A Castle For A Castle

As some of you may know, this whole blog was spawned because of the timeless beauty and charm of Boldt Castle in Alexandria Bay, NY.

Such a romantic place made it easy to daydream about a wedding with my sweetheart, but when the time comes to put down deposits, how does it level up to reality?!?

I've mentioned three favorable venue ideas a while back, but since I've posted those, Pine Tree Point Resort's website is nothing more than a real estate listing, so it may be out of business, prices have gotten RIDICULOUS for Edgewood Resort, ($125 per person?!? o.0), and prices have gone up the Clayton Opera House, however those prices are still very reasonable for a building rental.

After looking over the local venues again with a fine tooth comb (since I decided I didn't want to go too far from the castle,) the ONLY other venue worth considering was the newly-renovated Thousand Islands Club.

I found a couple more pictures on their facebook page, their reception room is alright, however the bar looks smashing and overall it's a lot better than most in the area.  But of course, their wedding packages have not been posted yet  :P  I messaged them on facebook weeks ago and have not received a response.

*sighs*

So I started thinking, "Do I really want to deal with the frustration of dealing with a destination wedding venue that won't return my messages?!"

And I realized...that I don't.

I realized that it might be too difficult to get out-of-town guests over to a town that's 2hrs away from any major airport.

I realized that it might be difficult to afford venues in the area when there aren't many existing to begin with!

But what helped ease the loss of such a pretty ceremony spot?

Why, another castle of course! :D

I present to you:

<3 Belhurst Castle! <3

This lovely venue my friends, is located in Geneva, NY in the fabulous Finger Lakes area!

Let me tell you, I LOVE THE FINGER LAKES!

There's a reason why Mrs. Locket and Miss Fairy from Weddingbee choose that area for their weddings!  Everywhere you go you are going through gorgeous countryside, with so many lake views, you won't know what to do with yourself! :D

And this gem is on Seneca Lake, right on the shore :)

You want to know what else is everywhere in the Finger Lakes?  Wineries.  Top-notch, quality, wineries.  Dozens of them!  It's awesome sauce XD

And guess what?  This castle is a winery too!  Ack I die!

And you want to know what else?!  It's a hotel too!

AND it has a spa!

Tell 'em what else they've won Johnny!

A NEW CAR! 
(just kidding, I was on a roll XD)

So as you can see, this is what Boldt Castle would be like if it was easier to pull off! XD

It's a stunning one-stop-shop, the girls and I can get ready in the spa, (or my hotel room,) the ceremony would be outside facing the lake, the reception indoors, their tasty wine would be poured for the reception, guests can stay there for the night, and then the morning after brunch could be in their restaurant the next morning! :D

(Best photo I could find of the Meritage Ballroom that's not the virtual tour :P)

Doesn't it sound just perfect?!

I'm definitely starting to think so :)

So, what's the catch?

1) It's two hours away from Buffalo
2) It's a bit pricier than my other options

Both are fixable, however:

1) Geneva, NY is close to the thruway so it makes things mildly easier for driving commuters.  For out-of-town guests, Geneva is equidistant from both the Rochester and Syracuse airports, one hour away.  Not ideal, but I can get them a reduced group rate for car rentals at one airport to lessen the blow :P  I found that Rochester, NY was consistently more affordable than Syracuse for flights, so the special rate would most likely be there.

2) Belhurst Castle does have an absolutely horrible policy of having a minimum of $9000 for Saturday receptions May through October o.0  I don't even KNOW how you would spend that much money, (trust me, I've tried pricing it out!).  Solution?  Pick a date in the off-season, where there are no minimums, which is totally doable.

So, is two hours an ideal commute?
--No, but it's better than four hours XD

I can't WAIT til we come for a visit!!! :D

A Penny For Your Thoughts...

So, let's talk about that 6-letter-word in the wedding world, budget.

*shudders* o.o

Or another way to put it:  What ridiculous amount of DIYing am I going to have to do to keep the budget down?!? XD

Yeah, our budget is going to be smaller than I would have liked...

...a lot smaller :p

Why? Well, the key thing to note here is:

Home Ownership = Empty Pockets

Allow me to explain:

1) Foundation cracks downstairs start leaking water
2) Cracks start leaking a LOT of water...
3) Niagara Falls now resides in your rec room
4) ...and your laundry room
5) ...AND the home theater starts developing mold on the walls
6) Time to demo the drywall!
7) *cue sobbing over the mess that was once your home theater*
8) Oh look, another crack!
9) Call in contractors
10) Receive quotes and faint
11) Wake up and realize, no this is not a dream
12) Pout, but fork over the dough because your sick of bailing out your home and you want a quality job done
13) Spend the next year renovating the home theater, which would have taken the average do-it-yourself-er 2 months
14) Give up on the crown molding, leaving only parts of it on the walls and move the theater equipment back in
15) Weird spots start to appear on the ceiling...hmmm...
16) Floor starts warping in the hallway
17) GIANT PUDDLE appears in hallway
18) *cue sobbing as you realize the roof is leaking*

XP  Yeah...

Pair this with my slow improvement of my spending habits and what do you get?! =
A very, very tiny wedding budget!

I knew this blog would be good for something! XD

So, what have we done to remedy this situation?

-The finance suggested getting married in Vegas by Fat Elvis -.-  I was not impressed.
-A 2014 wedding is practically confirmed.  We simply need more time to save up money, and as they say, time is money!
-A winter wedding is more desirable due to the across-the-board, off-season discounts with all vendors and services (Plus it's so pretty!!! :D)
-Venues that are too expensive get crossed off my list, no questions asked (There might have been some pouting however, lol)

So what does this mean for the gorgeous Boldt Castle in the Thousand Islands?  A very surprising outcome, to say the least.

To be continued!

The One, The Only...Boldt Castle

So I figured I might as well give you the lowdown of the castle I have mentioned, the lovely Boldt Castle!


A gorgeous castle surrounded by pretty gardens on a heart-shaped island in the Thousand Islands area!

Lovely, isn't it?!

It wasn't always that way. The castle was built by George C. Boldt for his wife Louise as a labor of love, but unfortunately mid-construction she passed away. Heartbroken, Boldt abandoned the project and the castle.

Years later in 1977, renovations began to take place and now a good part of the castle is back to, or greater than, its former glory and open to the public. There are still many parts of the castle left to work on, and as time passes more and more areas of the castle are completed.


Weddings here are a bit structured to say the least. You can only have the wedding outside at the gazebo, (if raining on the veranda) but since the rental fee is basically just admission fees to the castle, (and a new $150 "reservation fee" XP) all attending can view the castle if they like.


What to expect for a wedding at Boldt Castle:

First and foremost, it is on an island, so the biggest thing is getting your guests, your bridal party, your decorations, your officiant, your musicians, etc. across the water to your ceremony! Fortunately Uncle Sam Boat Tours does group sales for its shuttle, so you can decide to either pay for your guest tickets or just reserve a block of tickets for them.

You have a limit of 150 people in attendance, including the officiant, musicians, photographer, etc. and you have an hour and a half for setup, the ceremony, and cleanup of the site. Not much time to work with, but I assume you can have photos taken onsite before or after the ceremony without much fuss, since it is a public attraction after all!

They say the staircase in the castle is not available for photos, but I would definitely try to make a special request...


Every ceremony comes with a changing/waiting room for the bride and bridesmaids, all ceremony chairs, a portable address system, and a free wedding rehearsal for the wedding party.


Costs for a ceremony is $7 per adult, $4.50 per young child for all attending, (again, officiant, musicians, photographer, etc. included), and a $150 reservation fee.

You cannot have a reception on the island, unfortunately, but if you're really set on having your reception at a castle, Singer Castle might be more up your alley!


I will probably do a review for Singer Castle sometime, but personally I like the grounds of Boldt Castle more. However if it can hold a decent number of people for a seated dinner then I may consider it Thousand Island reception option #5! XD

So yes, while the castle is pretty, it's no bargain in my opinion. If I have 100 guests, that's $850 just for the ceremony site... XP At least viewing the rest of the castle will give my guests something to do before the reception??? *shrugs*

But it is a castle...such a pretty, pretty castle XD

A New Way To Do Wedding Research...

I don't know if this is already widely used, but I have starting using a new research technique that I think would be extremely helpful to all brides-to-be out there.

Facebook.

Yes, it is the evil Facebook that's practically sucking out your personal info and trying to take over the world, but this is a new dynamic (for me anyways,) of looking at venues and vendors alike.

With a Facebook page, the company has to have some description, contact info, and photos. What's great about these photos is most of them are personal, non-professional photos of the venue/vendor in action.

This gives a genuine look of how it really is, so a excited bride does not have to arrive at a professionally photographed venue and be disappointed.

And if the company page doesn't have personal photos posted, anyone who is willing can put up their own personal photos and tag the company in, making it visible on the company's page.

I have already "liked" the Boldt Castle page, and I love it. The status of the page tells me about the weather, how many weddings there are each weekend, if the place is crowded that day, and any events taking place.

Stalk a venue's page long enough and you'll get a decent feel for what the location is like!

I know other sites probably provide this, Twitter, Flickr, etc. but if you don't have another way to access this type of information, try it. I suggest however only using Facebook for research only and put up very minimal information about yourself if you don't already have an account.

Well, back to my usual internet surfing, I hope I helped someone out there!

Inspiration Board Attempt #1

I thought for some fun I would try making my own inspiration board...

WOW. There are sooo many purple wedding photos! 8D Now I know why some bloggers call it "wedding porn," I couldn't stop looking at them!!!

"Just one more photo"
*click*
"Just one more photo"
*click*
(repeat :P)

So this kinda took me a while, considering I had over 50 picture favs to choose from! XD

So to whittle down the choices, I tried to sum up this explosion of purple everything...

I wanted to include the obvious charm of Boldt Castle, but I wanted modern touches as well, (nothing too overally frilly in other words,) so I came up with a lame, but acceptable "purple sophisticated romance".


(click to enlarge)
Pretty, isn't it?! :D

Now That I Think About It...

Going back to the lovely wedding I attended over a week ago, I realized something. I probably won't need to reserve 3 hours at the ceremony site!

I remember the groom worrying about rain and saying that they only had the site for an hour for the ceremony. (So if they had to delay it due to rain, they could have been short on time.)

Boldt Castle only gives 1 and 1/2 hour slots for weddings. Duke Gardens probably did the same thing with the wedding I attended. They seemed to have no problem setting up, having a nice ceremony, and cleaning up the site on time. And as far as I could tell, they had no problem taking pictures afterward either! (In other words, they could take photos outside of their ceremony slot)

So, I am revising my estimate for the ceremony location fee to $650, 1 and 1/2 hours for 100 people at $6.50 a head.

$650 down, $5K left to go, lol

XP

Well Enough About Soaps...

Back to wedding plans!

Here are a few essentials for my wedding, no-questions-asked:

1) The ceremony at Boldt Castle
2) A sit-down meal with food that has some class and detail
3) An open bar
4) Have a reception in the Watertown, NY/Kingston, ON area
5) Light purple as a wedding color

Unfortunately, the sit-down meal, the open bar, and the out-of-town destination will probably increase the budget the most, but I feel they are untouchable for the following reasons:

Why, oh why, a sit-down meal:
I'm a very much a foodie, and so is my bf, we love going out to eat, and we both love cooking! (although my bf does most of cooking these days, :P) My wonderful bf has come up with dishes that he describes as "sirloin steaks with a mushroom and balsamic vinegar cream sauce, with a little touch of thyme and rosemary", sounding like one of the chefs on the Food Network :) So the wedding could not represent us fully if it did not have amazing food, case closed.

Why, oh why, an open bar:
My bf has a heritage of Irish, Scottish, and German. In other words, he was born to drink, lol. So he family, in turn, is too. And his friends? Cheered at the last wedding we went to when the bar came back out after dinner. Yeah...the bar needs to be there XD

And the castle!?:
To be honest, this is my "wow factor" for my wedding, without it, my wedding would be exactly the same as every other run-of-the-mill, church and hotel wedding. I know there are other ways of creating a "wow factor", but ladies, this is a castle we're talking about here! Wouldn't YOU want to be married at a castle if you had the chance?!? I think I've made my point.

The Origin of My Champagne Tastes

I wasn't always that into weddings.

I mean, they seemed like fun, big fancy parties where you can wear the most gorgeous dress of your life! (Yeah I kinda have a dress obsession) But I live in Western NY so nothing too flashy was ever in my mind for a wedding.

Well my bf's parent's live in the Thousand Islands area, (Upstate NY) which is absolutely beautiful by the way, and one day we out on a little boating trip...

We passed by many cute little islands and many huge houses on the waterfront, and then we started to pass a castle, in the middle of the river on a heart-shaped island. If you haven't heard of it before, it is called Boldt Castle. And it is stunning.


His mom had to say "This would be a great place for a wedding..."

DING! went off the little lightbulb in my head. "Yes," I said, "It would be a great place for a wedding..."

I have been obsessed with this wedding locale ever since.