The Metropolitan Building- perfectly imperfect

Fred has always said that the reason he and I are a perfect match is because of our imperfections.

The venue where we will be wed has similar characteristics.  The Metropolitan Building used to be an old factory back in the day until it was bought in the 80's by Eleanor Ambos.  She bought the place up for quite a ridiculous sum (compared to what that building is worth today) and used it to store all her antique furnishings.  Eventually, she began to rent the space for private events.

Bill Cosby was the first to host a party here. Soon the place was also used for film and photo shoots due to the vast array of furnishings and exposed brick walls that are hard to come by under one roof.  Today, the place is hugely popular and hosts a bunch of weddings each year.

There two floors that are used for weddings, the fourth and second.   Fred and I chose the second floor because it's smaller and has what to me seemed to be a somewhat Victorian home type of feel.  The built-in bookshelves are stacked with books, and the shabby chandeliers, mingling nicely with exposed pipe work, seem to be a humble version of the more arrogant types you find at the bigger halls.   On this floor there are also two little rooms that are perfect for private lounge areas, or even a changing room if a bride so wishes.  And, there's a real bathroom with bathtub and all.  So technically it's a little home living happily in the guts of an old brick monolith building in the middle of LIC.

It's going to be really hard to pimp this place up for the wedding- it already has so much charm and character.

Location, Location, Location

There's a lot of debate around who first coined the term "location, location, location".  Some sources credit it back to realtors in the 1950's, but an earlier reference was found in the Yale Book of Quotations dating as far back as 1926 as covered in a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/magazine/28FOB-onlanguage-t.html), but regardless of who first coined it it's a triple-word phrase that means a lot.  If you're in cinema, it means the setting for your shoot; if it's Real Estate it means property value based on access to main roads, transportation, shops, schools, etc.; and for brides and grooms it means mood and setting for their special day.

When Fred and I finally decided to start looking at venues we toyed with a few options- destination wedding?  Given my heritage a destination wedding in Mexico sounded almost dreamy.  Imagine what it would be like to be married in one of Mexico's oldest colonial towns like that of San Miguel de Allende?  Old churches, haciendas, porticos; a beautiful wedding at sunset with the Mariachi serenading the nuptials.   But, that would mean inviting 99% of our family so that only 2% could attend.  That, plus dealing with long-distance wedding arrangements sounded a bit more complicated than what we could or would be able to manage.  We would need to keep it local- NYC.  Goodbye money.

We did not have a ton of criteria for our venue hunt; rather than must-have's we had must-not's, and our most important must-not was no multiple-wedding venues. With that, a shitload of options went right out the door, and with them probably the opportunity to save a bit on cost.  Country Clubs, Grand Prospect Halls-and-the like, sorry but we cannot consider you.   Thus, the venue-hunt process began and I was in charge.  I read blogs, online wedding directories, and the more mainstream wedding websites to the extent of what became a list of venues that had captured my interest and would require further research.  

First on my list were restaurants, off-the-beaten-path venues like lofts, galleries, museums, and church-halls.  (Until Fred plainly stated: "I am not getting married in a church").  We began with the restaurants and looked at one in particular in Astoria.  It was nice, and I'm sure the food was great, but there was something about that pre-determined feel to it that didn't move us the way we wanted.  It did not synch up with our tastes, or interests, or for that matter our personalities.  We checked restaurants off our list.

We then looked at what I thought was the perfect venue, The Foundry in LIC.  Beautiful, beautiful place.  Totally in synch with Fred and my personal taste.  But, there was a big BUT: beautiful venue, out of our price-range.  It was/is so nice that despite the lofty pricetag (and this is based on a media salary P.O.V please), we were willing to consider it.  But then I found that they don't allow lose flower petals.  Say what? One of my most loved traditional mexican wedding dances is called "the flowers".  It is a simple dance where guests armed with trays full of flower petals dance in front of the bride and groom and shower them with flowers as they go.  To not be able to have that, was not an option for me.  this made it so that we could give up on The Foundry with a lot more ease.

The galleries were among the last venues we looked at, but found that as awesome a settign as they can be, they're just very time sensitive.  Some of them wouldn't host weddings unless it was off-peak season, limiting us to when we could actually be married.  For Fall weddings it would be early September and late November only.  While that would've been okay, I wasn't really willing to work around my ideal wedding month.  I felt like I was giving up something special by compromising the wedding date.  My October is like many brides' June.  Despite this, we did find that the Smack Mellon Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn was absolutely fabulous.  High ceilings, exposed brick; what used to be an old Boiler building has since been turned into a magnicifent canvas for brides & grooms to paint their ideal wedding.  The grey, minimalist yet bold aesthetics make it so that all attention is on your wedding detail.  The concrete columns and huge windows overlooking the river & bridge provided the perfect backdrop.  But, we couldn't do it.  In the name of all things Autumn, October needed to be my month.

Finally, one day while browsing  blogs and reading listings on wedding-friendly sites, I came across this place in Long Island City called the Metropolitan Building.  It shared similar traits to The Foundry and the loft-like aesthetics we so loved about the gallery in Brooklyn, but different.  The pictures and information on the website was promising.  Then on October 3rd, a warm but rainy morning I called up and asked if I could arrange for a tour of the venue, and sure enough, we were offered to see it that same day - my birthday!  Coincidence?