El Convento help!

[BamaBride]

Any brides out there with any experience with El Convento in Old San Juan???? My FI has given me until the end of the month to have a place for our wedding reception in April of next year. (I have changed my mind 13 million times) We have settled on having the ceremony at El Morro, but I have yet to have found a reception site. I absolutely love El Convento, but think it might be out of our price range. We want to keep the budget under 10K...and although we only are inviting 40 guests, El Convento still seems a little pricey. The problem is, every other place I have looked at & actually liked has seemed to be around the same figure. For dinner & drinks it looks to be around 150 pp, which is fine, if that's all this thing will costs....but I'm wondering how much money I will have to invest in decor & how many additional fees will "pop up" once we get closer to the date. Has anyone had there wedding reception there & have a ballpark figure for the total? Would I need to decorate the space a lot...the pictures on their site seem beautiful, but I'm wondering how much of the decor is actually provided. ANY help would be greatly appreciated, since it seems like I have been stressing over this thing for months! I just want to have a place booked! Thanks ladies:)

[alpwedding2013]

My fiance and I visited El Convento last week and made the deposit for our reception, we are getting married in October 2013.  If you get married on a Friday, the minimum consumption in Salon Campeche (their main hall) is cut in half, it's even cheaper if you get married on a Sunday.  Also, if you plan on 40 guests, you might be able to get one of the smaller rooms for cheaper too.  

 

We are getting married at San Cristobal.  We looked at El Morro (it's closer, even walkable from El Convento), but there is some construction going on, and it's a more difficult walk for your guests, especially old guests.  

 

In terms of required lighting at the forts, it can get a bit expensive considering your ceremony is only going to last 30 minutes or so.  Also, you'll have to rent garden chairs for the fort, etc. 

 

We are still early in the planning stage, but I think it was very helpful that we were able to check out the locations last week. 

 

 

Good luck      

[BamaBride]

Originally Posted by alpwedding2013 

 

My fiance and I visited El Convento last week and made the deposit for our reception, we are getting married in October 2013.  If you get married on a Friday, the minimum consumption in Salon Campeche (their main hall) is cut in half, it's even cheaper if you get married on a Sunday.  Also, if you plan on 40 guests, you might be able to get one of the smaller rooms for cheaper too.  

 

We are getting married at San Cristobal.  We looked at El Morro (it's closer, even walkable from El Convento), but there is some construction going on, and it's a more difficult walk for your guests, especially old guests.  

 

In terms of required lighting at the forts, it can get a bit expensive considering your ceremony is only going to last 30 minutes or so.  Also, you'll have to rent garden chairs for the fort, etc. 

 

We are still early in the planning stage, but I think it was very helpful that we were able to check out the locations last week. 

 

 

Good luck      

Thanks for all the information! Wow, you are WAY ahead of me, kinda in freak-out mode right now! That's great that you have all that taken care of though, less stress later. What was the setup like in the reception rooms? Need much decorations? I'd like to not spend an arm & a leg on decor, but of course, want it to look nice. That's a good idea on having in on a non-traditional day...most, if not all, of our guests will be staying a week so it wouldn't really matter what day we had it. 

San Cristobal is beautiful! Are you having an evening ceremony? I would love to get married earlier, but since you have to wait till the parks close, evening it is. Have you found a vendor for chairs/lights...hopefully it won't be ridiculous, like you said, it's only 30 minutes, rather spend the money on booze;) Didn't know about the construction at El Morro, that's something to think about. Was it big construction, would it show up in pics? Sorry about all the questions, just trying to get this show on the road ha!

[alpwedding2013]

They had about 8 round tables set up in Salon Campeche (that was the only room we seen).  I don't think it would take too much decorating to be nice, really all about your personal preference. 

 

Yes, we are having an evening ceremony at San Cristobal.  It's actually more expensive there because you have to have 3 park employees working instead of 2 at el morro.  We've gotten a couple of quotes for chairs...garden chairs for ceremony seem to be around $3.50/chair, and about $5/chair for Tiffany chairs for reception. 

 

The construction shouldn't affect your ceremony too much.  I think most people have their ceremony on level 6 at El Morro, most of the construction is on the stairway going down to level 3. 

 

Another thing to do if you would like to save money is getting cupcakes instead of an actual wedding cake.  Unless you do the "wedding package" at El Convento, there is a cake cutting fee per person.  They said you can avoid the cake cutting by getting cupcakes   

[bellabride86]

Hey alpwedding2013 ....  could you possibly give me the company name(s) that you received quotes on the chairs from?  We're thinking of a weekend wedding in October as well and want to get married at one of the forts (most likely el morro) - so we definitely need ideas as I'm not hiring a planner. We're extremely close to setting a date but I'm a little hesitant as the weather has been a little crazy around that time.  We're either getting married on a Friday or Sunday- as Saturdays are just too expensive in my opinion.

 

We should have no more than 30-40 people at our wedding - we want to have it at salon campeche - do you think we can pull this off without the room looking so empty???  We're thinking 3 round tables on either side of the room - with the space in the middle for dancing (and the bride and grooms table in the middle of the dance floor up against the wall.  It's such a grand room but I don't want it to look empty.  

 

Thank you all in advance for whoever responds!

 

Warmest Regards,

Marina 

[alpwedding2013]

Hi Marina,

 

Sorry it's taken a few days to respond back to you.  Please see your other post on El Convento for my thoughts on your wedding there (sorry, i read that post first lol). 

 

We received price quotes from Festivo (who is our decorator/florist) and Party Line.  We got a price quote from another vendor (I can't think of the name) but they didn't have garden chairs for the outdoor ceremony. 

 

Also, based on the size of your wedding, good choice on having it on a Friday or Sunday there.