The Venue! Part 5

As I mentioned before, once we had crossed off Mellwood, we were really excited, because it meant we had chosen our venue! That's because we had visited Glassworks already, on the same day that we visited the Science Center, but I saved the site visit recap for this post.

So, without further ado, here is our venue:

Louisville Glassworks! The building, the Snead Manufacturing Building, hosts a bunch of glassworking and glassblowing studios, as well as some office space and loft apartments. Here's a rundown of what it offers for us:

-The Rooftop, on the eighth floor, where we'll have our ceremony. I am VERY excited about this part!


We'll set up the chairs the same way that is shown in these pictures, looking east into the heart of downtown. The view to the north shows the river just a block away, and the top of the bat of the Louisville Slugger Museum (picture taken by me):


I really like the look of that wooden arch in the second rooftop picture -- it helps to draw attention to the bride and groom a little more than those flower arrangements on pedestals. I also love the look of the roof at dusk, but I'm not sure if we'll be able to take advantage of that, since our ceremony will start in the late afternoon, and it will be May, so the sun won't set until very late. Plus, Louisville is on the very western edge of the eastern time zone, so it seems as though it stays light out almost a whole hour later than it does on the east coast proper. Maybe we'll go back up to the roof later on, though -- it's definitely an option.

-The reception site, on the second floor
Those columns are encrusted with glass at the top, and there is lots of glass artwork on all the walls. Those windows in the back left look down onto the glassblowing facility downstairs. To the right of those glass tiles is a flameworking studio. We can have a glassblowing or flameworking demonstration for our guests!


This is the view as you step off the elevator, onto a beautiful glass floor. The seating area is to the right, and there are glass pieces along the hallway. To the left is another, smaller, room that allows you to look into another glassworking facility, and has more displays of glass pieces. It's a good place to stage a buffet, but a little small for holding our ceremony (which is OK, since we have that gorgeous roof!).

We have a great rain contingency plan: In the best-case scenario, they'll move us to the first floor, which is another large event space like the one on the second floor, and we'll have our ceremony there, with a backdrop of the gift shop (not as ghetto as it sounds; it is FILLED with tons of gorgeous glass pieces and is lit beautifully). If that space is rented out, we'll have the ceremony on the second floor, with us on the dance floor and all the guests seated at their dinner tables. Since this is a little less than ideal, we would then get refunded half of the rooftop fee. Either way, it eases my mind tremendously about the possibility of bad weather.

The building also owns one of the afore-mentioned loft apartments, and rents it out hotel-style. They suggest using it as a getting-ready suite or as a honeymoon suite. We want to stay at the same hotel as all our guests, so we won't be using it as a honeymoon suite. As of right now, we probably won't use it as a getting-ready suite either, but it would be a great place to use if you wanted to.

Another issue I had thought about was the necessity for a day-of coordinator. I've acted in a similar role for other people's weddings, and I know it's a person who can be a really lifesaver. Glassworks requires all wedding couples to hire their own day-of coordinator, who will be there for the rehearsal, ceremony, and first part of the reception. We will have trusted friends and guests available to help with things outside those times, but it worked out well to have to hire the Glassworks coordinator to get us all down the aisle in time.

Here are some more photos of the facility (photos from Flickr):
The glassblowing studio.

Glass pieces extruding from the outside of the building.

The flameworking studio.

They let you blow your own glass ornaments. It looks fun!

I am so excited to have booked our wedding at Glassworks! Now I have a million ideas for decorating the rooftop (I LOVE that wooden arch; where to get one myself?) and the reception space (should we use tons of glass to mimic the feel of the space or go somewhere unexpected, like lots of flowers and greenery?). The next official parts of planning are interviewing the caterers (there are 15 approved caterers) and finding a photographer. We've also gone ahead and made a block of rooms for out of town guests (which is practically all of them).

YAAAY!