Let's start where we started, the Market Building. The Market Building is smack in the center of downtown Roanoke. We went to check out the top floor of the building.
As you can see, the top floor is currently in a state of disarray. We'll get to that in a minute. First, check out the space! Look at those windows! All that floor space!
Just amazing. There's really no limit to what we could do in this space. Alright, I hear you, "It's gorgeous but what's with the mess?" This space is getting ready to be renovated. We have seen the plans for the finished space, and it won't change much. The biggest change will be in the area of the last photo. We'd lose a few feet of space but we'd gain a men's and women's bathroom and a coat check area. There's a space in the back that will be turned into a full service catering kitchen. This space is going to be a hot commodity once it reopens. So why haven't we booked it yet? Everything is still in the early stages. We have to wait to get any accurate quotes for the space rental and we may have to wait even longer to find out whether we can chose a caterer or find out which caterer will be chosen to be exclusive for the space. So there's a lot of details up in the air. The other big clincher is that the space is planned to be completed in time for Memorial Day Weekend 2011. We all know that very few construction projects finish on time, so that would give us a narrow and very tight time frame to find a Plan B should we need one.
Did I mention you can see most of downtown Roanoke's major landmarks from this location? (This is the Hotel Roanoke)
The other space that is a hot contender for us after this weekend is one of several location operated by Schaals catering. We visited their Metamorphosis location which is two doors down from Davidson's downtown location. We had walked by the location several times before and figured it was a very small space. We went in thinking that we A) won't be able to use the space because it wouldn't be big enough or B) we'd have to dramatically cut our guest list to fit in the space. Luckily, it wasn't as small as we thought. We met with Amanda Schaal, who was a pleasure to speak with. The space is decorated in deep earth tones which work for so many different types of events. The color and tone of the space doesn't come out in the pictures (I was using my small hand-cam). The room was already set up from a wedding the night before. The tables were set up to seat 80 along with some cocktail style tables sprinkled through out the rooms for folks who wanted to stand and chat. With the 80 seated set up, there was still an open space in the middle of the floor that could be used for any number of things, including a chuppah and/or a dance floor.
Oh, did I mention the light bar?
The downside to this space is that it is cozy. As I said before, you're looking at seating for 80 on the main floor in the photos (doesn't include seats at bar or couches in front). At most, this space fits 125 with folks sitting and standing, 150 if all standing. So we would definitely need to shear down our guest list a tad.
The best part about meeting with Amanda was learning that the prices we found on the website were out dated. The estimates we got really helped to get us excited again because it meant we could really afford a wedding, compared to the quotes we got from Hotel Roanoke. We spoke with Amanda about some of our ideas that we had, even some that we had gotten from our Hotel Roanoke visit, and they could do all of it! Even if we don't use Metamorphosis, we can still hire Schaals as our caterer and the cost wouldn't be too much more. *deep sigh of relief*
So these are our top two contenders at the moment. We have numbers to crunch and compare, which will help us get a grip on exactly how large or small we can afford to have our guest list be. We have ideas, lots of ideas, from the Roanoke family and the Davidson boys taking our theme and running with it! As much as this past weekend was a roller coaster, the high points were definitely when we saw people genuinely excited when they shared their ideas with us - cake toppers, grand entrance, decorations, centerpieces, table designs, etc. My notebooks are filling up with ideas. You know your theme is right when everyone, including both of you, get really excited about it and anything related to it. Our theme will be revealed in due time. For now, go back and enjoy the photos of these two fabulous venues.
No comments:
Post a Comment