Wedding Wednesday: Pittsburgh Wedding Venues We Looked At

The Twentieth Century Club

Today I wanted to talk about what hasn't gone smoothly in our wedding planning process. I think there are so many wedding articles out there that are all positive and not a lot of articles that discuss the issues you might run into when planning an event or wedding! 

We got engaged on December 28th. I had always wanted a December wedding so, in my mind, I thought, perfect, a full 12 months to plan a December 2019 wedding!

Pittsburgh is on the smaller size in terms of US cities, and I thought I would be pretty safe planning our wedding from a year out. I know in bigger markets, it's much more competitive. 

So we waited a week after we got engaged to choose a date. We are getting married in a Catholic church (that I grew up going to and where I got all of my sacraments) and that was an absolute must for me. There was nothing in December that was available for the church. Nothing. I did not want a Friday wedding, but at that point, I was willing to be flexible but not even a Friday was available.

We are getting married at The Duquesne Club and I have always pictured getting married there. It's a private club located in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. In my opinion, it is one of the most beautiful places in all of Pittsburgh. I never even gave thought for a different venue. There were no December dates available for our venue. Cue my panicking. 

A lot of event planning, in general, is out of your hands, but at the same time, there is a lot you can control. 

I honestly didn't know what to do because I just assumed we would get married at my church, get married at The Duquesne Club, all in December. You know what they say about assuming... ha!! 

Since the church was a must, we started trying to find a date for the church. I didn't want to get married in the winter if it wasn't December so we started looking at late spring/early summer 2020. We found a date in early summer with the church, but the venue was not available. 

I sat on the early summer date for a week or two and just couldn't do it... the reason was that the church was available but our church offers two time slots for weddings. A 1pm wedding ceremony and a 3pm wedding ceremony. I know a measly 2 hours does not sound like a big deal but I just really didn't want that gap that a 1pm ceremony creates. So, we decided to basically say to the church 'what do you have available for a 3pm time slot in 2020'. And we finally settled on a date... for about a week and a half, we also thought that The Duquesne Club was not going to happen with the date we chose for the church.

So, during that time, we looked at other venues. Like I said before, I never ever thought I would get married anywhere else so it was tough for me to be open minded. I knew a lot of venues from my former event planning job, but a lot of them didn't have the vibe I wanted, some were too big, some too small, etc. 

So, I turned to WeddingWire, which was a lifesaver. They list all of the wedding venues in your area. You can sort the list by size, date, vibe of the venue, etc. Not only that but if you click on the venue, you can learn everything you want to know and see real reviews from real people. I think reviews are SO important in the wedding industry and I also think getting tips from other people who have already planned an event in the same venue can be immensely helpful, too. 

We ended up looking at The University Club and The Twentieth Century Club. If you are in Pittsburgh and are looking for a venue for your wedding, I recommend both places, but really loved the Twentieth Century Club the most. We toured both and met with the coordinators at each venue. The terrace at the University Club is incredible and The Twentieth Century Club had the old school, traditional elegance I was looking for. The WeddingWire reviews were so helpful and are what helped us to ultimately choose what we wanted to tour.

We also toured our country club that I have gone to since I was born. While I love our club and it holds so many memories, it just didn't have the old school vibe I was looking for and is also located in the suburbs which is also not something we wanted.

Lo and behold, we ended up being able to secure our date at our #1 venue choice, The Duquesne Club and I literally cried tears of joys. I don't typically cry so you can see how incredibly thankful I was. It's crazy how things work out, right?

The University Club

For anyone who has never gone to look at venues, my biggest tip would be to keep an open mind because when we toured The University Club, it was being set up for a corporate event (as you can see above). So the chairs and things like that have to be overlooked because that is obviously not what you would be using for your wedding! Look more at the bones of the venue and the service and things like that! Another thing to keep in mind, for example, if you weren't planning on renting anything- then it's important to see what the venue offers. Sometimes venues only offer plain white poly linens or chairs that are not the look you would like. Heck, some venues don't even offer tables let alone anything else...you rent everything down to individual forks! So if certain details are important to you, it's important to factor things like that into your decision. When I saw the Twentieth Century Club, I loved that their chairs looked like traditional dining room chairs... I had full intentions of renting chairs (which we are renting from Eventioneers among other things) but had we chosen the Twentieth Century Club, we would have used their beautiful chairs and it would have saved us money!

There are several lessons you can learn from this story. The first is that it is never too early to start planning! I thought a year was plenty of time in Pittsburgh but it seems as though things are starting to get competitive like in larger cities! The second is that if things aren't working out the way you want them to, you have the power to change that and you have the power to change your attitude. Third, keep an open mind, not everything always works out. We were going to create a beautiful wedding day for ourselves even if we weren't going to be able to get everything we initially wanted! And lastly, at the end of the day, all that truly matters is that you are marrying your best friend and making a lifelong commitment to each other! 

Thank you to WeddingWire for sponsoring this post, all opinions are my own!