Hampshire Country Club

uly 2015 – a hot, humid day. The air conditioning was pumping in there!! We had about 175 guests with 18 tables, and there was plenty of space to move around. The wedding party arrived to a cool and refreshing bridal suite stocked with snacks and booze – just what the doctor ordered. The ballroom is bright, with lots of windows that look out to the little LI sound inlet. Cocktail hour was out on the patio, which had a beautiful view of the LI sound as well. The timing of the wedding was ideal, with a nice cocktail hour, then some time before the salad, and about an hour before the main – it gave everybody enough time to digest and dance in between (my out of town guests had never been to a wedding where you don’t eat first, and they loved it because they felt that they could digest better that way and not feel full all night). Food: From the tasting to the wedding, nothing but perfection. My guests RAVED about the cocktail hour and the main courses. Everybody said that there was abundance of food at the cocktail hour, way more than they could handle-- just the thing an Italian girl wants to hear! I wanted my guests full when they entered that ballroom, and they certainly were! For our main courses, we had the NY Strip Steak and the French Chicken Breast, both with were delicious. The chicken sounds plain, but it is really a treat, juicy and sitting on fresh summer veggies, yum!! And you can’t go wrong with a strip steak. Guests had nothing but good things to say, and many reported that they cleaned their plates. We ordered pies from a bakery for dessert, and Dorothy suggested an Ice Cream and Cookie bar to go with the pie, and it was perfect. Guests piled ice cream on their pie, and the kids loved that too. Perfect for a hot July night. All of the food was outstanding. Staff: First off, Dorothy is QUICK to answer emails – this was really helpful to me, and I’m sure to you brides who are trying to make quick decisions and don’t want to wait around. Julio, who managed the food, was very helpful during the tasting, answering all of our questions. He also ordered us special beer (the watermelon kind!!) for our reception. Both Dorothy and Julio were so helpful, and CALM is the key word. I didn’t feel the need to approach either of them for anything at all during the wedding because they are the experts and knew what they were doing. The wait staff was constantly filling up our drinks, and they were very courteous all night long. Side note: I dropped off a bunch of things the week of the wedding, and everything was set up perfectly on the wedding day. It was also neatly packaged up for me to pick up in Dorothy’s office the very next day!! This really made it easy for us. Price: We worked with Dorothy to come up with a menu that we wanted-- and that was within our budget. She was flexible with moving things around for us. Thank you Dorothy and Julio and the staff at the Hampshire CC for helping to make our wedding day everything we hoped it would be!

end to anyone looking to have a great party. Kathy