We had our full wedding (ceremony, cocktail hour, & reception) at The Sinclair. While we mostly loved our experience, there were a few issues we had (see below). The things we love...d: The exposed brick, chandeliers, and industrial style is gorgeous, I immediately fell in love. It was really nice to have 12 hours access to the venue, many others don’t offer this. The venue was clean, bathrooms were nice, the use of upstairs and downstairs made the flip flawless, it includes a bridal suite, and the additional expense lighting was worth it. This was the most affordable bear-bones venue we found, and all in all quite beautiful.
Things to consider before booking:
-This is an entirely BYO Vendor venue, which is what we needed since we had a Jewish wedding and had to hire outside kosher catering. It was very convenient and $ saving for us but made for a LOT of extra planning (rental chairs, tables, plates, napkins, cups, decorations, staff, etc), and clean up at the end of the night absolutely sucked.
-NO parking included. Parking was tough. We managed to email the Park it on Market garage to reserve a handful of spots close by, but there is no parking given. We also got lucky parking on the street outside but it was constantly full and we waited a while for cars to move to swoop up the spots. Sundays and holidays have no active parking meters so we lucked out there.
-NO kitchen and NO cooking on site (fortunately I rented an Airbnb that my caterer BBQd at).
-NO candles or open flames (we used LED candles).
-NO ice (we had to order our own for an extra $300).
-NO garbage bins to throw trash away (we had to hire junk haul co for $300, otherwise you have to find a bin yourself or get fined).
-NO Venue setup: most people flip setup between the ceremony to reception during cocktail hour, so make sure your coordinator, caterer, or someone will do that.
-The dance floor being off to the corner turned out to not be as ideal as I was hoping, but we made it work. Lots of photos/videos came out so-so due to angles/positioning.
-The cocktail hour downstairs was way too crowded and hot for 130 guests, even though we only had 2 small belly bars and no chairs. This resulted in many of our guests standing outside while we were trying to take family photos outside.
-Since our coordinator (on their recommend list) also works as an venue manager for them sometimes, they had her doing double duty which seemed like a lot. It would have been nice to have our coordinator + a venue manager, especially when we had 2 intoxicated wedding crashers wander onto our dance floor.
I had read glowing reviews of Megan the owner but sadly did not have a super positive experience with her. She did grant us a booking discount upon asking, but there were a few later issues such as their sudden name change that created problems with invitations and she was very cold about the matter. Perhaps because of the reviews I’d read I had higher expectations, but we were disappointed. Outside of this, we basically had minimal contact with her, and there were no personal connections made.
All in all, I think we did save some money going with this beautiful bare bones venue and it was what we mostly needed, but it does have pros and cons to consider.