The Fountains got a makeover!  They have a new logo, sign, and where the maroon canopy used to be, there’s now a very classy black canopy type thing, and man does it look sharp!  I love it!

Benn and I went to The Fountains on Saturday for our food tasting.  We’ve been looking over our menu options but didn’t feel completely comfortable with our choices without tasting some of the food first.  Some venues will offer the bride and groom-to-be a taste test of some of their menu options twice a year, but The Fountains doesn’t.

I asked Jennifer if we would be able to taste the food at all, and she said we could!  There were two weddings coming up and she e-mailed us what they were having on their menu and we got to choose which menu to taste!

The reception started at 5:00pm and we were asked to be there at 6:45pm.   We walked into the office area and she had her desk all set up like a table for two!  It was so cute!  She came up to say hi and brought us the Hors D’Oeuvres…little did we know, we were going to be stuffed.

We had the asparagus wraps, which are asparagus and provolone cheese with a garlic parmesan spread wrapped in prosciutto.  YUM!  That was delicious!  They also had stuffed mushrooms, which looked amazing, but they were a little too breakfast-like for us.  We also tried the bruschetta, which is tomato, basil, garlic, red onion, balsamic vinegar and olive oil on a croustini.  Also delish!

For the main course, we had the Steamship Round of Beef and Chicken Marsala.  The beef was so good!  The chicken was cooked perfectly, but the sauce was a little too heavy for our tastes.  We’ll definitely be having the beef!  So good!

For the sides, we had green beans almondine and roasted potatoes.  I’m not a huge fan of green beans almondine, but these were very good!  The roasted potatoes were also delicious.

We also got to try the Caesar Salad and their homemade rolls!

We were so happy we were able to taste some of their food!  I’m so glad we’re having our reception at The Fountains!  Jennifer is always willing to help us with whatever we need, and she’s so sweet!

In other news, Benn returned the necklace to Kay.  Unfortunately, Debbie wasn’t there.  I was hoping she would be because I’m sure she would have had something hilarious to say about Benn’s impulse purchase!

I also want to congratulate Arin for scoring a goal in soccer yesterday!  I know she’s been working very hard, and I’m so proud of her!  Congratulations, Arin!  We love you!

Mindy

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Saturday, Benn, mom, Dave and I went to The Fountains to pay our down payment!  We were able to keep our date, so if you didn’t see my last post, our wedding date is June 26,2010!  Benn and I are excited to finally have chosen a hall that we both like.

At Kindleberger park we were able to walk into the garden and get a better idea of our options.  The park fits 200 people comfortably and we might have a few more than that…but we’ll make it work.  Their gazebo includes electricity which is pretty cool.  The garden is really pretty right now, but we’re hoping more flowers bloom by the end of June.

We had a lot of different ideas/thoughts come up while we were standing down there…
1. There are steps leading up to the gazebo, so we were trying to figure out where to stand…2nd step, 3rd step, or all the way up into the gazebo.
2. Benn thought of having us stand in the middle of the garden as opposed to the gazebo because the garden bows out right there so it kind of makes a circle. We thought immediate family could sit in the circle area and friends and other family members could sit where the garden is long…if that makes sense. So basically, everyone would be facing the middle.
3. We had to figure out where the sun would be setting because we’ll be having a late ceremony. If we have everyone facing the gazebo, the sun would be to the backs of the guests.
4. The end of June will most likely be pretty warm, so we would need a few tents, maybe a few tables, cold water/lemonade and other things to entertain the early guests. We won’t be able to stake the tents in the ground though according to the park rules.
5. There’s not a lot of parking by the park, so we were trying to figure out if we would need a shuttle…like a golf cart…or if people will be fine walking or just get dropped off by the park. Fortunately, the park is close to The Fountains, so we will just have people park there and hopefully most people will be fine walking down there.

Now that we have a date set, we can start figuring out who our photographer and DJ will be, as well as locking in the ceremony site.  We will be looking into Benn’s old church this week, but we’re thinking the religion there now will not let us have our wedding there.  Hopefully that park remains open this week so that we can send in our down payment for that if that is what we choose.

Real quick, I wanted to say that the two ladies we will be working with at The Fountains are wonderful.  We’ve talked with and met Kristy and Jennifer, and Benn and I are excited to work with them.  Their friendliness and helpfulness has been amazing!

Thanks for reading and have a great Memorial Day!

Mindy

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…. I’ll tell you at the end! Don’t skip ahead!

Saturday, Benn and I went to The Fountains in Parchment.  I can’t describe the feeling we had when we walked in.  Pictures don’t describe how beautiful this place is.  I took some pictures, but because of the setting it was on some came out kind of blurry…sorry.  There is a video on their website you can watch that will give you a better idea of the “beautiful” I mentioned.

When we walked in, they had everything set up.  They have maroon chairs that all match, (which is a plus, since a lot of the places we visited didn’t) double laid tablecloths, black at white, which was very classy, and centerpieces provided by the fountains.  (Those included a mirror, round vase, and oil candle.)

The wooden bar with sparkling glasses on the wall is right in front of you when you walk in.  To the left is seating, the DJ table the head table, and the amazing dance floor.  I still like Ever After‘s dance floor better, but this is just as big with a different pattern.  It’s permanent though!  We love the large canopy of lights over the dance floor and the lighted bridal party entrance on the balcony/stairs.

The walls are wood panels which gives it a bit of a rustic feeling.  The floor is carpeted and there is tile where the appetizers and cake table are.  The bar area has a few chairs and tables that are kind of separated from a rest of the reception area.

Benn and I came to the conclusion that The Fountains offers a comfortable, cozy feeling with elegance and class.

We will be paying our down payment this Saturday!

The funny thing is, we looked at the Fountains in the beginning when we first started looking and we loved it!  Benn and I thought it was too expensive though.  After reviewing it, the prices are similar to pretty much everywhere.  Ever After was the cheapest place we looked at that supplied catering with their facility.  We still had other places we were interested in looking at, such as the Heritage Museum and A Place in Time, but we are no longer interested.  The Fountains is in the right location for the amount of people we have coming from the Kalamazoo area.

We will be looking into Benn’s old church which is in a beautiful white building just down the road.  We’ve talked about getting married there since the beginning because it’s just beautiful.  There is also a park right next to The Fountains that is pretty as well.  We’ll look into our options with the church, and if it doesn’t work out we’ll look into using Kindleberger Park!  I think that works out pretty well since I’ve always wanted to get married outside.  The church is our first choice though.  We’ll see what happens!

If no one takes our date between now and Saturday, we will be getting married on June 26, 2010!

Check out the pictures below!

Mindy

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I called The Fountains and Benn and  I are going to visit it at 3:30 Saturday!  She said they will be having a wedding later in the day, so it will be all set up.  I love seeing wedding receptions set up…it gives me such a better idea as to what it will look like.  So I’ll definitely be taking pictures and posting them either Saturday or Sunday.

I also called the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center and the lady I talked to is going to send me a packet of information and we are welcome to visit anytime between 9 and 3 on Saturdays.  Unfortunately we can’t go this weekend, but Eric, my bro, is graduating next Friday, so we’ll be able to go that Saturday.

As a side note, I would like to congratulate Eric and my cousin Nathan for graduating high school!  They’ll both be attending KVCC for a few years.  Nathan wants to go to MSU and I’m not sure what Eric wants to do yet.  He’ll probably end up at Western, but I keep trying to convince him to go to Grand Valley.

Happy Friday!

Mindy

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Benn and I have tried to contact A Place in Time in Three Rivers and the museum in St. Joe, but neither places have replied to us yet.  As I find great joy in avoiding my homework, I decided to look over The Fountains website again.  (Their website is kind of glitchy.)  They apparently have free room rental with 2009 bookings.  I don’t know if that means bookings for 2009 weddings or 2009 bookings for any wedding date.  That would be awesome!  Their Saturday room rental is $850.  Of their four food/beverage packages we would probably do the Silver since it’s the most affordable.  I don’t think I would be concerned with our pictures being too dark at this place.  The dance floor is beautifully lit and they have a staircase that is also nicely lit.  I think we’re going to try to check this place out this weekend.  I have a test on Saturday, but hopefully either after that or on Sunday we can check it out.  I’ve decided not to get my hopes up too high as I did with English Hills.  What a terrible idea!  Let me know what you think of this place…or if you’ve been there let me know if you liked the food!

Mindy

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Well, Benn and I went to English Hills and English Hills Terrace Friday and we were very disappointed…so much that it was difficult for us to focus the rest of the day at work.  They have two locations, one on 4 Mile which includes a golf course, and one on West River Drive which is the road that goes by 5/3 Ballpark.  First we went to the West River drive location which is English Hills Terrace.  On our way there, we start to realize that we’ve driven past this place before.  Benn even joked about having our reception there the last time we drove by it because it looked horrible from the outside.  So we drive up the steep driveway to a very drab, old looking building, push the e-brake and step out looking at the “garden.”  The pictures of the garden look really pretty on their website but the fence was all broken and dirty and there was road traffic that could be seen and heard from the garden. It was so gross I didn’t even bother taking a picture of it.  The garden seemed very small but apparently it will hold about 220-240 people.

They have three different rooms in this facility…meaning there could be two other weddings taking place when ours is.  We’re not really fans of that…even though each room has its own entrance and bathrooms.  The only room that would hold as many people as we’re expecting was the Ballroom.  This room was set up for a wedding.  There was a huge chandelier in the middle of the dance floor with mirrors above it.  The dance floor was nothing special, it was just vinyl, the same as the rest of the flooring.  The tables were oval, which is different from other venues we’ve seen.  The chairs would need to be covered…the tiny maroon/mauve chairs made it feel like Denny’s or a small breakfast joint.  The ceiling tiles should have been those white acoustical tiles…but they were stained and it looked like they had smoke damage.  Apparently it’s always been a non-smoking facility.  There were a few windows and the walls weren’t bad.  If we had our reception here it would be more expensive than Ever After, and we aren’t willing to spend more for such poor quality.  They need to seriously re-model, invest in nicer chairs, and a new ceiling and floor.

Then we went to the 4 Mile location to see the U.S. Open/Masters room which seats 240 people.  The room was also set up for a wedding.  The dance floor was long and rectangular, which was not what I had in mind for a dance floor.   There were two gardens at this location.  One was a grass/rose garden which was quite pretty, but the outside of the building was not.  The other garden was a patio garden which was also nice, but I’m sure there is something better.

Fortunately, Benn took some time this weekend to look for more venues and he came across a museum/cultural center in St. Joe.  We don’t know prices or anything but Benn e-mailed them so hopefully tonight we’ll be able to go over that.  We don’t think they provide catering, so we may have to use a caterer.  Benn also looked over The Fountains again, and  he really likes it, I really like it; it’s a bit more pricey than we’d like, but we’ll be reviewing that.   We would also like to check out A Place In Time in Three Rivers.   The picture of the building on the website looks pretty normal…brick building, lots of windows.  Their prices are pretty normal: $1,200 for 6 hours.  We were hoping to go look at these locations this coming weekend, but Eric’s last Tulip Time parade is that day, and Sunday is Mother’s Day so we’ll be spending the day visiting with our many mothers.  The weekend after that I have to take a writing test to test out of a class.  So, hopefully the June 2010 dates aren’t going too fast.  We just need one weekend…maybe two to look at these places, talk about them and have no other plans so we can decide what we want to do.

Below is the picture of the chandelier.  If you click the picture you will be able to see the other pictures I took of English Hills and English Hills Terrace.  Click the picture of the chandelier on the website it took you to, and then click the slideshow icon to the right of the large picture.  On the top right of the slideshow screen, click “show info” to see the captions.  If the show is too fast, click “options” in the top right to change the speed of the show.  If you don’t see those options, you have to be in full screen mode.  Click the button on the bottom right with arrow in each corner.

Mindy

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Yesterday Benn and I spent a lot of the day looking for venues in the Grand Rapids area.   A lot of places are way out of our budget.  Fortunately we found a few more options that we both are interested in.

The Frederik Meijer Gardens would have been amazing!  They have a package that includes a ceremony at the sculpture park waterfall, a reception in one of their amazing halls, a backup, indoor facility in case it rains, chairs, a dressing room, and a tram to the ceremony site!  I can’t remember if it takes people to the building too or not.  The rooms inside are amazing and so is the view.  This package is $6,100.  Maybe if we win the lotto in the next few days we can have our wedding there.

The Grand Volute Ballroom is in Lowell, MI and is beautiful.  There is a gorgeous staircase that is great for pictures, the food looks amazing, and the banquet room is beautiful.  The ceremony here costs $1,900 plus tax, and either $2,000 or $4,000 depending on the room used for the reception.  Their food seems reasonable priced.  The majority cost appears to be between $18 and $20 a plate.  “This place is ridiculously sweet,” says Benn.

One place in our price range is on 28th street in GR.  It’s called The Bluff Banquet and Conference Center. It looks like they have a nice lawn outside which may be used for an outdoor ceremony….or at least nice pictures!  They have a wall of windows which would be beautiful!  They have great plated dinner prices, and their buffet price is 16.55.  Rental for this is $900, which is more than Ever After, but the windows are a huge bonus.

The place we’re really interested in is called English Hills Banquets and Catering. The golf course is located on 4 Mile which is about 2 minutes from where we live, and the Banquet center is located on West River Drive which is about 5-10 minutes away from where we live.  Room rental is $800.  They don’t show the menu on their website, so we’re not sure what their food costs are right now.  What makes this banquet hall great is that they have an outdoor ceremony site with white chairs, a white fence, a bridge walkway, and a fountain. We’re not sure if which location this is at, but they have outdoor areas at both sites. The country club is capable of holding about 250 people in the gardens while the terrace only holds up to 200.  They also use one of their banquet rooms as a back up in case it rains.  It looks beautiful all decorated, and I think the outdoor area will be great for pictures.

We’ll be looking at the last two places this week, and hopefully by this weekend we’ll be able to make a decision!

Mindy

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