Wave Hill

Wave Hill has made this experience so wonderful. Our wedding here was beyond our wildest dreams. We can’t wait to keep coming back to Wave Hill forever, it’s such a special place with such special people.

We were celebrating our anniversary several days ago and we were looking at our wedding photos, and it reminded me to write a review for all our wedding vendors. This venue is conveniently accessible if you are looking for a garden venue that is not too far from Manhattan, Bronx, Westchester, and some parts of Northern Jersey. It is a public garden so the whole day until 5 pm, the public will be there on their lawns, and from what I can recall about their policies is that the private events can only start by 5pm and can last only til around 11pm. The venue is beautiful and has a lovely view. You can do your ceremony and cocktail drinks outdoors of course. However if you want an outdoor reception for dinner and dancing, the patio in Wave Hill has quite limited space to accommodate a big number of guests for dinner. Ours was around 70 to 75 guests and it just fit right into the patio's space. I doubt that a wedding with around 100 guests and over, can fit in there. Outdoor dancing will be almost impossible given the limited space and also their strict rules in terms of music and noise especially during certain hours. They have a room called Mark Twain Room inside the Wave Hill house which you can use for dancing, however it didn't feel spacious enough for dancing for 75 guests or over. In our experience, having the dancing in that room, it felt hot and it didn't feel that air-conditioning was working well. Now you have a room of many people dancing and sweating on a summer evening. Hiring a tent company and setting up a tent on their lawn is an option too if you want to pay more for tenting and you can only use limited number of vendors that they recommend. For brides, by the way, I think that the rooms they have available for getting ready and touching up is just okay, but could be better. At the time, the venue also seemed very strict in terms of other vendor choices you can work with and hire, and in terms of catering, setting-up tent, lighting. If you decide to use this venue, you will have to rent all equipments, furnitures and utencils etc, that has to be used for your event. (Tables, chairs, table linen, plates, silverware, glasswares, salt and pepper, napkins, ice thongs, ice buckets, pitchers, trays and every thing else in the kitchen that the catering company has to use to prepare food and drinks.) This venue is quite expensive just for the venue fee alone, and separately you will have to pay the caterer, and also the rentals company. They mostly work with Great Performances Catering plus Party Rentals Ltd from what we experienced, which in total would be quite expensive. It wouldn't be surprising if the whole package could end up costing $10,000 for a venue fee, plus getting invoiced above $20,000 for catering and an additional $10,000 or more for party rentals for a small wedding of 70 - 75 people. It's good to review everything and take note all that when you want to make a practical decision as signing up for this venue has so many restrictions. So for all the convenience of being close to NYC this location is great. But I think that if you really want a garden and outdoor wedding, and flexible with location, a beautiful countryside or island resort or venue somewhere else with outdoor areas for ceremony, cocktails, dinner and dancing, that offers everything in one package: venue, catering, tables, chairs, dinnerwares, equipments etc would seem to be a much more practical and convenient alternative over Wave Hill.

Where to begin. Wave Hill is pure magic. We could not have asked for a more spectacular or more special place to get married. Are guests were blown away by the beauty of the the locale, its hidden gem-like quality, the taste of the food, the sunset, the grounds, the professionalism of everyone involved in "putting on" the wedding! Great Performances is, from our perspective, unmatched in terms of the quality and inventiveness of the food, the presentation, the pitch-perfect service, and everything else in between. I cannot tell you how many of our guests are still talking about the food, which, as you know, is rare! It's truly a culinary experience! We worked with Carly and Emily, who are WONDERFUL. Throughout the planning process, they answered every single one of our questions thoughtfully and in a timely manner. They had FABULOUS ideas throughout, and played pivotal roles in the overall aesthetic and flow of the evening, which was, to my mind, perfect. It's also worth noting that they are TOTAL pros and beyond brilliant problem-solvers. No logistical hurdle or aesthetic preference was too big or too small for them to handle; they're truly an amazing team. They also worked SO well with our other vendors and were, importantly, SO fun and so thoughtful and so enthusiastic. They made me feel so special and so cared for throughout the entire process! I LOVED working with them, and am so grateful to them for putting together a wedding that exceeded my wildest dreams. Everything was executed PERFECTlY. It's possible I am biased, but the service was IMPECCABLE. I cannot recommend Wave Hill and/or Emily and Carly highly enough!!!!!!

It's right on the Hudson River, with beautiful views of the river and the GW Bridge. The food was excellent and the ambiance was great.;The event planner that is included was not very helpful and was absent for a large part of the reception.