Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Wedding Wednesday: The Ceremony Location

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Two months ago when I posted that we choose The Elkridge Furnace Inn as our reception venue, I failed to mention that it would also be our ceremony location.

My mom always mentioned the chapel at my childhood church, which we considered, but I never really saw myself getting married there.  In the end Jay and I realized that as a couple who are not committed to a religion, why would we get married in a church?  Ideally, we wanted a venue that could hold both our ceremony and reception.

Another factor in our ceremony location was guests. Besides my Dad’s side of the family, my high school friends and our DC friends, the rest of our guests are from out-of-town. It is also very important to us not to burden our friends who had to travel. By having the ceremony and reception in one location they don’t have to worry about transportation (more on that in another post).

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The Elkridge Furnace Inn has a beautiful outdoor ceremony space. Since we are having a June wedding, we really liked that this space is shaded and right next to the Patapsco River. Hopefully the shade will give our guests a reprieve from the Baltimore heat (haha we can dream).

The only concern we had with an outdoor ceremony space was the possibility of rain. Thankfully Elkridge has a back-up plan, the tent.

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At this location, they have three distinct areas, the ceremony area, cocktail area and the reception area. In case of rain, the ceremony would be held in the reception area (or tent) and then reset while the guests are at cocktail hour.

Where did you hold your ceremony? Did you have a back-up plan?