Northwest Maritime Center

I found the people at the NWMC to be extremely helpful, easy going and professional. The space is beautiful, and has been built to accommodate anything you may need, i.e. electronic blinds for video, advanced sound etc... The view over the water, off the deck or just outside the venue is breath taking and really impressed our out of town guests.

On the day of our wedding, the venue looked stunning and was the perfect backdrop for our ceremony and reception. That being said, arranging for our wedding to be held there was very difficult and time consuming, as the venue is not set up well to host weddings. Pros: The building is BEAUTIFUL wood and we absolutely loved being able to use the decks and docks surrounding the room. Since we had both our ceremony and reception in the same room, our guests enjoyed spreading out in the outside space while we changed the room over. We also didn't have to put in a ton of effort to decorate, as the space is naturally beautiful. Location. There are plenty of hotels very close for our out of town guests. Cons: Administration and logistics for the venue. The venue rents out at an hourly rate. This rate changes for weekend, weekday, 9-5, after 5, etc. Because it was hourly, we had to decide how long we thought we would need to decorate, how long the party would last, and how long we would need to clean up. Talk about stressful. We paid for more than we thought we would need as we were concerned about what we would do if something went wrong. However, to keep it affordable, we had to choose not to be able to access the venue for decorating until late afternoon before the wedding. Second, they do not provide a time for a rehearsal. We would have had to rent it out for 3 hours (the minimum time) the night before to rehearse in the space. It wasn't worth it to us, so we nixed it, though not happily. Third, a $300 wedding surcharge that seems to get you nothing. I have no problem paying a fee if I know why I'm being charged and what I'm getting something to assist in wedding coordination in return, but this was not true of the Maritime Center's fee. When I asked what the fee was for or what we got for paying to specifically have a wedding at this venue, they didn't have an answer. To follow up on my thoughts about the rehearsal, I asked why the surcharge did not cover the costs of a half hour or hour rehearsal slot the day before, which in my opinion, it should. Fourth, parking. Their lot is about half a mile away from the venue and you have to pay to use it, for an attendant, and per car that comes to the venue. We sort of found a loophole around paying for parking and had a friend stand outside and direct people to park on the streets near the venue - not ideal. Fifth, communicating with the events manager was extremely difficult. I almost always had to email two or three times before I received a response to my email and answers to my questions. Then, the week of the wedding, I received an email asking several questions we had already discussed. Last, the chairs they have are large, (hard to fit everyone - we had 160) gray, and ugly. We ended up renting nicer, white, smaller chairs and it was worth it.

The view and beautiful room was perfect for my reception!