We worked with both Amanda and Josh during the planning process, and Josh was with us on the day of, and they both made the planning process incredibly easy and our wedding day stress free. Most of our communication was done through email, and... were great about replying quickly. We had a few in person meetings, and they were good about making sure we understood each available package, and made sure we had a good understanding of the venue and how things would run. They really know what they're doing, and they also made us feel so comfortable going into wedding day. They really work with you and they brought such a personal experience during the planning, and they were both so relaxed and cool about everything. Even the servers were all so, so nice.
We chose the Housing Works because we wanted our wedding to be a personal experience, not one of those typical giant wedding hall weddings with too much purple lighting and bad food. A huge draw of HW is that it's all farm to table and a changing menu depending on the season. We got a great sampling at their food tasting, which was an event in itself (cocktail hour & served dinner made it feel like a mini wedding). For our wedding, we did a buffet style dinner, and a large portion of the guests went up for seconds, that towards the end of food service, they ate everything only some of the vegetables were left over. We all know wedding food is typically terrible, but a lot of the guests were really happy with the food done by HW. We had a friend who went to HW for a wedding several months before our wedding, and they made it a point to let us know they were excited about eating at our wedding several months later.
The venue itself is intimate, but large enough to move and dance. The lighting is moody, in a good way, and our photos looked amazing with all the books in the backdrop. The venue needs minimal decorating because it's just that pretty, so it was pretty easy to have a DIY wedding there. The venue is very affordable as well, which we appreciated, especially for where it's located. And a portion of the costs were donated through the venue to those living with homelessness and AIDS, and we appreciated that as well.
The Housing Works is not your cookie cutter venue, and you will get individual attention if you host an event here, not just a wedding. You will love the food, and the preferred vendors (they recommended our DJ, James Mulry, who was also the absolute best), and you will just love the people as well. It was all just such a positive, happy, experience from stem to stern. They will leave you with nothing to worry about from the planning process and through the day of. They are completely thorough, professional, knowledgable, and just plain nice people.