Weylin

with about 120 of us. The two domes are what make it work. The Jewish ceremony, cocktails and the Chinese tea ceremony all sat under the smaller oculus dome, dinner and dancing took the main dome, and the after-party came back under the oculus to finish. Having somewhere to go for the night is a large part of what you are booking. Allyson Backus, their event sales director, shaped the evening with us, and Mackenzie Fields, their event production coordinator, handled the details as the date approached. Both were helpful, knowledgeable, and flexible throughout. The bartenders earned a line as well: good drinks, no queue we ever saw, and friendly every single time we went up. Brooktech, Weylin's exclusive AV vendor, handled our lighting and sound. After the building itself, the lighting was the biggest thing in the room: everything that needed to be seen was lit, the atmosphere shifted as the evening did, and by the time we were dancing it felt like a good club. They rigged our florist's eight-foot floral ring from the oculus, so we were married underneath it. Their mixing booth sits in the wall between the two domes, which meant the move from one room to the other cost us nothing. Nothing failed all evening. Two things to know going in, neither of which we would call a fault. A landmark this old carries real restrictions on candles, glassware, and how load-in works. And a domed hall in a 95-degree week is not going to be 68 degrees. Not one guest mentioned the heat to us, and it is the trade you make for a building like this one. Weylin gives you a thorough contract and a detailed planning timeline, and the team raised things helpfully as they came up. Even so, there is a lot to absorb about a building this old, so go looking for it all early rather than encountering it along the way. Ask as well what happens if one of the spaces becomes unavailable. One of ours did, late in the week, and we moved the after-party upstairs; it ran fine and nobody but us would have known, though the basement lounge would have given it a different feel. Everyone had a wonderful night, us very much included, and we would tell anyone looking at venues anywhere in New York to go and see it.