Cafe Brauer

This is a gorgeous and unique venue, but you will pay a pretty penny to use the space. I have to say, it was worth every penny. Our guests complemented Café Brauer and commented that they had never been to a wedding at such a unique reception site. That was exactly the effect we wanted. My contact at Café Brauer was Bambi Caicedo, and she was very responsive to any questions I had – the best way to get in touch with her seemed to be by e-mail. This venue has a lot of no no’s, like no uncovered candles, no candles on the floor (covered or not), nothing hanging from the balcony, no colored rose petals on the ground, so just ask before you plan anything of the sort. They do this to preserve the building, so it is worth the restrictions. My only complaint about Café Brauer, and thus the minus in their grade, is the price you pay for using the site. Not only do you pay for the room, the tent, the heat, security, there is charge for non-hosted valet, and we had to pay to use the space for our rehearsal. Ok, I’m even fine with that (sort of) – this is my complaint: Our rehearsal was on a Thursday, the first huge snow storm we had in December. It took some people 3 – 4 hours to get here from the suburbs. We can’t help the weather, right? They charged us for additional time there since we weren’t finished in an hour. I understand they are running a business, but come on, our rehearsal dinner venue didn’t hold us to the 50 person minimum b/c they understood, we can’t control the weather. It isn’t like there was another party waiting to get into the space. However, I will say it again, it was worth every penny spent.

I would recommend spending some money on extra lighting for Café Brauer if you are going to have the wedding in the fall/winter months when it is dark by the ceremony. We almost had the extra lighting, but decided against it last minute. It might have been worth it. Also, I’ve heard the acoustics in Café Brauer can be difficult for the music, so I would recommend using a band/dj that has played there before. Ours had played there and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the acoustics.