Bourne Mansion Wedding Review - VERY LONG!
I don't post often but have to admit I've been lurking on these boards for some time now and
have gotten quite a few wonderful ideas from the ladies here at LIW. So I thought I'd post my
wedding review in hopes of possibly giving someone else ideas, in particularly the brides that
have booked or considering booking Bourne Mansion. Also gives me yet another chance to yap
about my wedding! haha
My review will focus on Bourne to help out the Bourne girls b/c I had a tough time trying to find
people who got married there so hopefully this will answer all your questions. In a nutshell:
Bourne Mansion made our dream come true. It was (in our opinion) the most spectacular place
we could have booked. I shared some of your butterflies about booking a place that's not very
well known, but rest assured -- you have ABOLSUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. The
staff at Lessings (who came highly recommended to me from a friend that used them at another
location) were unbelievable. We hada million details (5 pages worth of instructions!!) that we
wanted, and they did it all. Steve was our maitre'd and we couldn't have possibly been in better
hands. I can't say enough about them. They were great.
I'm also a bit internet-shy when it comes to posting pictures of myself (sorry!!) but I think
octobride03 already posted some of my details. (THanks Lauren! It was really cool to see that!!)
Well, I'll tell you everything I did:
In our opinion, the reception was intimate and grand at the same time. We had picture frames and
candles EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE. I'm a huge fan of pictures, so we had
probably over 60 picture frames decorating all the mantles and tables. Our florist (in my opinion)
did a superb job of decorating the place with candles. We told him our motto is 'there is no such
thing as too many candles.' I think these two things really had the most impact.
Our florist was COlonial Florists in Bellmore. They are a family owned business and don't
advertise -- they get all their business from referrals (which I think is very telling of their work).
All of hubby's sisters used them for their weddings and we just loved our first meeting, so we
booked, too. Anyway, the owner (Claudio) is a chatty Kathy, so be prepared to spend several
hours (seriously!) if you decide to visit. But rest assured you will get great flowers (and
candles!!). ANyway, here's what he did:
- each mantle (all 4 of them) had candle votives and some gardenias and ivy. Asyou can see
from octbride03's photos, this was intentionally not overdone, so that (1) there was room for my
zillion picture frames and (2)to bring out the beauty (rather thantakeaway from) the natural
beauty of the mantles. We had originaly wanted to put candles in the fireplaces, too, but St.
John's doesn't allow it. No biggie -- the other decor was great. Oh, and if you decide to decorate
with candles, they have to be enclosed.
- we didn't decorate the bannister of the stairway.Our florist felt it was beautiful on its own, and
we agreed). We did, however, bring two big arrangements fromt he church and put them at the
base of the stairs.
- In the main reception room, we felt like we needed tall centerpieces, since the ceiling is so high.
We ended up going with the pieces that have the (you guessed it) candle votives spiralling up to
the top. The flowers again were simple -- 3 dozen roses.
- Our cake table was decorated with 2 rings of votive candles. We asked our florist to do this,
too. Our cake table was directly in front of us b/c we had over 200 people and there wasn't any
room to put this to the side. I don't know if it will necessarily block any pictures -- from what we
can tell, a lot of people shot us to the side a bit. But our cake wasn't very high anyway so it
definitely wasn't in the way.
- We also asked our florist to put toiletry baskets in the bathrooms. We provided the toiletries
(hair spray, lotions, dep, gum,mints,etc) and he put them in a basket. We did this for the 3
bathroomsdownstairs. Asfar as the bathroom situation goes, everything was OK, at least to my
knowledge. The one time I had to use the bathroom, there was no line. This was originally a
concern of ours but like I said, as far as I know it was all OK.
I, too, did the candle placecards. Very time consuming, but well worth it. Per Steve, this was not
brought out until 15minutes before cocktail hour in an effort to keep people out of the ballroom
until the actual reception starts.So if you do this, just make sure to tellyour photo/video people
ahead of time so they don't miss it.
Definitely have them keep the door to the balcony open. Hubby and I went up there to 'take it all
in' and it was funny because we didn't think people would see us, but all of a suddeneveryone
was looking up and pointing, taking pictures, whistling. We didn't know what to do ! So we
kissed and it seemed to satisfy everyone. This is also a great place for your photo/video people
to get aerial shots.
Food -- we thought this was great. We loved it at the tasting and we loved it at the wedding.
Guests told us it was good, too. We typed up menu cards and proveded Andes mints to place
underneath. A small nuance, but I personally thought it added a nice touch.
Our favors were CDs and we used the Bourne Mansion in ourdesign. THe front of the CD was a
picture of the front of the mansion with our names and wedding date.The inside coverwas a
close-up of the pipe organ, and the song names superimposed. The actual CD was a photo of
the mantle in the blue room (the room with the big chandelier) with the mirror over it and the
candle sconces.
Our cocktail hour endedup being indoors b/c it rained. Honestly, I think it ended up being better
b/c then people got a chance to see all of our pictures. SOme people did go out for some fresh
air during some points and commented it was so beautiful outside.
The fountain in the front was on, despite the rain.
Parking valet seemed to be OK, as far as I know. Octbride03 may be able to tell you better.
Seating -- this is important. The seating chart they give you has one too many tables on the right
side. Michael Lessings suggested taking one out to make more dance floor space and it was a
good idea. We ended up having to use the adjoining room for 2 tables and I have to admit Iwas
very nervous about doing this b/c I didn't want people to feel slighted. But we took Ben's advice
and put our big drinkers back there (which happened to be the work friends) and it seemed to
work out fine.
The dance floor size was fine -- we thought it could get tight withour group size, but again, it
was an unecessary worry. We had two types of music ( a band and a DJ) and intentionally hired people that don't
take up a lot of space. I guess my one piece of advice on this would be to not go overboard with like a 15-piece
orchestra if you're having a large wedding.. I had a 2-person band and a DJ hired through Stan Wiest and they were compact, played great music
and overall we were very pleased.
The only thing that you can't even call a problem b/c Lessings addressedit immediately was the
A/C. It got very hot in the room very quickly, but as soon as we told them to crank the A/C, the
room cooled down. So no worries.
I hope this is helpful. Good luck & happy planning
have gotten quite a few wonderful ideas from the ladies here at LIW. So I thought I'd post my
wedding review in hopes of possibly giving someone else ideas, in particularly the brides that
have booked or considering booking Bourne Mansion. Also gives me yet another chance to yap
about my wedding! haha
My review will focus on Bourne to help out the Bourne girls b/c I had a tough time trying to find
people who got married there so hopefully this will answer all your questions. In a nutshell:
Bourne Mansion made our dream come true. It was (in our opinion) the most spectacular place
we could have booked. I shared some of your butterflies about booking a place that's not very
well known, but rest assured -- you have ABOLSUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. The
staff at Lessings (who came highly recommended to me from a friend that used them at another
location) were unbelievable. We hada million details (5 pages worth of instructions!!) that we
wanted, and they did it all. Steve was our maitre'd and we couldn't have possibly been in better
hands. I can't say enough about them. They were great.
I'm also a bit internet-shy when it comes to posting pictures of myself (sorry!!) but I think
octobride03 already posted some of my details. (THanks Lauren! It was really cool to see that!!)
Well, I'll tell you everything I did:
In our opinion, the reception was intimate and grand at the same time. We had picture frames and
candles EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE. I'm a huge fan of pictures, so we had
probably over 60 picture frames decorating all the mantles and tables. Our florist (in my opinion)
did a superb job of decorating the place with candles. We told him our motto is 'there is no such
thing as too many candles.' I think these two things really had the most impact.
Our florist was COlonial Florists in Bellmore. They are a family owned business and don't
advertise -- they get all their business from referrals (which I think is very telling of their work).
All of hubby's sisters used them for their weddings and we just loved our first meeting, so we
booked, too. Anyway, the owner (Claudio) is a chatty Kathy, so be prepared to spend several
hours (seriously!) if you decide to visit. But rest assured you will get great flowers (and
candles!!). ANyway, here's what he did:
- each mantle (all 4 of them) had candle votives and some gardenias and ivy. Asyou can see
from octbride03's photos, this was intentionally not overdone, so that (1) there was room for my
zillion picture frames and (2)to bring out the beauty (rather thantakeaway from) the natural
beauty of the mantles. We had originaly wanted to put candles in the fireplaces, too, but St.
John's doesn't allow it. No biggie -- the other decor was great. Oh, and if you decide to decorate
with candles, they have to be enclosed.
- we didn't decorate the bannister of the stairway.Our florist felt it was beautiful on its own, and
we agreed). We did, however, bring two big arrangements fromt he church and put them at the
base of the stairs.
- In the main reception room, we felt like we needed tall centerpieces, since the ceiling is so high.
We ended up going with the pieces that have the (you guessed it) candle votives spiralling up to
the top. The flowers again were simple -- 3 dozen roses.
- Our cake table was decorated with 2 rings of votive candles. We asked our florist to do this,
too. Our cake table was directly in front of us b/c we had over 200 people and there wasn't any
room to put this to the side. I don't know if it will necessarily block any pictures -- from what we
can tell, a lot of people shot us to the side a bit. But our cake wasn't very high anyway so it
definitely wasn't in the way.
- We also asked our florist to put toiletry baskets in the bathrooms. We provided the toiletries
(hair spray, lotions, dep, gum,mints,etc) and he put them in a basket. We did this for the 3
bathroomsdownstairs. Asfar as the bathroom situation goes, everything was OK, at least to my
knowledge. The one time I had to use the bathroom, there was no line. This was originally a
concern of ours but like I said, as far as I know it was all OK.
I, too, did the candle placecards. Very time consuming, but well worth it. Per Steve, this was not
brought out until 15minutes before cocktail hour in an effort to keep people out of the ballroom
until the actual reception starts.So if you do this, just make sure to tellyour photo/video people
ahead of time so they don't miss it.
Definitely have them keep the door to the balcony open. Hubby and I went up there to 'take it all
in' and it was funny because we didn't think people would see us, but all of a suddeneveryone
was looking up and pointing, taking pictures, whistling. We didn't know what to do ! So we
kissed and it seemed to satisfy everyone. This is also a great place for your photo/video people
to get aerial shots.
Food -- we thought this was great. We loved it at the tasting and we loved it at the wedding.
Guests told us it was good, too. We typed up menu cards and proveded Andes mints to place
underneath. A small nuance, but I personally thought it added a nice touch.
Our favors were CDs and we used the Bourne Mansion in ourdesign. THe front of the CD was a
picture of the front of the mansion with our names and wedding date.The inside coverwas a
close-up of the pipe organ, and the song names superimposed. The actual CD was a photo of
the mantle in the blue room (the room with the big chandelier) with the mirror over it and the
candle sconces.
Our cocktail hour endedup being indoors b/c it rained. Honestly, I think it ended up being better
b/c then people got a chance to see all of our pictures. SOme people did go out for some fresh
air during some points and commented it was so beautiful outside.
The fountain in the front was on, despite the rain.
Parking valet seemed to be OK, as far as I know. Octbride03 may be able to tell you better.
Seating -- this is important. The seating chart they give you has one too many tables on the right
side. Michael Lessings suggested taking one out to make more dance floor space and it was a
good idea. We ended up having to use the adjoining room for 2 tables and I have to admit Iwas
very nervous about doing this b/c I didn't want people to feel slighted. But we took Ben's advice
and put our big drinkers back there (which happened to be the work friends) and it seemed to
work out fine.
The dance floor size was fine -- we thought it could get tight withour group size, but again, it
was an unecessary worry. We had two types of music ( a band and a DJ) and intentionally hired people that don't
take up a lot of space. I guess my one piece of advice on this would be to not go overboard with like a 15-piece
orchestra if you're having a large wedding.. I had a 2-person band and a DJ hired through Stan Wiest and they were compact, played great music
and overall we were very pleased.
The only thing that you can't even call a problem b/c Lessings addressedit immediately was the
A/C. It got very hot in the room very quickly, but as soon as we told them to crank the A/C, the
room cooled down. So no worries.
I hope this is helpful. Good luck & happy planning
