Another Road Bump: Finding A Rehearsal Dinner Venue

As I alluded to in my last post, we went and looked at the reservable picnic spots at the San Mateo park, and were completely disappointed. We had wanted to do a casual BBQ in the park, so we could have all our close family and out of town guests attend the rehearsal dinner, and Central Park was relatively close to the Marriott where everyone would be staying. But when we went to go look at the picnic sites, they were Ugly, with a capital U!

The four sites were all practically on top of each other, with old bark under the tables, and right across from a loud playground and busy street corner. We were thinking if we did the casual park set up, we'd put out frisbees and a badminton net, to provide some entertainment other than staring at each other across picnic tables. But here, the grass was nowhere nearby, and pretty much this plan just wasn't going to work. (sorry, I didn't take pics of the ugly picnic sites because I didn't want to be rude and take pictures of strangers eating. You'll just have to take my word for how lame the sites were!)

So, back to the drawing board. After looking at the San Mateo park, I spent the entire week researching potential new locations. And believe me, it wasn't easy. We were trying to spend under $2,000, since that's what the FIL Colas were contributing to the dinner. And for about 35 people, that's not easy to do in this area! Here were the options I came up with:

Kingfish, downtown San Mateo
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However, their cheapest dinner option is $38 per person, not including tax, tip or drinks. So that would be a grand total of $2,462.21, allowing each person to spend $15 on drinks (which is really only about 2 drinks each), and including tax and tip.

Porterhouse, downtown San Mateo
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Their cheapest dinner option is $35 a person, also not including tax, tip or drinks, so it would be $2,326.50 total. Not much less than the first option.

Fish Market, across freeway from The Marriott
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Looks-wise, this was the best option (as I'm sure you've guessed by now, I love things being outdoors!), and they would let us make our own pre fixe menu. That turned out being between $26.75-34.75 a person, depending on which menu item they chose. But that was still $2,315.19 total.

Coyote Point Museum, Coyote Point Park, San Mateo
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This place looked pretty decent, being that it was outdoors, and assumedly we could have it catered for less than the restaurant options. But it was not meant to be, since they never answered my 3 e-mails asking for pricing and rental info.

San Mateo Garden Center, central San Mateo

(pictures taken by me)

This place is located in central San Mateo, but not too much further from the hotel than Central Park. The rental fee is only $450, including chairs and tables, for 5 hours, and we can have it catered by whoever we want. So the total before decorations would only be $1,477.49! Bringing our own beer and wine will be a huge money saver, and I love this location so much better than the BBQ in the park.

So naturally, this is the location we picked. Especially after seeing another reservable picnic spot right after seeing the Garden Center, at the park behind it:

(ick, just no comparison to the Garden Center. Photo taken by me)

So the San Mateo Garden Center is our rehearsal dinner location! And it only took me about a week of pulling out my hair to figure it out. Next up I'll share how we're going to pretty it up!

Did you struggle with finding your rehearsal dinner location? And did the price play a big part in your decision?