Brian and Melissa

Melissa and I are thrilled to announce that, pending any unforeseen circumstances, we have booked our venue and a date for our wedding!!!!

And it’s not Las Vegas.

We will be getting married on Sunday, September 14, 2008. The venue is the Eglinton Grand, located near Yonge and Eglinton. We are both thankful and thrilled to have found this gorgeous venue, and to the events coordinator there, Francesca, who was willing to spend a whole hour with us on a Saturday to show us around and actually sit down with us and discuss everything in great detail.

We couldn’t be more happy during this important moment in our lives. The venue booking, and later today, the rabbi booking, are the 2 important first steps in this long process. Now that we have a date, a venue, and an officiator, we can really concentrate on the remaining details which will truly make our wedding our wedding. We’re really looking forward to picking out a dress for Melissa, tuxedos for the men, dresses for the bridesmaids, wedding invitations, flowers, centrepieces, music, a photographer, videographer, and whatever else we have to do.

I’d like to extend special thanks to our parents, who have given us their blessing to book everything thus far. I know there will be challenges ahead, and we don’t always agree on things, but I know that we will work things out, like we always do. I would also like to extend a special thanks to my grandparents, who were there to turn to this week when Melissa and I were feeling upset about things. You have uplifted our spirits once again and will remain a very influential part of our lives. I am very lucky to have grandparents like you!

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It is now January 22. One full month and one week have gone by since I proposed to Melissa, and we have yet to find a venue and rabbi!

Not that we haven’t been looking, but as we look around at different venues, we learn more about what to look for, and what not to look for. There really are no good deals on places–different places just have different price structures. But here is what we’re learning so far:

You have 5 basic venue types: Synagogues, banquet halls, country clubs, hotels, and miscellaneous (this includes restaurants, parks, and city sites you can rent out, like Steam Whistle).

Synagogues are the most convenient. They come with a rabbi, ceremony area (temple), reception area, and and area for cocktails in between. They almost always have a free parking lot, have in-house kosher catering, staff, tables, chairs, etc. They are really by far the best-equipped for a wedding. Everything is also wrapped into one convenient price per person, but that price is very high. With the exception of one synagogue we’ve seen so far, the price will be way over $100 per person. Also the “house” rabbi at a synagogue will normally either be Orthodox or Conservative, both of which don’t fall within our beliefs. We will have to do traditional ceremonial stuff which has no meaning to us, with little room for customization. Also, the reception halls at synagogues often aren’t visually appealing. Sometimes the decor is quite old, including run-down chairs, old-looking lighting, etc.

Banquet halls are also convenient, since they usually have a ceremony area, reception area, cocktail area, and are always well-equipped for the job. They usually offer more modern facilities than synagogues, since events is what they do. They also offer free parking, and are easily accessible. And their pricing structure is convenient like a synagogue, and they do offer kosher catering (again, at a price). Unfortunately, a lot of them are in really bizzare areas of the city, like Woodbridge, with nothing around you but warehouses and factory showrooms. Banquet halls tend to pay homage to their surroundings by offering enclosed rooms, with no windows, and cheesy-looking European designs. But the biggest problem with banquet halls is that they often have multiple rooms that they rent out to different parties at once. Sometimes only a thin wall separates you from the next event, and there is a very real possibility that next door’s DJ will be blasting techno music right around the time your parents are making an emotional speech in your honour. Also, other parties might try and mooch off your host bar.

Country clubs look a lot like banquet halls, but much more well-presented, and with much more beautiful facilities, and are often places where you will want to take your photos as well. The reception room will naturally have nicer chairs, better lighting, and usually has windows overlooking the golf course or the ravine on which the club is situated. The disadvantage of country clubs is that they don’t cater specifically to weddings, so there is usually no in-house caterer. This isn’t much of a problem, because catered events at a country club are very common, but it is one more contact you have to deal with on your own. Country clubs also feel a little awkward to us, since some of them feel snobby, and we’ve never belonged to one, nor even played golf at one.

Recently, we started looking into hotels as an option. Naturally, hotels shine in the area of accomodation. We have only look at two so far, but both of them included a free suite for Melissa and I for the night. This room will serve as a natural bridal room for before the ceremony, and it can be a comfortable place to go back to if you need a quick break from everything. Packages at hotels are very clearly organized and well-thought-out, since they cater to businesses very often, where things need to be quick and professional. The problem with hotels is that the ones we’ve seen so far have not-so-nice facilities. The reception rooms have very low ceilings, and are better-suited to business conferences than weddings. But again, we’ve only look at 2 hotels so far.

Everything else we’ve look at, including Steam Whistle, as nice as the venues are, everything is separate. The individual costs sound appealing at first, but once you add them all up, they end up being the exact same as something that is all-inclusive like a synagogue or banquet hall. Things like parking, catering, table and chair rentals, alcohol, venue fees, are all extra, so they require a lot more thinking on our part. In each of these venues, except for synagogues, we have to bring in our own rabbi as well, which is somewhat of an advantage, if we can only find the right one we like!

So as it stands right now, there are a few places we still have appointments to see, and I’m sure we’ll be calling around a few more. But by now we’re pretty knowledgable now about what’s out there, and approximately how much things will cost.

And it’s not cheap!

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I think it’s funny how people are reacting to the the idea of us getting married in Las Vegas.

There are those people that are really really against it, saying that it’s cheesy, tacky, and then we find out that they haven’t even been to Las Vegas! Then, there are those people that see nothing wrong with Vegas, but just don’t want us to get married there because of their busy schedules, or that they can’t afford it, so they wouldn’t be able to attend. And that’s completely understandable.

What shocks me most is when I hear from people out of the blue–people I haven’t spoken to in years–who tell me things like “hey I read your blog and you mentioned Vegas and I just want to let you know I think it’s a fabulous idea,” and how they “were at a wedding there recently and it was lots of fun and really classy.” These surprise people make me smile, because they go to Vegas for the first time, and they see other people getting married there, and there’s an understanding that develops between them and us as to why we want to go there so bad.

What also makes me laugh, is the fact that we’re even still talking about getting married in Vegas in general. Melissa and I wanted to get married there when we first went there a long time ago, but in the past year we’ve come to the realization that it isn’t practical because we want lots of family and friends to be there. But here we are today, with a poll on the right side of this page, asking people if they’d join us in Vegas to get married. And a variety of different answers.

With all the trouble we’ve been having booking this wedding, suddenly Vegas doesn’t seem like a pipe dream anymore. In all likelihood, it won’t happen, but it’s funny when we talk to people–who were always against us going to Vegas–about all the disagreements that have gone on, and suddenly they’re all like “Wow…. hmmm… yeah, you know what? Just get married in Las Vegas!!” Hells yeah!!

“How about you don’t, ladies and gentlemen, Scotty Don’t.”

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