Wedding ceremony venue in the Village

October 19, 2007 8:57 AM

I'm planning a 60-70 guest wedding in March, and have settled on a reception venue in the West Village (near Carmine and Bedford). This place can accomodate the Saturday morning wedding ceremony also, but I'd rather choose a different place within walking distance. I'm looking for something out of the ordinary. We are atheist and plan to have an officiant from the Ethical Society.

I'm pawing through a pile of links, several of which came from Mefi, but I thought I'd ping y'all with my precise location and see if it rings any bells.

As always, thanks for helping! The right answer will make my betrothed a Mefi believer just like me. :-)

posted by maniabug to society & culture (7 comments total)

The new park along the Hudson is pretty nice. I don't know about, facilities, regulations etc but you may want to check it out.
posted by flummox at 9:11 AM on October 19, 2007

A friend of a friend got married at The Inn at Irving Place. It's a really lovely place, hard to find - a jewelbox. Just a tad far for walking to Carmine and Bedford, but perhaps worth it.
posted by minervous at 9:19 AM on October 19, 2007

flummox, while the park is beautiful, NYC in March could be all kinds of bad.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:28 AM on October 19, 2007

The Alger House at 6th and Bleecker is fairly close by.

A little farther north is Banchet Flower Shop on Washington St.

Film Forum is just around the corner!

Another bad thing about Hudson River Park: the traffic on the west side highway is abominably loud.
posted by mattbucher at 11:45 AM on October 19, 2007

mattbucher, Mr. GM and I got married at the Alger House nine years ago this month. In fact, maniabug, I had a private bet with myself that that was the reception venue you were alluding to.

We chose to have both ceremony and reception there, and were very pleased. We had a morning wedding, like you, with just about the same number of guests. We found they handled the transition from ceremony setup (chairs, aisle, chuppah) to reception setup (tables, buffet, bar) extremely smoothly.

However, if you want to have the wedding somewhere else, you could perhaps try one of the small theaters nearby: the Minetta Lane Theater, the Perry St. Theater, the Grove St. Theater -- or the Cherry Lane?

We live in the neighborhood still, so I will keep my eyes open for other options to suggest. And congratulations!
posted by GrammarMoses at 9:44 AM on October 20, 2007

(BTW, Alger House: not at Sixth and Bleecker - I don't know why they bill it that way. It's at 45 Downing near Bedford, dangit.)
posted by GrammarMoses at 9:51 AM on October 20, 2007

Very late followup... We went with Alger House for ceremony and reception, and were totally pleased. Jeno was on top of all the essentials, both before and during the wedding. We brought our own wine (wife is in the biz), but we had to go with their food. That was my one misgiving, but the food quality was on the upper end of the range for catered wedding food.

Alger House was affordable, intimate, distinctive, professional, and in a super cool location. For a small party, this must be the best wedding value in Manhattan.

Thanks again Mefi!
posted by maniabug at 11:20 AM on July 23, 2008