Wedding Venues in Durham

Sooooo, I’m getting married.  Over the past month or so, we’ve looked at many a wedding venue.  I figured I’d share the information I’ve gathered in case it makes anyone else’s life easier.

Greystone Inn

Greystone – Greystone was the first place I though of when I started planning my wedding.  It’s a beautiful old house with sprawling grounds and a convenient location.

Pluses: reasonable prices, furnished interior reduces rental costs, centrally located, beautiful home, guestrooms available.

Minuses: Strict rules (since the house is historic), only specific caterers can be used, management is disorganized (btw, some of the contact info on the website is incorrect)

Carol's Garden Inn

Carol’s Garden Inn – I had to go see this place because it has incredible prices and looked great on the website….

Pluses:  Super cheap!  Rural country feel in town. Two guestrooms available.

Minuses: awkward location (it’s in a neighborhood), forgetful management (innkeeper was out running errands at out meeting time), limited parking, not nearly as pretty in person.

Arrowhead Inn

Arrowhead Inn – Historic bed & breakfast north of Durham.  I’ve heard good things from many people about the place.

Pluses: Quiet, quaint setting.  Beautiful historic home, guest rooms available. Very professional, caring staff.

Minuses: In order to have a weekend wedding, you have to rent out the entire inn for the weekend, making in much more expensive than initial estimates.  Use of the on-site caterer is required and prices are pretty steep as well.  Limited space is available making weddings of more than 150 impractical.

Golden Belt

Golden Belt, Cotton Room -  this huge space downtown isn’t finished yet but it’s already pretty impressive.

Pluses: renovated warehouse looks great already and it isn’t even finished, massive space, onsite music venue, convenient downtown location.

Minuses: venue is rented through Triangle Catering Company and they have pretty steep minimum prices making it impractical for a small wedding.  Since it isn’t finished yet, it’s hard to commit to.

North Carolina Museum of Life and Science

North Carolina Museum of Life & Science – Fun, unique environment with multiple locations available for rent, depending on your needs.

Pluses: reasonable pricing, onsite caterer (Grayson’s Cafe) is available but not required (i’m vegan and they offered to let me bring in someone who could better suit my dining needs), unique environment let guests view museum exhibits during your reception, plenty of parking

Minuses: Most spaces are relatively small, making large celebrations difficult.  Having bugs, wolves, and dinosaurs at your reception might not appeal to everyone.

Bay 7

Bay 7 – Large renovated warehouse in the Tobacco Campus.

Pluses: Large space, great location.

Minuses: Books early (the date I wanted was already booked, 15 months in advance), I didn’t get pricing since it isn’t available when I needed it but I’ve heard from a few independent sources that it’s pretty pricey.

Rigsbee Hall – versatile indoor space downtown.

Pluses: Nice location

Minuses: Fairly small.  The website says it holds 250 people but the seating charts show much less.

Duke Gardens

Duke Gardens – Beautiful Gardens on Duke’s Campus.

Pluses:  It’s gorgeous, there an indoor space, patio, and several outdoor spaces available for a small wedding.

Minuses:  You can’t make reservations, you have to go through a complicated lottery process in order to book the venue.  Once you add up all the fees, it’s pretty expensive.  Since it’s a public garden, you might have strangers wandering around your event.

Washington Duke Inn

Washington Duke Inn – Fancy hotel and golf club just off Duke’s Campus

Pluses: Full service, if you’re into that sort of thing.  Indoor and outdoor space.  Plenty of room for your guests to stay onsite.

Minuses:  Expensive.  Despite the Inn’s attempts to match with the rest of the old stone of Duke, it doesn’t quite have that old world feel it’s going for.

I was disappointed to learn that Hill House isn’t available for rental.  When we contacted them, they said only non-profit organizations could use their space.

Know of any other great, reasonably priced, outdoor venues in Durham?  Then leave a comment.  Thanks!

West End Wine Bar

West End Wine Bar opened a few weeks ago beside West Village.  Like it’s counterpart in Chapel Hill, it serves a healthy selection of wines along with coffees during the day and tapas at night, and has a “Cellar”.  Prices are reasonable, there’s an outdoor patio and an upstairs loft.  I was too busy drinking the champagne special to take pictures, but I assure you, it’s a pleasant experience.  I plan to spend many a summer evening sipping bubbly on their porch.  You should too.

Green Home Tour

Today we did part of the Green Home Tour.  We stopped at the 3 homes in Durham.  First, we went to the home at Southpoint. I thought it had to be a typo in the brocheur but there really is a house at the Streets at Southpoint, right outside the Bose store.

I’m generally not a fan of new constructions but I really liked this house.  Despite the house’s small footprint, it felt very spacious inside with high ceilings and a loft.    The brochure lists it’s price at just over $89,000 which is a steal, esp. for a “green” home.  If you are at Southpoint in the next few weeks, stop by and see this house, it’s definitely worth your time.

Next we stopped at the home on Eastway.

This one didn’t do much for me.  The developer tore down all of the existing homes on this street and built all new row houses and condos.  I would have been much more impressed if the existing homes had been renovated.  The constructions were energy efficient, but there wasn’t really anything else “green” about them.  Their only redeeming quality is that they were designed for lower income families (although the sample cost more than my house did).

Finally, we went to the Goldstein House.

We a live a block from this house and have been watching it’s construction.  It was great to have an excuse to see the inside.  When I think of green construction, this is what I think of.  Underground cistern, solar power, the works.  This house is being custom built for the owner so the price wasn’t listed, although I’m sure it is worth a hefty price.

The tour continues tomorrow as well as next weekend and it is free so if you’re interested in green construction, you should give it a go.

Off to the Circus

I’m going to the circus!  I cant wait.  As a Valentine’s gift, Augustus is taking me to dinner at Tosca and then to see Cirque Dreams at DPAC.  I’m very excited about this.  I’ll give you the full review in a few weeks.

Mad Hatter

I have mixed feelings about Mad Hatter.  The food is delicious.  They have French toast fairly often as a special and it is excellent.  The breakfast burrito is delicious as well.  The recently brought back their tofu wrap, which makes me very happy.

That being said, I’ve had numerous problems there.  It always seems a bit disorganized in there.  There is usually a herd of people around the bakery counter waiting to order but no discernable line.  DO NOT attempt to eat there with a large group.  Your food comes out when it’s cooked so unless everyone gets the same thing, it turns into a disaster.  It’s a bit overpriced for what you get.

It’s location, in the parking lot of Whole Foods, makes it convenient.  They also serve breakfast all day and Sunday Brunch, which is a hot commodity.   Despite all of the negatives, I keep going back so I guess that says something for the place.

Scooter Rally at Pinhook

This Saturday, January 17th the Durham Scooter Club is having a rally at Pinhook.  While you admire and converse about wheeled transports, you can enjoy the  sounds of Dirty Little Heaters, The Bootlegs, and either Nate the Skate DJ, and Midnight Cowboy (as the Independent states) or Soulful Love (Pinhook’s site).  Pinhook does require a membership but it’s only $2.  If you like live music, you’ll definitely put it to good use.  See you there!

Downtown Durham, Inc.

Augustus found a great website this morning with tons of information about the changes taking place to downtown Durham.  If you’re interested in moving downtown, it’s  a great resource.  It also has shopping, parking, dining, and entertainment information.   See the “Master Plan” at Downtown Durham Inc.

Dolly’s

I wanted El Ro for breakfast this morning; unfortunately they don’t open until noon.  Augustus and I decided to kill an hour or so wandering around Brightleaf Square until burrito eating time arrived.  I amused myself at Dolly’s.

They have lots of vintage clothes, knick-knacks, wigs, hats, lotions, fake eyelashes, ruffled panties, glitter……………….. most anything that’s outrageously girly.

In addition, I found Augustus an “I Heart Beer” toboggan there.  Don’t miss out on their “Try A Little Kindness” stuff.

Like everything in Brightleaf, the store has exposed brick walls, high ceilings and large windows.  The store is packed full of stuff so it can get pretty cramped if there are more than a handful of shoppers inside.  When you make a purchase, you get it tied up in a little bag with and ribbon and occasionally candy.  The staff are incredibly friendly and seem to really enjoy what they sell.   Check it out.

Dolly’s

905 W Main St, Durham, NC 27701

Revolution

We thought it was appropriate to start things off with our impression of Durham’s newest dining experience: Revolution

Revolution

Revolution – light fixture

Revolution – Ivan

After perusing their menu online to make sure there were adequate vegetarian selections, I made reservations. I was able to do so through Revolution’s website using Open Table, which was very convenient. We arrived a few min. early and Augustus, being the gentleman that he is, dropped me off at the door. We were immediately approached by the valet. After declining his services, Augustus went to park the car while I went inside. As soon as I walked in the hostess asked if I had a reservation. Earlier I was wondering if a reservation was really necessary; I guess so. While waiting on the rest of my party to arrive, I surveyed the scenery. Clean and white. The stark whiteness was broken up with organic touches like the light fixtures and a full floral wall mosaic that looked kind of like cross stitch. The bar takes up the majority of the interior. It was very bright and open, which is a bit disconcerting for a bar. The back of the bar has several screens that have a live feed of what is going on in the kitchen. I thought of it as insurance against unsightly things happening to my food. After a drink and the bar, our party was seated in the much smaller dining room. The hostesses graciously took our jackets for us as we were seated. The dining room was considerably more intimate that the expansive bar area. Despite the enormous menus, there was a fairly limited selection. 4 red and 4 white wines, around 10 beers, and a hand full of entrees. Augustus and I split the Winter White Salad, which was excellent. Our friends had some meaty thing……Spanish ham I believe. Drinks and appetizers came out in a timely manner but I believe there must have been trouble in the kitchen because our entrees took a considerable amount of time to arrive. Eventually they did, and they did not disappoint. I had the Sweet Potato Curry, which was amazing. I usually don’t enjoy fine dining establishments because they always have a token vegetarian dish which is usually not worth the price tag. This curry was an exception, it was great. Augustus had the suckling pig, which made me sad but seemed to tantalize his taste buds. Our friends had the ribs, which received rave reviews and the scallops, which received only a “good”. We passed on dessert and wrapped up our dining experience so that we could sample the bar scene. Upon returning home (and after a considerable amount of beer) Augustus decided to write down our thoughts on the restaurant. I’ve edited the drunken ramblings below.

Lilith’s notes on Revolution: I enjoyed the décor, the food was delicious but the atmosphere was a bit pretentious. Pretentious how? Because of the valet (which I can see being useful years in the future when parking downtown is not as readily available as it is today), reservation requirement, tables set upon arrival, coat check… just a little too “full service” for my taste. Maybe the restaurant wanted to make you feel like you were getting your money’s worth with all of the extras but the food was good enough on its own.

Augustus’ notes on Revolution: I thought the food was very good and skillfully cooked. Unfortunately, I think there were some problems with the kitchen and our order took way too long to get to us. The atmosphere was a nice divergence from the everyday Durham, but it was difficult to stomach because I enjoy Durham for what it is: working class. The food was awesome, the service great, the Durham feel not so much…

Happy New Year!