The Holiday Inn (probably not the place)

The Honeymoon suite-- included the night of the wedding.

Lovely 2 room suite with hot tub, king size bed, and, drumroll please..... a flat screen TV in the bathroom. That's a pro on Seth's list!

The back half of the ballroom, where the dance floor is.

The front half of the ballroom... the head table would be up front and the bar to the right between the two pillars. The big problem with the room is the size. It fits 300 comfortably, up to 450 with rectangle tables. I don't like the rectangle tables because they kind of looked like a school cafeteria or something and the room looked really crowded.

This is the lobby outside the banquet room-- a bar would be set up out here before the reception began and it's where the cake would be displayed and where the guest book and place cards would be set up.

This is the main hotel lobby. The continental breakfast is in the back to the right. The night of the reception, there would actually be a large bar set up right in this lobby on the left hand side. That's another downside-- not a whole lot of privacy, anyone could walk in. Seth's parents have been to a wedding here before and they said that when they walked in they could barely move because the lobby was so crowded.

The main lobby again. Apparently the stairs are a hot spot for nice photos or something.


So.... the Holiday Inn is real nice. It's a beautiful hotel and the ballroom is going to be completely redecorated and modernized prior to August of 2011. Also, the event coordinator is excellent-- she does really nice work and is extraordinarily attentive and appears to do a really good job. She even decorates the room herself, her photos were impressive. The major downside is the size. We're expecting to have 350+ guests and it would be really hard for anyone to move around in a room set up for that many people. They also have a gift opening room for the next morning, but they do not supply secure storage of the gifts overnight, so we'd have to get them all taken to someone's room or put in a car that night and then bring them back in the next morning. And they won't allow any food to be brought in, so the gift opening would have to be catered too. Soooo... probably not?

The last top choice is the Stoney Creek Inn. It looked super cute on the website, very northwoods-y. But.... it was a bit overdone. The antler chandeliers were... antler chandeliers. And they were everywhere. The ballroom is nice and big, but the walls are literally unpainted cinderblock, not super cute exactly. They also don't do any catering themselves, so the waitstaff is not included in the package price and the catering is pretty pricey. The honeymoon suites are themed and kind of overdone too. You never know what you're going to get-- the hunting lodge? the fishing hole? And finally, they do not supply secure gift storage and the gift opening room is up on the second floor, so getting the gifts out to the car would be a bit more challenging. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but we learned at Trista's wedding that it kind of is!