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Sorry it's taken me so long to write a review! Life has been hectic since our wedding. We had a great day. My only complaint is that it went too fast!
The Grand Prospect Hall: I have to divide this review into 2 categories--Before the wedding, and Day of. On the day of the wedding, everything went smoothly. The food was great, as far as I know the service was good, the hall looked gorgeous, and I wasn't worried. (They also did my cake for me, and it was the best thing I've ever tasted. I wish I had a piece of it right now!) I give almost all of the credit for this to our maitre'd, Tom. He was amazing and totally set my mind at ease. He also wore a mask all night long for my masquerade theme, which I really appreciated!
The BMs and owner kept telling me I would have to do all the table setup myself (see below), but Tom and his staff took care of it and did a great job.
HOWEVER, right up until that morning, the hall pretty much sucked. To give you some background, we were planning our wedding from California, where we live. The hall is in Brooklyn. Okay, so on three different occasions we made appointments to go to the hall in order to go over wedding plans. Twice the person we were supposed to meet with just didn't show up at all, and the third time they were an hour and a half late. Keep in mind that we flew 3,000 miles to keep these appointments! And each time this happened, they acted as if it was our fault. Even though we had MADE AN APPOINTMENT.
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They never called us back when we called, they refused to finalize any plans at all until the week of the wedding, and they kept promising us things and then taking it back (in other words, one BM would say she'd throw in this or that, and then the owner would refuse to do it. Or another BM would quote us a price on something, and then the owner would charge us more). And when I gave them a detailed list of the favors, table cameras, and table signs to go on the tables, they said it was too complicated for their staff and that I'd have to do it myself. Hello? Doesn't everyone have those things at their weddings?
So I'm still annoyed at them, obviously. But this hall is the most beautiful place you can imagine, so it was worth it. The grand ballroom is a true ballroom. It's 100 years old, with huge chandeliers and two stories of balconies around the whole room. The entire place is gilded and there are incredible moldings throughout. It walks the line between tacky and breathtaking, but as long as you handle your event the right way, it's spectacular. As soon as we saw it, DH said that he wanted to have a formal Venetian masked ball. That theme fit perfectly with the ornate style of the place, and all our guests kept telling us that they felt like they were in a fairy tale. So I recommend this hall...as long as you're willing to do a lot of the work yourself, because they're really bad at helping you plan.
Which brings me to my Day-of Coordinator,
Judith Garner The hall was making me crazy because they wouldn't let me finalize anything. And they kept yessing me every time I had a question, but the next time I would talk to them, they'd have no record of the previous conversation in which they'd yessed me to death! My wedding had a theme, so there were a lot of details to keep track of. I had done all the planning for it myself, but I didn't trust the hall to do what I wanted as far as set-up, dealing with my vendors, etc. So I hired Judith to handle the hall on the wedding day. She was awesome. If anything went wrong, I still don't know about it! I got to concentrate on what really mattered--getting married. I'm certain that if I didn't have Judith, I would've been running around hysterically trying to troubleshoot right up until I walked down the aisle. She confirmed with all the vendors the week before the wedding, she coordinated the vendors and the hall set-up, and she completely set my mind at ease. I'm not the type of person to hire a wedding planner, but with an unreliable hall and me so far away, it just seemed like the right choice. Judith's rates are really reasonable and she's terrific. I'd recommend her to anybody.
The hall:
pre-wedding
during wedding:
The centerpieces I made:
My placecard table:
The cake (provided by the hall):
The cocktail room set up:
