I do Venues ~ Montclair Women's Cultural Arts Club ~ Design

Photography by Julie Mikos

Ceremony

 

A bold statement of color is the best reason to choose the Montclair Women's Cultural Arts Club as your wedding venue. Visualize a festive party with a roaring 20’s Beau Arts theme where flappers, flowers, and fan dancers are all at home. A modest outdoor patio comes alive with gold or walnut Chiavari chairs set for your ceremony. Colored cushions and wispy ribbons on the back row and side aisle chairs create further style and movement, and the delicate lines of the chiavaris will create an impressive frame to begin your design plan. At the top of your ceremony, the bride and groom will be welcomed by the facility's ornamental iron garden gazebo. Use a colorfully dramatic spray of flowers as a crown for the gazebo, and incorporate feathery garlands around its borders to take advantage of the soft movement of the breeze. Each of these small elements will help to create a larger, personalized and elegant impact to frame you as you say I do.

Reception

 

Toast to your new life together with a glass of champagne hosted in the saloon. As they enter through the ancient Spanish-style wood doors, your guests will gasp in amazement taking in the festive colors that surround them. Decorate the mantle of the room's fireplace with crisp white flowers and accents from your own wedding color palette, allowing the long hardwood bar to take center stage with a tall floral arrangement placed off to one side.

The Ballroom is delightfully playful with twinkling lights and candelabra chandeliers suspended from the ceiling to set a wonderfully romantic, vintage feel. In this colorful venue you won't find a single shade of gray, so the best design schemes will either build upon its bright hues by using palettes including raspberry, teal, or deep Victorian red for table linens, or else use a completely neutral canvas of ecru, champagne, or pearl. Giving height to your floral arrangements is a must. Using tall glass vases in non-symmetrical shapes and incorporating water elements with candles will make the room dance with flickering lights, and will create beautifully eye-catching movement when paired with rich, full toppers with tendrils tumbling down from the tall arrangements.

Dining under soft white clouds and a deep blue sky is a great option at Montclair, as the patio is ideal for a festive outdoor affair. Lighting, lanterns, and warm summer colors will inspire your guests, and shades of chocolate brown, cantaloupe, and pumpkin are all well paired with the surrounding ivy hillsides. Colored paper lanterns fluttering in a light breeze and café lights strung overhead will create a noteworthy canopy as your guests enjoy dinner under the setting sun. The Ballroom is then available to be set up as a cabaret, complete with a large center dance floor, tall and short cocktail tables dotting the perimeter of the room, and lots of twinkling candles to help set the scene.

Ask The Experts

 

Have your guests enter the ceremony from the outside walkway in order to keep the bold colors of the club's interior hidden until you're are ready for the grand unveiling: you are sure to get a positive response!