Our reception music

Our playlists from the reception:

Reception Special Playlist

1 Bridal Party Entrance
Austin’s Theme – The James Taylor Quartet

2 Couple Entrance
Theme from “Mission:Impossible” – Against the Beat

3 1st Dance
It’s not for me to say – Johnny Mathis

4 2nd Dance (for Bridal Party and Couple)
At Last – E. James

5 Cutting the Cake
That’s Amore – Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra & Sammy Davis Jr.

6 Father / Daughter Dance
She (Tous Les Visages de l’Amour) – Charles Aznavour

7 Mother / Son Dance
Have I Told You Lately – Rod Stewart

Reception Dinner Playlist

1 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes – Nat King Cole

2 Witchcraft (feat. Anita Baker) – Frank Sinatra

3 Saturday In the Park (Remastered Version) – Chicago

4 I Get a Kick Out of You – Frank Sinatra

5 I’m So Proud – Curtis Mayfield

6 Happy Together – The Turtles

7 Young at Heart – Frank Sinatra

8 Son of a Preacher Man – Aretha Franklin

9 Straighten Up and Fly Right – The Andrews Sisters

10 Ain’t Misbehavin’ – Louis Armstrong

11 My Baby Just Cares for Me – Nina Simone

12 What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong

13 All I Need to Get By – Aretha Franklin

14 I Only Have Eyes for You – The Flamingos

15 I’m Beginning to See the Light – Ella Fitzgerald

16 Comes Love – Billie Holiday

17  Walking on The Moon – The Police

18 So Nice (Summer Samba) – Bebel Gilberto

19 Meu Destino (My Destiny) – Thievery Corporation
20  Sex On Fire – Kings of Leon

Reception Dance Playlist

1 My Girl – The Temptations
2 Beyond the Sea – Bobby Darin
3  Barbara Ann – The Beach Boys
4  Fun, Fun, Fun – The Beach Boys
5  Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe – Barry White
6 Into the Groove – Madonna
7  Brown Eyed Girl (Single Version) – Van Morrison
8  Woo Hoo – The 5.6.7.8’s
9 You’re the One That I Want – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John
10 Canned Heat – Jamiroquai
11 Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough – Michael Jackson
12 Kiss – Prince & The Revolution
13 Push It – Salt-N-Pepa
14  Bust a Move – Young MC
15 Hip Hop Hooray – Naughty By Nature
16 Holiday – Madonna
17 American Girl – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
18 Groove Is in the Heart – Deee-Lite
19 Boomshackalak – Apache Indian
20  Vogue – Madonna
21 Thriller – Michael Jackson
22 The Rockafeller Skank (Short Edit) – Fatboy Slim
23 1999 – Prince
24  Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ – Michael Jackson
25 Disturbia – Rihanna
26 Boom Boom Pow – Black Eyed Peas
27  Circus – Britney Spears
28 The Way You Make Me Feel – Michael Jackson
29  Just Dance – Lady GaGa & Colby O’Donis
30 My Love Is Your Love – Whitney Houston
31 Fire Burning – Sean Kingston
32 Open Your Heart – Madonna
33 Beautiful (Valentin club mix) – Christina Aguilera
34 Rock With You – Michael Jackson
35 Right Round – Flo Rida
36 Burning Down the House – Talking Heads
37 We Like to Party! – Vengaboys
38 Use Somebody – Kings of Leon
39 Float On – Modest Mouse
40 I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas

Reception Backup List

1 Raspberry Beret – Prince
2 All or Nothing – Cher
3 Dream Lover- Bobby Darin
4 You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You – Dean Martin
5 Almost Like Being In Love – Gene Kelly
6 They Can’t Take That Away From – Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
7 Angel – Jimi Hendrix
8 Don’t be Cruel – Elvis Presley
9 I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing – Aerosmith
10 Samba Tranquille – Thievery Corporation
11 Les Nuits – Nightmares on Wax
12 Someone to Watch over Me – Etta James
13 Missy/Fatman Scoop/Pharrell – The Break
14 Mercy – Duffy



Our wedding venue – the Lenox Hotel

The Lenox Hotel is simply elegant. We fell in love with their ballroom the first time we entered it, and we never forgot it.

From what we could tell, neither will our guests. On top of the gorgeous dome room setting, which is perfect for wedding sizes around 100 guests, the food is terrific and the staff goes out of their way to please.  They made it easy to have a wedding there, including EVERYTHING you can think of in their rate (including the pianist at cocktail hour, menu cards, gold chivari chairs!) so I had no work to do.  They gave us a fabulous suite that night and our guests had reasonable room rates even though it was a busy holiday weekend.  I would recommend this hotel to anyone who is looking for a city venue that is gorgeous, friendly, tasty and flexible.

Ok, but you are here because you are a budget Boston bride, and you can’t imagine this being a budget friendly place. Well, it’s not, but it is not as much as other hotels in its class.  As a point of comparsion, since the wedding was on a holiday, having a caterer & service staff for the same number of people would have been 50% more expensive, not including venue (and I would still need to do all the work of figuring out how many champagne glasses, spoons, etc – yech).  Hubs and I decided that this was the one area we would not compromise, and thus, we stretched quite a bit for this venue, but it was truly memorable for everyone.  My family still calls to tell me about how wonderfully they were treated there.

Wedding Venue Find! Back Bay for only $1300?

I’ll start with the verdict:

Verdict: If you are looking for a reception site that is elegant but not over the top, have a wedding that is about 90 people, and are willing to provide your own caterer and rentals, the Goethe-Institut in Boston is a real steal at only $1300 to rent.

I have not found an elegant venue in Back Bay to rent for anything close to this price. I was floored when I called up the events coordinator and found out that for a Saturday evening affair we could rent the entire main hall (including kitchen) for $1300. Where is this lovely find? 170 Beacon Street, close to Clarendon Street.

The Goethe Institut of Boston is a German cultural organization with a lovely venue. On the outside it’s an old Back Bay townhouse with pretty steps for your wedding party shots. In fact, that’s how I found it. I was driving by and saw a wedding taking photos on the steps. Inside, there is a room that seats about 90 people comfortably (though I believe they claim to seat up to 100), and it has wonderful tall ceilings and details that are typical of the townhouses nearby – antique lights, beautiful staircase, detailed wall adornments. There are some marks of time – cracks in paint, etc – but I have found such marks in many places, even the luxury hotels.

I was planning to use this venue for my wedding, as it fit the right size crowd for us. Iris, the coordinator, was very helpful. She showed me the full size kitchen that the caterer could use to set up and the side room that can easily be used for buffets or other setups like a bar. They have about 10 tables of 4 which you can use and chairs to go with them, so if you plan to have more than 40 people you will need to rent tables – and everything you use during your reception.

The only reason why I didn’t go with this site was not because of the venue.  It was the cost of additional rentals and catering. I haven’t researched as many caterers as I have hotels, and when I spoke with a caterer on the phone about expenses, the budget went out of control (renting tables, chairs, glasses, plates, silverware, and then staff costs – we didn’t even talk about the food / drinks when I decided this was too much!). I’ll be doing a separate write-up on that experience.

For further information about this venue, please contact Iris Alcorn at:
Tel. +1 (617) 262-6050 ext. 10
info@boston.goethe.org

To Open Bar or Not to Open Bar

We've been discussing the pros and cons of the open bar question. Let's start by doing the numbers. Basically, taking a look at all the wedding reception sites we've been to, I think it's safe to say an open bar will run about $30 per person on average in Boston. I came up with this number using this formula:

1 top shelf Martini ($10) + 1 top shelf drink ($8) + 2 glasses of wine ($6 each) = one good time ($30)

Now, if some people have this combo of drinks, they will be plastered. Others will probably have 4 Martinis and still be ready for more. I use this number as a guide more than anything else.

So, figure that 180 people will run a tab of $5400. Add in gratuity ($1080) and now we're up to $6480. Add in bartender fees and we're now at a grand total of $6705.

The fiance and I are in agreement that some sort of open bar is in order, though $6700 in drinks alone seems a bit outrageous. So we ran through the numbers based on a beer/wine open bar and a cocktail hour drink:

1 cocktail hour drink ($8) + 3 glasses wine ($6 each) = $26, or $5841 with gratuity and bartender fees.

So, we're talking an $1100 savings, which in the scope of matters doesn't seem that much. 80% of our guests are coming in from out of town, so we decided to go for the full open bar at minimum to say thanks for making the effort. We hope guests are respectful enough not to double fist Grey Goose Martini's all night. Not every place does a standard open bar figure; many places (almost all we looked at) base the bar on consumption. Just to be safe, we may end up putting a $5500 cap on the bar.

Boston Bride’s (no longer top) Pick for Large Weddings: The Back Bay Harvard Club

UPDATE (3 years after initial post): Their prices have gone up DRAMATICALLY since this original post. They are now about $199 + tax per person, all-inclusive. It doesn’t mention if this includes gratuity. This is among the highest prices I have seen in the Boston area. I don’t think this would be our top choice for a large wedding anymore, given this ridiculous price increase!

Verdict: You need a large venue to hold all your aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and family. You want an elegant venue, but you don’t want to take out a second mortgage or loan. The Back Bay Harvard Club was our #1 venue – we even put a deposit down – until we decided to postpone our wedding and do a smaller event. It is a beautiful place, but is much too large for a smaller wedding.

After walking into the Back Bay Harvard Club’s ballroom, we fell in love with it.   The BBHC has about 30 guest rooms, a beautiful foyer with a lovely staircase, a great bar/lounge, and one of the prettiest ballrooms I have ever been in. Not to mention the prices were very reasonable (it comes out to about $120 per person, all-inclusive).

Our song: Summer Samba (So Nice)

After much thought, we decided Summer Samba (the Bebel version, not the Astrud version) is the song for us. We have history with the song and we love bossa nova. Not to mention our wedding is in the summer, how fitting! Now, to find a band that can play and sing it like Bebel and her band!

Summer Samba (So Nice) Lyrics

Someone to hold me tight
That would be very nice
Someone to love me right
That would be very nice
Someone to understand
Each little dream in me
Someone to take my hand
To be a team with me
So nice, life would be so nice
If one day I'd find
Someone who would take my hand
And samba through life with me

Someone to cling to me
Stay with me right or wrong
Someone to sing to me
Some little samba song
Someone to take my heart
And give his heart to me
Someone who's ready to
Give love a start with me

Oh yes, that would be so nice
Shouldn't we, you and me?
I can see it will be nice…

Finding a reasonably priced Boston reception site

There are so many places to look. We really had to focus on what was important to us. So that begged the question: what is important to us?

Here is what is important to us in choosing a reception site:

• Since so many guests are coming from out of town (over 80%) we need a place that has accommodations or is very close to accommodations. We don’t want our guests to have fork over a lot per night either, so we are going to try to get reasonable group rates.
• We like the old Boston feel. The architecture is great, the antiques are charming. We don’t want to be in a stuffy, conference-y looking ballroom with boring white walls and ugly carpets.
• We would like to be somewhere that makes us and our guests feel like they are in an elegant and charming setting.
• We really don’t want to hear another wedding going on at the same time.
• Open bar for all!

That left us with some reception sites to look at:

• The Algonquin Club ($)
  • Price: Very reasonable. This place runs about $110 per person all inclusive, though the menu is a la carte so you have to build-it-yourself to figure it out. Their opening and rental fees jacked up the price a lot, and I think they were a bit over the top ($4500).
  • Setting: Beautiful! Very old Back Bay building with lovely interiors. The reception room is rather unremarkable, though I think it is nicer than the stale conference room look. The cocktail hour room is awesome though. The problem with the reception room is that the dance floor ends up in the foyer, which makes it separate from the guests and just seems awkward to me.
  • Staff: We met with Carol, who was sweet and not at all pushy.
  • Verdict: This is a potential location, though it has only a handful of guest rooms. We would have to strike a deal with neighboring hotels.

• The Lenox Hotel. ($$)
  • Price: When we started looking, our guest list was about 120 people (includes lots of kids), and our reception budget was $17,500. We managed to work withLenox to get to that figure, all inclusive. This still comes out to about $140 per person. This included open bar, cocktail hour food, a cake, appetizer, entrees, etc.
  • Setting: GORGEOUS. The Dome Room is so elegant and you get the entire floor when you book there! I loved the gold detail in the dome and the soft lighting that made the dome seem to glow. Also, they only do one wedding at a time.
  • Staff: We worked with a woman in sales, KrisTina, who is awesome. She is super friendly and very willing to help out. She even had the room laid out for me to see before I went to work one day so that I could see how well the group would fit.
  • Verdict: Our guest list grew beyond the Lenox’s room capacity 😦 So sad, cause I really loved this place!

• The Boston Sheraton ($$)
  • Price: I really thought the Sheraton was going to be my lowest price point site. I was absolutely wrong. The packages, though all inclusive, were priced starting at $140 per person. No different than theLenox, and so less charming.
  • Setting: Boring conference rooms. There was one room I looked at, the Constitution Room, which had potential, but I felt like it was better suited for business meetings. This makes sense since the Sheraton caters to a corporate clientele. The windows helped, but it lacked the old Boston charm we were looking for.
  • Staff: Awesome. I met with Austin for about an hour and a half. He never rushed me and went through every detail; he even showed me the linens for the tables! His director came and introduced himself as well and sat down to answer questions. Nice touch! Looking at the bridal suite room was my favorite part. I wish I could live in it!
  • Verdict:It’s big enough but it feels too conferency.

• Marriott Copley Place ($$)
  • Price: $140 start per person, including tax, gratuity, and top shelf open bar.
  • Setting: Outside of the rooms, I think the hotel is pretty. Lots of windows, lights, and pretty chandeliers. The room itself is OK. Similar to the Sheraton in that it feels like a stale conference room. New chandelier is gorgeous and adds some sparkle, but the rest of the room is dull.
  • Staff: I met with someone who was in such a rush it really turned me off. After having spent over a hour at the Sheraton, I felt like the 10 minutes the Marriott gave me looked poorly on them.
  • Verdict: Not the setting we were looking for!

• The Colonnade ($$$)
  • Price: All inclusive packages start at $165 per person, including open bar, tax, and gratuity. Rooms ran over $200 a night, which was stretching the guests budgets
  • Setting: Very elegant, not over-done, and overall just lovely. I liked the fact that there was only one wedding at a time. This ballroom had a nice old Boston hotel feel and was certainly large enough to accomodate the crowd we had.
  • Staff: Ask for Pippa, she rocks. She came out super early to meet with us and is overall a very nice person to deal with. She follows up quickly and even had cute little Colonnade duckys for us (nice touch)!
  • Verdict: I just wish the price could come down a little bit!!!!

• The Fairmont Copley. ($$$)
  • Price: Ok, I admit, I knew this was going to be pricey, but I had to find out for sure. The entree and package prices are not much more than most of the hotels I went to, but the minimums were ridiculous. The Oval Room has a $27,000 minimum on food and beverage, not including tax and gratuity, to host a wedding there. I didn’t even ask about the Grand Ballroom. Complete packages, including open bar, tax, and gratuity, started at $175.
  • Setting: It’s beautiful, but it just isn’t us. Even if I had an unlimited budget, I think it is too ornate for our liking. Plus, it would be very expensive for our guests to stay there.
  • Staff: We met with Christina from catering who was really nice. She showed us the rooms and walked us through the menu. Even the head of catering introduced himself, which was a nice touch. We never felt rushed or pressured.
  • Verdict: Too expensive for us and our guests!

• The Hampshire House ($$$)

  • Price: $185 starting point, including tax, gratuity, 5 hour open bar. Yikes!
  • Setting: It felt like I was in someone’s living room. I didn’t like the fact that guests have to move upstairs for dessert while the room gets broken down for dancing. Also, the room only seats 150 people, including a side bar room that holds a few tables.
  • Staff: We didn’t meet with anyone from catering, as the time we went was on a weekend, but the gentleman who toured us was nice.
  • Verdict: Too small and too expensive.

How much per person?

Having a Boston wedding seems ridiculously expensive. Since I am not an heiress to a Back Bay mansion or the princess to daddy CEO, I have to worry about money. My fiance, my parents, and I are all footing the bill for this shindig and I don’t want anyone to go bankrupt over it. I considered having the wedding outside of Boston, but this is such a special place for us that I don’t think either of us would be happy doing it elsewhere.

Everywhere I go in this city, prices start at about $140 per person. While that figure includes the works – champagne toasts, cocktail hour food, open bar, etc. – at 200 guests we’re talking major money – $28,000 – just on the reception!! I’ve seen figures like “the average wedding in Massachusetts costs $24,000”; they must consider Boston it’s own territory so as not to skew the figures. Who makes this stuff up?