Vendor reviews:
Ridley Creek State Park - The thing about ridley is that it's no longer a cheap venue and you get no coordinator. We really loved the space and felt that it fit our needs really well. It has capacity for 130, but was far from empty with only 95. We used the "tennis yard" for our ceremony and set up a complete ceremony site with 8 or 10 rows and felt that it was perfect. The tennis yard also has the gazebo, which we chose to mark the "entrance" to the site. We essentially set up my niece with the guest book in the gazebo and then started the isle out in front of that. Then we entered through the rose garden and went around the gazebo to the aisle. If you were to get married in the gazebo, you could just enter by the fountain stairs and come up the aisle in the back. The ceremony site was amazing.
The bridal suite is another of my favorite features. It's huge, plenty big for me, 4 bridesmaids, 1 niece, 2 parents, 1 brother and 1 FSIL plus the hair dresser and makeup girl. With three vanity stations you could even have had a second hair dresser in there if you have a bigger bridal party. The suite has seating and a mini fridge which was nice because we brought water and sodas and ordered lunch. I really liked having hair and makeup come to us. First, it made it MUCH less expensive ($45 each for hair, $40 each for makeup) and second I was able to be at the site all morning but not get my hair done until last. We were totally comfortable and had a great time. This space doubles as your rain location as well.
The down sides are that you have to deal with regular park goers. We had reserved the tennis lawn for our rehearsal on Saturday but there was a woman hanging out in the space painting and she was pretty uninterested in leaving and wasn't too thrilled that we were there. Plus at the wedding a bunch of park goers lined up from afar and catch a glimpse. Annoying, but not a big deal. You can't pull right up to the front of the mansion, or at least, that's what they tell you. Our transport at the end of the night did and so did our DJ, but they explicitly said no. The building is super handicap accessible, but the grounds are not. The stairs getting up to the tennis lawn and old and steep. We asked the park if we could bring a car up one of the walking paths (it's a very clear, gravel road) and were told under no circumstances. The girl then proceeded to argue with me about how many steps there were leading up to the tennis lawn. She insisted that there were 2 sets of 2 or 3 stairs, when infact altogether there are 15 stairs between the parking lot and the tennis lawn. So be careful if you have a handicapped parent or grandparent. I think that dealing with a wheel chair would have been relatively easy (use this walking path) but since my mom uses a cane, we were in a pickle. You then also have to drive from the tennis lawn down to the mansion to the handicap parking. It was sometimes difficult dealing with them because there is no coordinator. You talk to someone different every time you call in and none of them has ever been to an event there.
Commentary from Indiebride.com
http://70.32.88.134/kvetch/index.php?t=msg&goto=966305&S=5c157719a85e3d1baa83b36f87e76822&srch=ridley+creek#msg_966305
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