The Wedding Mill

Yesterday began the venue crazy. The next few entries will be picture heavy, but I have edited the images down from the full set on my Picasa page. Our very first venue was the Palm House at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.



Tom, my mother, my father, and I spoke with one of the owners of the exclusive caterer for the site. Weddings here are roughly five hour affairs with both reception and ceremony typically held on-site. The ceremony location varied depending on the time of day - for a daytime wedding, the ceremony could be held at the Palm House or in one spot called the Meadow, whereas at night the ceremony could be held anywhere on the grounds (as the Gardens close to the public at 6 PM).

To facilitate arranging the space (and heighten "the drama," natch), cocktails may be held either in the courtyard directly outside of the Palm House...







...or in a separate building housing three conservatory gardens. (You walk through a long hall connecting the Palm House and the gardens, so that you are never outside if the weather is ugly. Obviously, they "beautify" the hallway between the two spaces.) Guests can wander in and out of the three conservatory gardens (i.e. the "Tropical" and "Warm Temperate" rooms and another whose name I cannot remember) which flank a central room where the bar is set up:









The nice thing about the Palm House is that it is an all-inclusive deal. There is almost nothing to think about or decide, and the food would be delicious. The negatives are the wicked price tag and the fact that there is nothing to think about or decide. Both Tom and I thought the space, albeit elegant, tasteful, and professional, was a bit of a wedding farm, and hard to personalize, kind of like the clothes wearing you instead of you wearing the clothes. I suppose if we were in our thirties, this kind of a "big kid" space would fit just right. But for now, we want something a bit more unique...