I mentioned in the last post that Tim and I had looked at three possible reception venues last week, and I wanted to share pictures of them. We are looking at one more place next Saturday, but we’re pretty sold on one of three we looked at this past week. Sorry the pictures are a bit blurry—I took all of them on my phone. Oh, and this is kind of a lengthy post, but includes a lot of pictures!
9th Street Abbey
The first place we looked at is called 9th Street Abbey. It’s an old German church that was swooped up by a catering company after the church was abandoned decades ago. It’s located down in Soulard, and has the original stained glass windows and sweet ceiling details. This place has actually been on the top of my list since before we were engaged. It’s a place were we could have both the ceremony and reception—people could leave during the “room flip” or have cocktails and hors d’ oeuvres in the court yard. However, when we got there and looked at in person it was so much smaller than in pictures. [Those fancy lenses will do that.] But it’s not too big of a deal because we could still fit everyone quite comfortably without having to put tables on the dance floor. The only problems we really see with this place is the parking [one small lot and the rest is street parking] and that it is on the expensive side for the budget we’re trying to to stay within.
This is the center of the room after you see after you walk in the main doors. For ceremonies, the officiant, bride and groom stand on the stage. That’s also where the DJ would go during the reception. They were starting to set up the room for a reception later in the week.
So this is off to the right side after you walk in…look at the windows!
And to the left was a nice, big bar.
Here’s a better view of the front part of the room from the choir loft.
Now I’m standing on the stage looking back at the entrance and choir loft.
Love the ceiling!
Here’s a professional photograph of what it looks like when it’s set up for a ceremony. You can see more awesome shots of the Abbey done by Artistic Soup here.
Bevo Mill
The Bevo Mill is such a unique building. It was once owned by the Busch family [like Anheuser-Busch] and was used as August A. Busch, Sr.’s private dining room, not to mention the outside looks like a giant windmill. The building boasts lots of old world charm, but is honestly just on our list because it’s one of the more affordable options we’ve found. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really neat building, but the set up is kind of strange and doesn’t quite have the charm I’m looking for.
So this is what you see right as you walk in the main door—the bar and dessert table.
And to the left is a small room that many couples chose to rent out as the dancing area. You have to rent a dance floor since the room is carpeted.
And to the right is the main dining area. This is the room that the Busch family used for their private dining events. I actually kind like the overall look of the room [other than the carpet]. It seems a little dark, but that’s because all of the shades are shut. Tim and the lady showing us the space [Colleen] were chatting as I was taking pictures.
And a view from the opposite end of the room looking back to where I was standing in the previous picture. They were also setting up for an upcoming reception.
Space 15
This space was our favorite. It’s part of Edmond’s 15 restaurant on the outskirts of downtown. It has the wood floors and exposed brick walls that I want and is the perfect size for our reception. I actually didn’t even have this space on my list because I thought it would be too expensive, but Tim was all about seeing the room. Turns out there isn’t a space rental fee so now we feel like we can justify spending a bit more on the food/bar package. The only down sides to this is that there is an 18 and up night club on the same floor that we’d be sharing a bathroom with for the last hour of the reception. There also isn’t a designated parking lot for the restaurant so people would either have to pay a couple dollars to park in a lot or find street parking.
So I’m standing next to the bar, just left of the door. In the far corner is where the DJ would be set up. Oh, and about the DJ, we can use on the 15’s DJ’s for almost half the price it would be to bring in an outside vendor.
So now I’m standing in the DJ corner looking at the front door—Tim and Becky [the event coordinator] were talking. I love the wood pillars in the room.
And the bar is just to the right of where Tim and Becky were standing in the previous picture. They would set up the tall bar/bistro tables by the windows for people to use for the evening.
These windows were directly behind me. I love how big they are and how much light they let in—granted the wedding is in October and it will be dark by the time we get there but that’s okay! You can’t see it [thanks to the wood pillar] but there is a little nook between the last window and the wall that is the perfect size to set up a photo booth.
We’ve sent out menus to get estimates from all three places, but right now Space 15 is the front runner. I wanted to look at a place called Moulin [only a few blocks away] that’s exactly like Space 15, but bigger and way more expensive. We didn’t go look once we found out how expensive it was going to be. We do have an appointment to look at one other place next Saturday, but for right now we’re crossing our fingers for Space 15. It’s pretty much everything we want!
—m.