New York wedding

August 17, 2005 2:06 PM

Where should I get married in New York City?

If everything goes as planned, I'm getting married Fall 2006. I need ideas of where to do this, both for the ceremony and the reception. No churches please. Okay to think "outside of the box", but "bungee jump from a hot air balloon onto the Empire State Building" is over doing it a bit. Any of the 5 boroughs are game.
Central Park and The Frying Pan remain options, but a few more would really help. The budget is fairly tight, but I'm not sure exactly what it is yet. Number of guests is also undetermined, but let's just say from about 150-200.
Winners can't come on our honeymoon, but you'll be in our hearts forever.
Thanks in advance...

posted by hellbient to society & culture (23 comments total)

How much do you plan to spend? I got married in DC as cheaply as we could possibly do it and had 150 people, that ran us in the $20-30 k range. I'd have to think that NYC would easily be at least twice that.

how about in the gardens here?
posted by Pollomacho at 2:13 PM on August 17, 2005

I went to a great wedding a few falls ago in Harlem, at a historical home/park on a bluff overlooking the river, I think it was in Hamilton Heights? The name escapes me...They got married on the front porch at sunset. Quite nice.
posted by pomegranate at 2:21 PM on August 17, 2005

Wow, I dunno. Maybe I should've asked about $ instead.
You paid $20-30,000 for your wedding?? And that's normal?? I don't even come close to having that much money.

hmmm...Vegas...
posted by hellbient at 2:23 PM on August 17, 2005

My cousin got married at the Queer Eye loft, the swanky pad you see the Fab Five at when they're reviewing old footage. She loved it. I suspect, however, 150-200 people would piss off the fire chief.
posted by symphonik at 2:25 PM on August 17, 2005

My sister got married on a boat as it circled Manhattan. It may have been this one. It was a lot of fun; nobody threw up who didn't want to throw up.
posted by tiny purple fishes at 2:27 PM on August 17, 2005

The Foundry is a really great space in Long Island City.
posted by footnote at 2:54 PM on August 17, 2005

You may want to go for a city hall wedding and then a party after. That's what I would do; it may be easier to keep it cheaper. (And congrats.)
posted by dame at 2:56 PM on August 17, 2005

Roof garden at the Met? Or the cloisters? They'll probably say no, but what the hell, asking is free.
posted by IndigoJones at 2:57 PM on August 17, 2005

The Angel Orensanz Foundation Arts Center looks like a fantastic place for a wedding, although I'm not sure how much it would cost to hire out. And 150 guests might rattle around in that huge space.
posted by essexjan at 3:28 PM on August 17, 2005

A friend of mine is getting married at The Tobacco Warehouse; I believe she mentioned that it was fairly cheap to rent the space, although I don't know what "cheap" means in this context.

You don't have to spend $20k on your wedding, even in NYC. What you may need to do is rethink what's really necessary for your wedding. Weddings used to usually consist of merely a short ceremony followed by cake and punch at someone's home, with the bride wearing her best, but not a new, dress. It's unlikely anyone you know has a home big enough to host the wedding in the city, of course, but there are a lot of ways to eliminate expenses.
posted by hilatron at 3:43 PM on August 17, 2005

On rereading, I just wanted to clarify that I don't see anything wrong with spending as much or as little as you like on a wedding (as long as you don't have to rob a bank to do it), and including whatever poufy dresses or dancing elephants make you happy. There's just so many assumptions about what a wedding is supposed to include, and a lot of it is not strictly necessary to the actual getting-married thing.
posted by hilatron at 3:55 PM on August 17, 2005

Information on Central Park weddings. Also, the Bohemian Hall beer garden in Astoria has an indoor hall that starts at $750, and their outdoor garden starts at $1K.
posted by Vidiot at 4:12 PM on August 17, 2005

This wedding guide from Time Out may also be handy.
posted by Vidiot at 4:15 PM on August 17, 2005

Also, Prospect Park in Brooklyn is great. It has some nice-looking venues, but they strike me as being on the expensive side.

I also think it'd be fun to get married on the Staten Island Ferry -- I wonder if there's some good reception venue on the SI side that's convenient?
posted by Vidiot at 4:18 PM on August 17, 2005

I went to a fantastic wedding in Central Park last year. I believe it cost them about $300 for a wedding permit?
posted by jamesonandwater at 5:44 PM on August 17, 2005

I thought of The Cloisters too, but haven't found much web evidence that they host weddings. (Which probably means not.)
posted by Aknaton at 6:00 PM on August 17, 2005

Wave Hill, or in Central Park, or a photo studio with great views, but dame has a great point--all the best wedding receptions i've been to have been in the couple's favorite restaurant (or just a really cute/romantic/exotic/lush one) rented out for the night.
posted by amberglow at 6:32 PM on August 17, 2005

Information about the Met & Cloisters. Not good news:

Entertaining at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a privilege reserved for the Museum’s highest-level Corporate Patrons... with the requisite contribution of $60,000 ... All costs of the event itself are assumed by the host.

posted by smackfu at 7:01 PM on August 17, 2005

Congratulations.

My husband and I got married this July. As neither of us are religious, we chose the chapel to his university college (which was basically just a nice space, no religious imagery). It was very beautiful, and we could have the reception in the garden outside, dinner in the hall below, and dancing, all in the same building. Universities can have good spaces, though if they know it, they start overcharging for it.

The cost of the whole wedding (including dinner for 80 people, a band, the hall and chapel, etc.) was I think about $10,000, but the bulk of that was definitely the dinner and wine (the college had an exclusive catering contract), which was $6000. If you choose not to have a dinner, or can otherwise reduce spending on that, that is where you can really save.

There is advice EVERYWHERE about how to save money on a wedding, but it's really all about priorities. The minimum you can spend is the cost of the wedding liscense and registration plus officiant. The maximum is in the clouds. But you can find books and websites and advice all over to help you save.

The best advice I can think would be to set your budget first, before you do anything else. This will take negotiation - if you are paying for your own wedding, you may still face strong familial pressure to spend more than you are comfortable with to do what people think you should do. If your families are helping with the costs of the wedding, then that makes the negotiations somewhat earlier, since at least then if they think something is important (like a large dinner), they are prepared to pay for it. No matter what, you will never have your dream wedding - my dream wedding would have cost about $1000 (outside with a potluck lunch), but I wasn't being realistic (about being able to book outside), and both my husband and our families wanted something different. It turned out that the compromise was wonderful, for all of us, but it helped that I had certainly given up many of my expectations.

If you would like more advice on what I found good to save money on, please feel free to email (newly weds always like talking about their weddings, but I don't want to bore people anymore here).
posted by jb at 7:18 PM on August 17, 2005

We got married on a barge in Brooklyn and I'd highly recommend it. Nice and cheap, too. Here's their website: http://www.waterfrontmuseum.org/.
posted by Framer at 3:34 AM on August 18, 2005

Congratulations!

A good breakdown of various venues we considered from New York Magazine. It might also be worth perusing their rehersal dinner list. We did a brunch at City Hall restaurant--which was amazing, but we had a party of 80. Other venues, the New York Botanic Gardens, Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, the top deck at the Seaman's Church Institute (non-denominational and great views of the bridges) As footnote mentioned, we loved the Foundry in LIC--great space. Good luck!
posted by teddyb109 at 3:48 AM on August 18, 2005

so many great ideas and beautiful places! Thanks so much everyone. It really is a tremendous help. We've got a lot of thinking to do.
posted by hellbient at 7:36 AM on August 18, 2005

You paid $20-30,000 for your wedding?? And that's normal?? I don't even come close to having that much money.

Hey, I don't want to discourage you, but really its all in the numbers. There are ways to go cheaper and still have 150+ people and a really good time. Find a free venue like an outdoor amphitheater. Have a picnic style reception with paper plates and table cloths at a park.

We started planning a 10 person wedding in Mexico and it grew, and grew AND GREW until we had the 150 person deal with a sitdown meal and drinks and silverware and tablecloths and chairs and a band and glasses and flowers and...

Its a racket, believe me. They charge you rental for each and every thing, everything. Every spoon, charge. Every chair, charge. Pretty soon the SouthWest flight to Vegas and the Elvis impersonator in the wedding chapel looks better and better!

We didn't/don't have the money either.
posted by Pollomacho at 8:21 AM on August 18, 2005