The Venue! Part 2

The first of our final four sites that we visited was the Old Medical School Building. Built in 1893, it housed the Louisville Medical College, which became UofL School of Medicine in 1922 (back in the days when you didn't need a college education to become a physician, Louisville had many medical schools). In 1970, the school moved to its current location, and in 1977, the Greater Louisville Medical Society Foundation (formerly the Jefferson County Medical Society) purchased the building, fixed it up, and set up its offices there. It's a gorgeous building, in the Richardson Romanesque style. You can read more about the building's history here. We had our class's silent auction there a couple years ago, and we will have our Match Day ceremony there next March. The gross anatomy lab is located on the top floor, and it's pretty cool because back before the days of electric bulbs, they harnessed the sun for its full potential: there are prisms in the ceiling that disperse sunlight throughout the room, allowing for full dissection capabilities.

The building from the outside. I love the architecture. (All pictures from the GLMS website)

The main hallway downstairs. The arches add architectural interest, and the tile pattern on the floor is cool. The artwork is all by local physicians -- paintings, photographs, and other artistic pieces. Fun for cocktail hour!

The staircase. I love the rich wood and the banister details.

They have two rooms on the second floor for events: the smaller Museum Room, where the ceremony probably would have been, and the larger Walnut Room, where the reception would have been. They're both nice, and would have worked well. They have no restrictions on caterers or alcohol. My only complaint was that the ceilings weren't very tall, so the rooms felt more closed in compared to other venues. The kicker was that they wanted very little money -- a combination of us wanting a Sunday and them cutting me (I think) a deal for being a medical student who had worked with them on some fundraising projects in the past. And we would have had 8 hours the day of the event -- plenty of time for setup and a monster party. It was very hard to say no to this deal.

I would have loved to have had the wedding here, but it was missing just the tiniest bit of a "wow" factor -- it would have been hard to ask all of our friends and family to travel over 600 miles and not dazzle them. But it ended up finishing in a strong second place.