The findings

To avoid being easily searchable, I won't call the three places I saw on Sunday with my mom by their real names. (Thank you, Michael J, for teaching me this lesson). For those of you who know Clarion pretty well, they'll probably be pretty transparent, and for those of you who don't, it won't matter anyway.

We'll start with the worst first: the Overlook (pictures omitted to protect the innocent)

I'd heard lots of good things about this place, including a few recommendations from friends who've gotten married there. So maybe I didn't like it that much because my expectations were too high. Also, we didn't have an appointment to meet with the owner (who apparently coordinates events), so we didn't have anyone to tell us how the place would be set up differently or specially for the wedding. So maybe certain aspects that my mom and I didn't like wouldn't have been there if we'd made an appointment or wouldn't be part of the final deal in any case.

As it was, though, the location seemed unnecessarily hard to get to, hard to find (even for a local - I shudder to think of someone from DC or Boston trying to get there on their own), and just sort of plunked down in a treeless spot. The spot where the ceremony would take place seemed overly removed from where people would be sitting, and it looked to us as though guest would watch the ceremony from the same place as they would eat, which seems like an awful lot of sitting in one place to me for something that's supposed to be a party. So the flow seemed off.

Just generally, though, we weren't impressed either with the feel of the place. The one tent that was up at the moment was sagging in places with water from a recent rain, the set up of the bar completely obstructed the view of the valley (the major draw of the place) and there were plastic tables and chairs just sort of sitting around all over the place. Although I'm not looking for the Ritz-Carlton here, I think the Overlook was just lacking an element of class and ease-of-use for me. Again, it's possible I misjuged it, but that was my impression. Also, it's part of a summer vacation spot in the area and I was worried about availability of rooms and non-wedding traffic around Memorial Day anyway. So bleh.

#2 - Wolfton Inn

I don't have that much to say about this place. It was very nice, definitely a step up from the Overlook, and there is a hotel right next to the restaurant, so people wouldn't have to drive anywhere after the reception, which is a plus. The wedding and reception would both be outside, under tents, and I'm also not sure about the flow of things, but the Wolfton Inn seemed a bit more flexible than the Overlook, in that we could see multiple options for how things might go. There were definitely questions - but we were confident that there would be acceptable answers too.

Final impression was that this place would be great, but we definitely need more info on everything from possible set ups to pricing packages. Next step would be to set up an appointment with their event coordinator.

#3 - Mapleridge

This place has lots of things going for it, and a few fairly major negatives. First, there're a lot of family connections to this place that aren't there for either the Overlook or the Wolfton Inn, which I like. It's a country club where both of my parents belong and play golf pretty much continuously from April to November, or whenever during the year the greens aren't frozen. My high school prom was there, and I've gone to a couple other events there over the years, so I have a feel for the place. Also, my dad's parents belonged to Mapleridge, won the Club Championship a time or two, and are a definite part of the lore of the place (geeky word choice, I know. Sue me).

Along with these personal connections and experiences with the place comes a lot of helpful knowledge and benefits that eliminate most of the questions we have about other locations. My parents know who to talk to about what issues, we know how things are set up for weddings typically, where we have freedom to change things and where we have to go with what the location comes with. My mom showed me a little upstairs room where I'd be able to get all bride-ified before the ceremony without taking up the public bathroom - the only place we saw anything like that - and she also knew about glass centerpiece bowls Mapleridge had available, which someone else had donated from their wedding a year or two ago.

The negatives: there's a wedding there on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. We were looking at Sunday, which Mapleridge said would be fine, but we'd have to do all our on-site decorating and set up on Sunday before the ceremony, which would be a lot of pressure that wouldn't exist at Wolfton Inn or the Overlook. Also, Mapleridge is not right next to a hotel or anything, so people would have to designate drivers and everything. Typical of weddings and parties in general, but it's something that we wouldn't have to worry about at the other locales, so it goes in the negative column for Mapleridge. The biggie, though, is the Sunday set up issue. Ugh.

Analysis and Discussion

My fiance and I have a lot to go over together, because we haven't even decided for sure that Clarion is where we want to get married. But if we do end up deciding on Western PA, I think Mapleridge and the Wolfton Inn are our two best options. One makes things easy now, but potentially rough right before the wedding, while the other makes things potentially rough for the next few months but probably easier on the actual wedding day. We'll have to do some couple soul-searching to figure out which we'd prefer.

Until then, I have some serious packing and furniture dissassembly to do.