Great Falls Grange

Today I was going to go the the American Horticultural Center and Great Falls Grange to look at two more wedding sites. Well, the AHC lady emailed me the cost for renting River Farm - $5,700 for Sunday. That's a lot of money. So, after my mom got her about forty minutes later than she should have been due to massive traffic (right now, the beltway is backed up in BOTH directions outside our apartment), we decided to nix the ridiculously expensive locations, both the American Visionary Art Museum ($2,000 or something like that for the outdoor garden and $6,000 or so for the third floor reception place) and the AHC. So, we drove over to Great Falls for some lunch and location viewing.


On the Fairfax park site, the Grange looks a lot nicer. The stairway shown here seems really big, and not like half a flight of stairs. However, it does have a lot more trees out front. However, it is RIGHT next to Georgetown Pike - a relatively busy road, so, no out door ceremony in the front.


When my mom saw this place, she knew it wouldn't be my style. Well, from the basement, it's not. This really looks like someone's basement in their house. As you can see from the people in the picture, the ceiling is low. The floor is actually nice and there is a fairly large kitchen (the guy giving the tour said you could even cater an event here by yourself!).


Here is the upstairs. It's nicer. It smells like new paint. It has this neat stage and nice floor. It also has a fairly nice piano in the back. It also has a complete sound system and theatre style lights. So, playing with that could be fun. We really wouldn't need a dj as long as we programmed someone's laptop to play whatever we wanted. However, it's not that big and we couldn't fit everyone and dancing up here.


If we rented the Grange, there is a historic schoolhouse next door that we can add to our rental for only $100. Yes, that's right, $100. It's actually a pretty neat old building with absolute lovely wood work. The windows are old glass. However, there is no air conditioning which makes it not so nice a place. This location on its own is too small to have the wedding in, but could make for some lovely pictures or ceremony or a nice place to get ready before the wedding. This whole package is a steal at only $1300 for the Grange, schoolhouse, and liquor liscense. However, Newton White is much nicer and I think that's where we're going to have the wedding. It really does seem like a steal for $2800.