Doesn't get any better than THIS reception spot!!

Thanks to my career in non-profit fundraising, and my second career as bridesmaid and unofficial wedding planner, I've used and/or been to just about every major banquet space in Wichita.

I knew going into this wedding process that we wanted "open catering" because we wanted to have Bella Luna Cafe cater, so that narrowed the field considerably. Then there was the issue of the date. It turns out I'm not the only woman in Wichita planning a Summer 2010 wedding. Ha! All the places we thought about first (Botanica, Scottish Rite, Indian Center) were booked. City Arts was too small. We found one place that was open called Gallery One Nine, which is on the 18th & 19th floors of a building in downtown Wichita. I'm VERY grateful now that the guy there was too slow to respond to us because that gave me time to do more shopping.

I stumbled upon an amazing site: http://www.eventective.com/. This site allowed me to put in my specifications (date, number of guests, etc) and then choose which venues I wanted those specs sent in to. La Quinta Inn and Suites called me back at 8:15am the next day -- and that was just the first thing that impressed me!

La Quinta @ Kellogg and Rock was open on our date and was open catering. We were very impressed when we took a tour of the space: Seventh floor ballroom with an amazing three-sided view of the city. But what ultimately sold us was the price. All those other places I mentioned are anywhere from $1,200 to $1,700 and that's just for the room and the set-up and tear-down of the tables and chairs.

La Quinta offered us the space for the evening of our event for $650.

And they threw in the FABULOUS, AMAZING two-story honeymoon suite for free.

Needless to say, we were blown away and VERY grateful. And to add to our excitement, the woman we're working with over there is AWESOME!! Very professional and responsive and organized. We admit the space will be small for all the people we expect will join us for our reception, but we also trust it will work out just fine.

We're really glad now we didn't just go with the first open venue. I was ready to let my fear of losing a place keep me from doing more shopping and investigating. Man, am I glad the one guy at the one place was bad about returning calls!!