Hall Hunting

Posted by: Dan on Aug 07, 2007

The one thing that worked out really well was the fact that the week after I proposed to Brooke she had nothing going on – her words, not mine. Her idea of nothing going on is still a pretty busy “Dan day”. Anyway it gave her the chance to line up a few reception halls to look at.

I believe it was August 7th that she lined up two locations for us to have a look at. The first one on the list was the Sheraton Hotel in Brookfield, WI. It wasn’t bad but it just wasn’t us. I can’t explain it other than it looked blah. We’ve been to a wedding reception there before and it was beautiful, but just looking at the room we weren’t impressed.

After that we hit the second location, the Schauer Arts & Activities Center out in Hartford, WI. When we arrived I wasn’t sure what to make of it from the outside. It looked like your standard, big ol’ building. From the pictures online I didn’t know what to think.

We walk in and right away I was thrilled. The staircase leading up to the hall was pretty slick and I could imagine it on the night of our wedding. It only got better from there. Up stairs there’s a landing area which has a small art gallery – very cool. The reception hall itself was bigger than I figured it to be, the color on the walls was awesome and the full wall of windows was really impressive. I wasn’t sure what Brooke was thinking but I got the idea she liked it as much as I did. We both commented on how much we liked it after we made it outside and pretty much decided right there that we found our hall.

Of course we did have an appointment to look at the Rotunda here in Waukesha. I have to give the Rotunda its praises – the building from the outside is pretty cool. I think it would be beautiful for a wedding. The one problem we had with it was when you walk inside the dance floor is kind of blocked off from where the tables would be. There are some massive stone pillars in the way and as cool as they looked, it just didn’t feel right.

I think we decided that night we would go with the Schauer Arts & Activities Center. Brooke contacted the lady there, asked some questions and before long the contract was in Brooke hands. She brought it over one night, we looked it over and then later that week Brooke ran out the contract and a down payment. We had our hall.

Our Dream....Crushed

Posted by: Brooke on Aug 07, 2007

Dan and I had thrown around the idea of having our wedding reception at Boerner Botanical Gardens. It is a favorite place of ours and we thought it would be perfect! After the proposal, I was busy calling to start the wedding planning. I called Boerner Botanical Gardens and found out they were filling up, but had a few summer 2008 dates open. I was glad about that. Then I asked about the price. That’s when I realized that we were NOT meant to have our wedding reception at the Boerner Botanical Gardens. It just wasn’t within our price range. I was a bit sad, but in the end everything worked out the way it was suppose to.