Selecting A Wedding Venue

We asked one of our future brides if she would be interested in writing a guest blog post for us and she agree. Samantha is in the middle of planning her wedding at the Essex Room next May with her fiancé Chris. She wanted to share with everyone a bit about their process in selecting a wedding venue north of Boston  and why they chose to go with Woodman’s. It might give you some insight into what our wedding planners, and our function hall, have to offer, and why we love working with brides, grooms, and their families to help plan one of the most important days of their lives. We’re sure that Samantha and Chris will have a beautiful day next May, and we hope that she writes back and tells us more about her experience. And as always, if you’re looking for a banquet hall for your special day, check out the Essex Room at www.essexroom.com, our other venues for wedding and rehearsal dinners  or call us at 978-768-7335 and we’d be happy to set up a tour of our venues overlooking the beautiful Essex salt marshes.

I would love the Essex Room from my first email exchange with Norm, our wedding consultant. It may have been his use of smiley faces and LOLs that initially put me at ease, but his warm personality was clear even through email. I HAD to meet this man and see this place in person. It was the first venue my fiancé and I visited, and we absolutely fell in love with it that day. The atmosphere was perfect for us: laid-back and fun, with lots of personal, quirky details. Our road to finding and booking the Essex Room for our wedding was a little offbeat though…
My fiancé, Chris, proposed to me last September after 5 years of dating, and many more years of friendship. I cried when he dropped down on one knee in our living room one night and asked me to marry him. Honestly, he was choked up too, although he now likes to say the floor was just dusty and he was clearing his throat – lies!
Chris and I share the same perspective about our wedding: it should be a really special, amazing party with our loved ones to celebrate our marriage. We went into this with the idea that planning the wedding should be FUN and that we’d make an effort to keep it as uncomplicated as possible. We’d focus on our guests enjoying good food and drinks, tearing up the dance floor, and us sharing our love with everyone. Who doesn’t love a good party?!
Our engagement was in the midst of a very challenging time in our lives. We had both recently started new jobs, and had bought a house. Awesome, yet significant, life-changing events! On a more serious note, we were also reeling from the loss of Chris’ close friend that past summer, and then my oldest brother just two months later. It was hard to process our feelings this year – incredible joy and love, mixed with confusion and sadness. I am SO thankful to have had the love of my fiancé, family, and friends to get me through the tough times and see all of the wonderful things that were happening too.
We inevitably got lots of questions from our loved ones – when’s the date? What’s the venue? Have you picked your colors? Planned your honeymoon? Thinking about kids yet?! We pushed off our planning month after month, and joked that our save-the-date would read “Chris and Sam are getting married…. eventually.” My best friend politely (and after more time had passed, not so politely) reminded us that great places get snapped up quickly, so we started the big search.
Personally, I find wedding websites and magazines to be a little overwhelming, but I gave The Knot a try and searched for venues north of Boston. The Essex Room showed up in one of my searches. I had never heard of it, but I was familiar with Cape Ann, and knew it could be a gorgeous place to get married. I did all of the typical internet investigating: I started with the Essex Room’s website, moved on to reading reviews on other sites from past brides, and then looked at pictures on wedding photography websites. Along with the Essex Room, I sent out a few inquiries to venues in the area, and waited for the responses to roll in. That first email back from Norm really sold me – it wasn’t just the same old stock response I had been getting from other places with a huge PDF of fees and restrictions attached. It was so nice to feel like someone really cared about our wedding day. That friendliness continued at our meeting and tour of the facility. Norm and the rest of the staff welcomed us in with open arms that day. We fell in love with them and the Essex Room! The views were beautiful and we wanted to hang out in the Lobster Trap all day. Everyone was so nice – offering us food and drinks, bringing us around the building, and even giving us tips to save money on our reception. They didn’t just sit us down and shove prices in our faces, and we really appreciated that. We couldn’t stop talking about the Essex Room after we left. We knew we had found the right place for us.

I am so excited to get married at the Essex Room next May! Norm and Faye – get ready for our big Irish/Italian families and a wedding filled with cops, corrections officers, military officers, nurses, and teachers. We all love to have a good time!