Hello everyone I'm new on here. I've been racking my brain doing "the research" and still nothing really fruitful.

I'm getting married, and I'm really interested in having everything be in old city philadelphia. One of our friends took a photo of us walking at penns landing together just before we got together (which is now a logo type cover for the invitations), and we just spent a lot of our beginning around that area so it seemed appropriate to have the wedding there. Plus, I'm a huge fan of being closer to nature and water, but keeping it philly.

I'm hoping to have the wedding at Old St. Josephs or Holy Trinity...or if that fails, rent the 18th century garden national park i came across...its a beautiful litte spot and it not very expensive.

I'm failing horribly at finding a very inexpensive and layed back place to have our reception in. Actually, it goes two ways:

A. Inexpensive beautiful wedding reception spot. I'm very interested in Seaport Museum -even getting married there- though i don't know the average people payed to have a small reception there...anyone know an estimate? I'v gead it's pricey with just the place rental being a few thousand. I'm having 50 people tops. I can spend max of 3000, if i'm marrying at the same place then then the price goes up to 5000.

or

B. Inexpensive place with dancing and alcohol and casual fun atmosphere to party and celebrate (yet, have food at) in old city. We love techno music, rock, jazz.

Could anyone recommend a place for me? I'd love to just take everyone to a great bar with dancing and food, but i'm also interested in a sit down dinner for our parents. Oy vei. Best chance is for the seaport museum to be inexpensive enough (with the "extras" like linnens and center pieces and food and flowers) so the younger crowd (mostly everyone) will then (after wedding and dinner) just do our own thing and go take a trip through all the bars in the area haha.

Help Anythign you can tell me is useful.

Contact the South Street Headhouse District. They rent out the Shambles/Headhouse for events...I think its $500. You can have it tented in and catered, etc. We have a handful of weddings there every year. Also, Society Hill Dance right across the street does weddings as well...and clearly are setup for dancing! You'd just have to bring in a caterer.

Not exactly Old City, but 3 blocks away and just a couple blocks from Penn's Landing.

SSHD
Contact Dave Hammond:
sshhd@aol.com
215-413-3713


http://www.societyhilldance.com/rentals.html
Contact Shana:
(215) 574 - 3574
Email: info@societyhilldance.com

Last June I had an all Old City wedding. We got married at St. Augustine(the church from the movie the Sixth Sense and Shooter) 4th and New St, then had our reception at Spasso's on Front between Market and Chestnut. Spasso's just happens to be our favorite place and they have a room off to the side for large parties, up to 100 people. We had a DJ and all, it was great. We did an afternoon wedding because we had the church at noon and traditional sitdown 4 hr reception(2 to 6). They do alot of dinners and showers, even has a dance floor, the place was perfect for our reception we had about 85 people. Very affordable. Also we ran a bar tab and it was much cheaper then doing the packages. If interested you need to call the church asap, Fr. Joe does a lot of weddings - dates may be taken even double booked. and Spasso's - ask for Ryan the manager, a great guy. We also made parking arrangements for our guests, we paid for their parking at the garages on either side of Spasso's.

Good luck and best wishes.

Wow thank you for the info
Yeah I was in st. augustines as my day of visting churches and thought it was beautiful, it was at the top of my list.

Do you by any chance remember how much you paid for the church?

Thanks for the info! I might need to ask you more later in time

We paid $500 or $600 for the church, but we are members of the parish, non members might be $100 more. We also had to pay for an organist and a cantor which I thought was little pricey, almost $200 each, but they did great. Depends if you are having a mass or ceremony only and if you know anyone who could do that. We had a mass so we kinda needed both. Also don't forget the tips, priest, server, etc... Extras that need to be included.

Also, here's an idea to save money on flowers just buy bunches of your favorite from a market or vendor in nice vases in your colors the day before or the morning of. I found cobalt blues vases, which I love and was my color and ordered 15 dz. tulips again my fav. from online floral wholesaler. I was nit-picky and did alot of stuff my self. Also we had a cupcake wedding cake, had meaning to us plus soooooooooooooooo much cheaper.

PM if you need anymore info, I'll be glad to help and give you the emails and urls of things.

That's really funny, I want cupcakes "cake" too it just seems so much more like me. My original weddign idea was so simple: Church wedding, white lilies, coming out of church cupcake display. Invasion of bar with some kind of stamp on hand marker to know who's on my tab.

But, though most of the crowd is just our friends, i still think it's nice for the parents and family to have a little calm time with us.

I made my first red velvet with cream cheese icing cake not long ago and it turned out better than i thought! I'm thinking of maybe even putting some of my own love in the cupcakes ...though i'd rather have them be done by someone else so i don't have to fuss with it all the morning of or day before.

just throwing these out there...

http://www.spiritofphiladelphia.com/ph/index.jsp

http://www.cubalibrerestaurant.com/philly_index.php


http://www.gatheringguide.com/event_...nt_venues.html


good luck with your wedding!

I was going to make the cupcakes myself as well, I love and make great chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, but would be too much work.

So then decided on getting them from Termini Brothers Bakery from the Reading Terminal because my husband would always pick up cupcakes for us whenever he went there to get fish or veggies. But they only have their standard cupcake. Finally went with Goodies by Roz on 4th or 5th right before South St., She sells them at my husband's store and he loved the carrot cake ones. We had 3 flavors: my choice- chocolate with cream cheese frosting, vanilla with buttercream, and my husband's choice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. They were to die for, she even does red velvet which woulda been my fourth choice. I have photos if you want to see them, she'll even do a tasting. For 50 people you'll only need 50 to 75(for leftoevers).

If you choose Spasso's they have really great desserts which are included so people had the cupcakes to take home, they served some on the dessert trays but most people took them home. We order 150 cupcakes so we had alot.

I would love to see the pictures

And of Spassos as well, heck anything you've got.

Thank you for all the great ideas, I'm planning to do a dinner my my fiance at Spassos next week to see the place for myself. I still have a lot of time to search around so look slike we'll be having dinner in old city a lot

I'm not sure how pricey Cuba Libre is going to get but thats the restaurant we spent our brunches at. I just never knew they did DJ-ing and salsa dancers!

Have a nice day,
D

devchonka,

Just sent you a PM to my website that has a few photos, let me know if you have any problems getting the message.