Hi everyone - the wedding here at Winterthur on 8.16.08 of Camille and Chris is featured on the Bride Cafe. Take a look at the awesome work of Laura Novak and of all the really cool things that Camille and her mom added:http://thebridescafe.typepad.com/

Hi All. First, sorry - our blog has been down since before last Saturday so we have not been able to post!

I just wanted to let everyone know that you may want to think about water for your group before the ceremony if you are taking pictures. Depending where you are taking pictures there are no water fountains around and it can get very hot in a long beautiful wedding gown and a black tux! A lot of the bridal parties have been wondering to the pool where our staff is setting up and asking for water. We don’t mind handing water out but we have gone through all of our cases of water for the whole cocktail hour before the ceremony event starts!

Think about it and let Rachel and I know when your wedding is coming up if you would like water service. We can take 2 cases of water and ice it in a galvanized bin and place it in a pre-determined location right before you arrive for pictures. Charge is just $30.00. Please let Rachel or I know if you would like to add this. Thanks!

January 12, 2008 we had the Papaleo wedding here at Winterthur. This was one of our few but wonderful winter weddings! The wedding was about 190 people in size and had their ceremony and reception here. Having a wedding in January with a ceremony means you need a tent. The couple had the back patio tented where they had their ceremony and also the cocktail hour. The original size of the wedding was about 140 people and the couple wanted to hold everything inside the Visitor’s Center. We have done everything including ceremony, cocktail hour and dinner and dancing inside the Visitor’s Center for guests counts of 135 people or less. The tent comes with heater and lights so this kept all the guests outside for cocktail hour with no jackets on. This really allowed the guests to have a good time. The guests came inside to a warm glowing room filled with lots of candles, hanging Asian lanterns, and light up ice cubes in the Bride’s colors. Driving in and leaving the estate really shows you how gorgeous and inviting the Visitors Center can be even on a cold winter night!

Thank you so much for visiting the Wintertur Weddings Blog. We got the idea to start a blog after attending a hospitality event and hearing from a wedding photographer about how much his clients liked to read his blog and learn what he specializes in. Since so many of you have asked our opinions on various topics we thought we would try to bring you information on a weekly basis to keep you informed of what is happening, not only with the weddings we have here at Winterthur but also in our personal lives.

My colleague, Rachel Cowit, and I will both be blogging. Rachel is the Assistant Catering Manager here with me and she has been here since graduating from UD in 2006. In the time that she has been here Rachel has worked on over 40 weddings on the estate. Rachel is currently helping her college roommate plan her wedding and is fast becoming an expert on local vendors.

I (Nicole Bailey) have been in catering since I got out of college in 1997 and over that time have worked on countless wedding receptions - 3 of which have been on TV which was a lot of fun. Most recently Winterthur was featured on an episode of “Whose Wedding is it Anyway”, which still airs in reruns. I am currently planning my sisters wedding as well as helping 2 different friends plan parts of theirs.

We are both constantly looking for new and innovative ideas that we can either recommend to clients when meeting with them or to use as our friends and family are going through the planning processes. We plan on letting you all know the best practices we see here and to create an open forum to share ideas.

If there are any topics you would like us to discuss please email us and we will try to fit it in. We look forward to sharing our experiences with you!