The Elyria Country Club was an absolutely perfect venue for our reception. I fell in love with it the first time we visited – I just had the feeling that I could picture our event... happening there. You do not need to be a member of the ECC to have an event here.
The event manager, Brit, is great to work with. She’s very professional and organized and helped make sure our event ran smoothly and we had everything we needed. She was extremely helpful in giving her opinion on our questions during the planning process without being too pushy, and generally responded to my emails very quickly.
The food here is AMAZING! Iron Chef Michael Symon is a member of ECC and consulting chef on their banquet menus, so there are some very cool options. For example, one of our cocktail hour appetizers was baked potato skins topped with BBQ pulled pork and cole slaw. Everyone loved those! The dinner entrees were fantastic, and had a wide range of choices for surprisingly reasonable prices. The roasted salmon with bacon parmesan risotto is honestly one of the best dinners I’ve ever had. All of our guests mentioned how delicious all of the food was.
The venue itself is really beautiful. We had planned to use the outdoor covered patio space for our cocktail hour and bar, but the weather turned too cold. I was disappointed at first because the outdoor space is breathtaking, but we were able to move everything inside and it worked out perfectly. We moved the bar, coffee station and photobooth into the Centennial Room (just off the main dining room) and it actually worked out to be a perfect “lounge” area where guests could go to sit and talk away from the dance floor and music.
The only critique I heard from our guests was that the service staff during dinner was not as hospitable as one would hope (for example, clearing plates before guests were finished eating from them or not bringing over the flavor of cake requested by a guest). Overall this was a very minor point, but in the interest of full disclosure I wanted to mention it. The bartender, Harold, though deserves special mention for outstanding service and friendliness. He was absolutely fantastic!
If you are looking for a beautiful, classy place for your reception, with food your guests will be talking about for days, you must check out the Elyria Country Club.