International Institute of Buffalo

What:

Ceremony, reception, or ceremony and reception venue

Location:

864 Delaware Avenue

Buffalo, NY 14209

Price (for 8 hours, which includes setup and cleanup):

$500 with one of their approved caterers (Delish and Brodo)

$1,000 with other caterers

+$100 if using a tent

Capacity: 
150 (spread between several rooms)

Facilities: 
Multiple connected rooms, kitchen, backyard

Contact:

Emily Reid

development2@iibuff.org
(716) 883-1900

Pros:

Beautiful, unique, can bring in own caterer, backyard available for outdoor ceremonies, tables and chairs provided, rental is for 8 hours (which is longer than most places we looked at)

Cons:

Price doubles if you choose your own caterer rather than using one of theirs; the rental space has multiple adjoining rooms rather than one big room, with no individual room big enough to hold more than 60 people (if I remember right); lots of small requirements/guidelines

The International Institute of Buffalo (IIB), whose purpose is assisting refugees and immigrants with language and cultural barriers, is in a lovely old Georgian Revival mansion (according to the website) which is available to be rented for events.  The photos on WeddingWire.com give a good idea of the atmosphere—elegant, slightly worn but with definite charm.  The main consideration with this one is the way the space is arranged.  The room where the ceremony would be (if you did it indoors—since our wedding was in March we couldn’t plan on using the backyard, but that is an option, although it's not super big) can only hold about 60 people max.  A few stairs lead up from that room to another, which connects to a third.  The website says there are five connecting rooms, so maybe there's even one more (I think the fifth is the lobby).  So if you wanted to have your ceremony inside, the number of guests would be limited.  We thought about using the IIB for the reception only, but with about 100 guests we weren’t sure how well it would work having everyone divided between several rooms.  People might feel isolated or like they were missing out on things, being so spread out.  I also don’t know whether having dancing would be possible or not; the space wasn't the most conducive to it with none of the rooms being very big, and I'm not sure if that's something the IIB allows or not.

As far as the catering, Brodo's website lists their options and they have quite a variety, and lots of it sounds really good.  I can't tell if Delish actually does normal catering or not; they're a pastry shop and also do cooking classes, and their website doesn't say anything about actual catering.  If you decide to pick your own caterer, they would have to go through IIB's approval process.  Emily wasn’t sure what that would entail, but she didn’t think it would be difficult for a caterer to be approved.

I've uploaded a copy of the IIB's event guidelines here so you can see all of their stipulations (it's really not that bad, just slightly more work/more restrictions than there would be at some places).  All that said, it is a very nice place and would be a classy, unique venue for an outdoor ceremony and smaller reception, or small indoor ceremony and simple reception.

Find more info on their website.

Chapel Vandervoort

What:

Ceremony venue

Location:

190 Vandervoort Street

North Tonawanda, NY 14120

Price:

$225 with own officiant

$300 with their officiant

Capacity: 
200

Facilities: 
Main room, bride’s room

Contact:

Sandy, owner

716-417-3184

chapel190@aol.com (I didn’t receive a response to my email right away, so calling might be better)

Pros:

Inexpensive, cute, would easily work for a smaller group or a bigger one (“bigger” being 200), officiant available if needed

Cons:

Nowhere nearby to have the reception (that I found), somewhat out of the way in a residential neighborhood (which is nice in a way but could make it hard to find), might not be everyone’s style

My now-husband really liked this one, and we might have gone with it because of that and the price if we'd found somewhere to have the reception afterward.  However, the venue we'd had in mind to pair it with was the Screening Room (they're about 15 minutes apart, which is farther than I would have liked but would have been fine), but we'd already discovered it wouldn't work for us before seeing this one.  Since we didn't have an alternative reception venue in mind and were already looking into the venue we would end up using, which had room for both the ceremony and reception, we had to decide against Chapel Vandervoort.  But it was a nice little place; it was cool that there was a wedding chapel complete with a tower (check out the website for pictures) in the middle of a residential neighborhood, and that the owner, Sandy, also lives there--it made it seem personal and informal, which is a good thing to me.  It would make a quiet, cute location for a simple ceremony.

--Also note that a deposit is due in order to reserve your date, and the balance is due 60 days before the event, which is a lot farther in advance than the other places we looked at.  

Find more info on their website.

The Screening Room

What: 
Reception venue (could also be used for ceremony only, hypothetically)

Location: 
Northtown Plaza Business Center
3131 Sheridan Drive
Amherst, NY 14226

Price (for 4 hours): 
Friday & Saturday evenings - $500
Saturday daytime - $350 
Sunday daytime or evening - $350
(the prices were $50-100 lower when we looked at it, FYI) 

Capacity:
Banquet style - 80+
Theater style - 100
Mixer style - 100+

Facilities:
Main room, smaller side room where food would be served, coat room; no kitchen.

Contact: 
Bob Golibersuch, President/Founder
716-837-0376
info@screeningroom.net
bobg@screeningroom.net

Pros:
Inexpensive; unique; can bring in own food/caterer; microphone, sound system, and projector/screen use included; tablecloths included; vegetable, cheese, and cookie platters available; good options for drinks (cash bar, tab bar, or combination); relaxed atmosphere (this might not be a pro to everyone but it is to me!)

Cons:
Small, no DJs or dancing permitted (per a note on their website that wasn't there when we were looking into it), hard to find (it's located within a larger building in the plaza and the entrance is off to the side--would have to give guests very specific directions)

Although it would have been a cozy, unique, and inexpensive reception venue, the Screening Room ended up not being an option for us because of its size.  Our guest list was over 100 and we ended up having about 90, so even though it might have been possible to squeeze everyone in, it would have been tight and would have left no room for dancing.  And apparently now they're not allowing dancing at events anyway, which wasn't the case when we were looking at it.  This would be a great venue for a small, intimate, low-key reception where the entertainment consisted of speeches and a slideshow/presentation rather than dancing, or for a cocktail style reception.  I didn't think about using it as a ceremony-only venue at the time, but I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work.

Find more info on their website (it isn't great but has pretty much all the information you'd need).