we would come to be very grateful for my mother’s foresight. It didn’t take too long for the giggles to wear out and Steph’s face to start turning green. Somewhere around when the banquet manager was going over the menu options during our first appointment, my sister abruptly stood up and demanded to know where the bathroom was. Her job for the remainder of the day was to inspect the quality of the bathrooms at all the venues since she was capable of doing little else.

It was strange searching for a place without Dave there, but I knew that we both wanted a place that had some character instead of just a run-of-the-mill ballroom setting. Also, I knew we were both leaning towards having an outdoor ceremony. We’d both been to the Fox Hollow before, which is actually what inspired all of these interests in the first place. We knew the food was good, the venue itself had a vintage garden look, and the grounds were gorgeous. However, when my family and I arrived for our walk-through I was disheartened to learn that my guest list was too small for their big room and too big for their small room. They were in the middle of building another edition, which was just the right size and was being offered at a preconstruction price, but I would be committing to a room I’d never seen before and wouldn’t be able to see until April. Furthermore, the option to get married outdoors was only available to clients who’d booked one of the other two rooms. Bummer. On the other hand, the new room would be walled in on one side by floor-to-ceiling French doors that looked out onto a pocket garden, so it would feel like being outside.

Crest Hollow came next. Even in the winter, their grounds were spectacular, and I almost teared up at the thought of getting married surrounded by the brightly colored flowers under a clear blue sky. The sprawling greenery was also visible from the floor to ceiling windows that completely covered the walls of the reception room I was interested in…and there were A LOT of reception rooms to choose from. Eventually they started to swim around in my head, and it was hard to concentrate with all the people milling about the place. The building was only accessible to guests through the main doors, and with multiple receptions going on at once it seemed that there was a constant crowd of people perpetually streaming through the door and loitering in the front lobby. However, as I pondered all of these factors I was nibbling at some ridiculously delicious desserts drenched in chocolate made in-house. If there’s anyway to change my mind about a place, it’s through chocolate, but I still wasn't quite ready to give up the intimate affair I'd envisioned.

Dyker Beach Golf Course finished off that first day of looking. This one was in Brooklyn, so we were able to drop Pukey off at home before going. I was really excited to see this one, since I’ve heard good things from friends who’ve been there, and the convenience of a country club actually existing in Brooklyn was almost too good to be true…and it was. First of all, we couldn’t figure out where to park or how to get into the place, and once we were in we were told to wait in a narrow hallway—standing, mind you!—for someone who could come help us. I was expecting someone named Donna, but the person who showed up was some dude who looked more lost than I did. “So you must be Margaret!” were his first words to me, and I knew I was in for a disappointing walk-through. He didn’t say congratulations on my engagement or ask me my future husband’s name or any other little details that I am currently still dying to talk about all the time. Instead, he grilled me and my mother on how we’d heard about the place and tried to get our input on how they could better advertise. Turns out that he is not one of the venue’s two banquet managers, but instead the general manager of the golf course; it seems that both of the people I needed to see were currently nowhere to be found. This man flat-out told me he didn’t feel confident enough to answer any of my questions, but hey let’s get started anyway! And he was right…the guy was basically useless. I couldn’t help noticing, however, that the place was indeed beautiful. When he opened the French doors and we stepped outside onto the enormous stone patio, my heart picked up tempo as I took in the overwhelming beauty of the golf course. Had I not known otherwise, I NEVER would have suspected that we were actually in the middle of bustling Brooklyn. We’d gone out here to take a look at what he figured was the cocktail space, but immediately I wanted to know if a ceremony could be done here instead of the gazebo at the front of the building (the one right on the perimeter…by the street…where you can hear all the traffic). He looked confused and said, “Um…yeah, probably.” Probably? I hated this guy. I hated him more when he handed me a stack of papers containing menu and service information (as well as indecipherable notes presumably scribbled into the margins by the elusive Donna) and informed me that he couldn’t go through it with me since he didn’t know anything anyway. Once home, my mother and I examined the stack together and nearly joined Stephanie in throwing up when we saw that this disastrous hall cost nearly double what the other two venues we’d looked at were charging! Scratch that one off.

The next day we headed to Westbury Manor, another venue in Long Island. The venue actually is an old gorgeous mansion, as the name implies, with charm and grace and an old world feel. I was in love the second we walked in. I was not, however, in love with the banquet manager, who seemed to over-emphasize how long the staff had been on board (were they hypnotized? Held captive against their will?), and seemed to speak to all of them as one who doesn’t really like children might speak to children when he wants other people to think he’s endearing. Host aside, the place really was gorgeous, and even amid the gloomy weather of the day, the outside gardens (replete with peacocks, ducks, and birds of paradise) really did make me want to jump up and down with excitement. That is, until he informed me that I could only have the ceremony on-site if I had a daytime reception. With so many guests needing time allowed for travel from MA, this just isn’t an option. Further souring my spirits, the larger ballroom was too big for my guest list and the other room was too small for my guest list. I wanted to cry.

I decided not to go to the El Caribe appointment since I already had my venue narrowed down to two options (I’m not someone who likes to shop around for a long time, especially since more choices just makes the decision harder, and it isn’t easy for me to get into NY often to keep looking). I loved Westbury Manor, but cutting my guest list by 1/5 didn’t seem worth it for a venue that wouldn’t even let me get married on-site. The Fox Hollow was only slightly less spectacular than the Westbury Manor in its vibe, but the thought of booking a room before it’s built made me extremely nervous. I talked it over with Dave extensively, emailing him PDF files of all the materials both places had given me. My family and friends were also very patient with me as I struggled with the decision. In the end we decided to go with…get ready…THE FOX HOLLOW! Once the decision was made, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I’m confident we made the right decision and that further searching would have only muddled the process.

When Dave came in from Scotland, we traveled back to Long Island (the morning of the snowstorm) with my father also in tow this time, and after both of them gave their in-person approval we signed the papers.

Okay, I know that I promised you a date as well, but alas! this blog has dragged on for far too long, and choosing the perfect date was another big decision, so that ordeal will have to wait until my next entry. Thanks for sticking with me and reading this whole thing through; I know it’s become obnoxiously long.

Until next time!