Shilshole Bay Beach Club

Great and beautiful venue!! We were so happy we decided on it.

Jess was our event coordinator and she was the best!! She met with us several times before the wedding and handled all of the questions from other vendors (insanely helpful, especially in the weeks leading up to the big day). Our wedding was supposed to be out doors, but it ended up raining. But the wedding ceremony and reception were gorgeous anyways. The staff was friendly and helpful and the food was delicious!! Many people told me it was the best food they've had at a wedding.

The Shilshole Bay Beach Club is a beautiful venue (I've also reviewed the catering company attached to this venue, Apulent Catering & Events). It really does give you a sense of being in a beach club. It's right next to a small sandy beach, has a huge patio where you can accomodate more party guests or even a wedding ceremony. There's also a grassy area with picnic tables where you can sit and watch the sun go down. The interior is also beautiful. There are two main rooms, the North Room and South Room. From the North, you can also see the beautiful sunset as you have dinner by the huge windows facing the water. The hardwood floors in both rooms make it great for dancing! And the bar in the North room looks just as professional as any other in a restaurant. There's ample free parking and a drive up lane to drop off those who may have limited mobility closer to the front doors.

Unfortunately, the reason for the low rating is due to the catering company attached to the venue.

Service at Shilshole is all-inclusive, and they don't let you add/remove services from the package. They provide their own, in-house catering (through Apulent), event planner, facilities, and "event rentals" like chairs, table cloths, place settings, etc. They even had a cake knife for us to use so that we wouldn't have to go spend dozens of dollars on our own.

Great flexibility -- they let us put together our own menu from bits and pieces of their own pre-set menus and add-ons. Since their larger event room wasn't booked, they also let us move our event from the smaller to the larger without having to up the price / food&bev minimum, so that was nice :) They didn't have an event the night before our AM event, so they set up our tables early and let us drop off centerpieces, etc. the day before so we wouldn't be so rushed the morning of. They were also willing to have staff on-hand so that we could go extra-early and take wedding party photos in the morning if we needed, but in the end we didn't need them to (since it was raining).

Cost was okay at ~$30pp, which after tax and service was around $50pp. The food was pretty good (nothing spectacular), see review of Apulent. We had originally wanted to cut some things from the package to reduce the price, but in the end, it was nice having them set the schedule and make sure everything ran smoothly... One less thing to think about on our big day...

Our event-planner, Jessie Hammer, was easy to work with. She was sometimes hard to reach by e-mail (I think phone was easier for her; e-mail would take a few days...), but when we did meet with her, she was very informative, answered our questions clearly, tried to get us what we wanted (including making multiple calls to different outside vendors to get us the Chicago microbrew we wanted to serve), and offered useful opinions on what past clients have done or what they thought of different dishes on the Apulent menu.

If you're doing a last-minute wedding, they tend to have lots of dates available (and great discounts for last-minute booking) and can put together events really quickly if you need them to. You'll just have to work around their availability...

It's pricey, but I can't think of a more beautiful location to have had my wedding. My husband wanted to have it in Maui, but many of our family members wouldn't have been able to join us. This was definately the next best thing. They worked closely with all of my vendors. Their staff were courteous and made sure everything ran smoothly the whole night. We took most of our photos there because it it such a beautiful site. The food was great. The chef was willing to meet my special request for rainbow chard. They cooked the filet mignon and salmon to perfection. The plated meals and wine service kept the drinks pouring and the guests happy. I've never been to a wedding where so many people stayed so long. They were all just having too good of a time to leave! I had planned on leaving a few hours into it, but ended up staying til the last minute! Fun Fun Fun. Jessie Hammer was my coordinator and she did a fabulous job.

This review is for Shilshole Bay Beach Club in Ballard. I had the wedding at my church and the reception at Shilshole. You have to use them for the catering, but the food was very good. They offer several hours of wedding planning service, but I only needed to consult with them a few times over the phone/email and once in person after we booked the site. The only slightly negative thing was that they set up the tables differently than described, so our seating was slightly messed up, but it wasn't a big deal. They are not cheap, but my parents wanted a nice venue to show off Seattle to their relatives and this fit the bill. We found out 2 days before the wedding that the favors would not be coming in, and went with a candy buffet instead. Shilshole was nice enough to provide containers for us to put the candy in and everything looked really nice. They have a cool little stage where my husband and his band played a few songs.

I would recommend it for people who don't want a nice venue where they don't have to stress about every little detail.

Thanks to Shilshole Bay Beach Club, our wedding was a wonderful success! We had a wonderful party and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were able to take pre-wedding photos on the beach directly outside, had a sunset ceremony, and a gorgeous dinner with the amazing view of Puget Sound. It's a beautiful site and we had delicious food too. My ultimate favorite among many, were the macaroni cheese balls! Our guests are still complimenting us on the fun party, amazing location, and great food!

This review is for the Lake Washington Rowing Club and the associated caterer, Apulent. (Shilshole is a different venue that Apulent is associated with.) Apulent was the "preferred"/required caterer for the Lake Washington Rowing Club. I had numerous problems with these people who not only took care of the catering, but also the reception venue. The contact person changed hands 3 times. I was not able to get return emails or phone calls to get my questions answered. In fact, I had to ask the same questions over and over. This was so frustrating; in fact, I wasn't sure if I had a caterer up until 2 weeks before the wedding. The contract was frustrating b/c I was paying for a minimum of dinner plates. I had to make a stink about that in order to get that down. The price was expensive. The food was ok to good. We had some guests who were no shows, but were not allowed to take ANY food with us at the end of the night (we were very hungry at the end of the night, as newlyweds often are). Afterwards, there was some issue with the tipping and the alcohol bill. I was very unhappy with the service and professionalism with the venue/caterer. However, in the end, everything turned out ok. I would recommend the venue because of the location and look of the hall (great), but I would be prepared to be very specific and ask a lot of questions. Maybe things have changed since I got married, but know that they did not do well by me. Get it all in writing!!!