wedding hotel

Wedding Blog: Wedding Hotel Booked

It’s been a little while since I’ve written a wedding blog, but the wedding process has still been going strong. And slightly slow since I’m the man not doing much.

I was in charge of finding a wedding hotel and after visiting the Kenilworth Inn & not liking it, I had my work cut out for me. We wound up visiting 4 other hotels over a period of a couple of weeks.

The winner was the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Cranford NJ. We picked this hotel for a number of reasons, the main one of which is its proximity to our wedding venue Galloping Hills Golf Course. It’ll be more affordable for us to do a shuttle for our guests since it’s about 2 or 3 miles away and 1 exit off the parkway & more convenient for our tired guests who want to go to bed after the long day.

There are also some great amenities offered for the price. We checked out the Hilton Short Hills that was probably too much money for our guests although the available amenities were nicer.

The Holiday Inn in Carteret didn’t offer refrigerators and had a more expensive bridal suite. The rooms and open space at the Homewood Suites were also nicer than the ones at the Hilton House in Morristown.

I made the initial arrangements through Johanna, but wound up taking the tour and meeting with Dyolinda who likes to be called Ms. D (don’t ask me). They seemed nice and helpful, although it took a couple of weeks and 2 attempts to get the text code & link to put on our wedding website.

Let me know how you came to pick your wedding hotel or about your experience with Homewood Suites in Cranford here or on Twitter @ChrisKeuling!

Wedding Blog: Hotel Hunt… Kenilworth Inn is Out

Now that Beth and I have found a wedding venue, it is time to search for more vendors. Whoopie!

One of the most important parts of our wedding experience is the wedding hotel that our out-of-town guests (mostly everybody) will be staying in. We want to ensure that:

1. they will have a comfortable stay in a clean room that gives them enough space
2. a shuttle can take them from the hotel to the venue
3. they’ll be able to get food at the hotel
4. it’s close enough to other places, so they don’t feel trapped in the hotel.

The first wedding hotel that we were looking into was the Kenilworth Inn since it was on the Galloping Hills Golf Course recommendation list. It’s also virtually across the street from the venue.

However, I was told by Beth and Jennifer from Galloping Hills that it had a bit of a bad reputation. We were also told that it had been recently remodeled and the revamp was still occurring. Wanting to keep my options open, I wanted to try it out.

My first impressions from pulling up were curiosity of why there was a gazebo and the fact that the pool area was really nice. Walking in, it looked a bit like a church on the inside between how the fireplace & lobby almost looked like where a sermon would be preached and the fact that the event board looked similar to something you would find in a church.

We spoke with the receptionist and the two people in the business cards were not available (we didn’t make an appointment). However, we did see the rooms and they were pretty nice.

When inquiring about the gazebo, I found out that the Kenilworth Inn actually offers weddings onsite. The red flag went up here. I’m not interested in sharing a hotel with another wedding, especially one that is taking place at the hotel.

So much for Plan A. There are many more hotels that I’ve been contacting and will talk about my experiences with each, so stay tuned!