Venue Tour: American Visionary Art Museum

We love the AVAM!!! We brought both sets of parents along for the tour, and everyone was happy with the venue. The only problem we had was getting everyone on board with the wedding date for an outdoor ceremony. Yep, the date is up in the air again while we get our Rabbi to OK a new date. The idea is that in May it will be warmer and less less likely to rain, and the date change makes our parents happy. Whatever, I just want to get married and I think umbrellas and bright colored wellies make for adorable wedding pictures. But, setting the date is the only part of this process that has created drama. So I’m cool with changing it one more time, and leaving the drama behind. And to be fair, I probably should have encouraged more input from the beginning. Who knew setting the date would be tough, but making a budget and a guest list would be easy peasy (not me!).

But, back to the museum tour. The American Visionary Art Museum is the only museum in the United States completely dedicated to exhibiting the work of self-taught artists. There’s everything from hand knit Mardi Gras costumes, to a huge pen and ink drawing of NYC, to a giant poodle named Fifi. I think our guests are going to really enjoy getting to see it, and it’s definitely our asthetic. It’s located near Federal Hill park and the inner harbour in downtown Baltimore. It has two great spaces for both the reception and ceremony. The museum is split into two areas for events, each with their own spaces, so that two weddings could be going on at the same time. Let’s start with the runner-up space. In the JRVC (one of the museum’s buildings), there is a large reception space on the third floor that resembles a New York loft with exposed brick and beams. While we were there, the space was being used for an art bazzar, so you will have to use your imagination a little bit).

(all photos taken by me)

This space fits upwards of 300 guests, so it would be big for our 100 person guest list. One solution would be to split the room up with different areas for cocktails and dancing to make it more intimate. My favorite feature of this space is the nice sized walk out balcony made to look like a bird’s nest from the outside. And the views of the inner harbor of Baltimore from here are awesome. The downside is a somewhat higher rental rate.

With this loft space, you can have an outdoor ceremony in this circular patio area (yep, that’s us).

Next, we visited the smaller sculpture barn and wildflower garden. This ended up being our favorite space, though I really like both. The sculpture barn is the perfect size for our wedding. Right outside the barn will be an awning under which our guests can sit and watch the ceremony in the wildflower garden. It was important to us to use a venue with a unique look (hotel ballrooms were nixed early on). Ginger pointed out that the barn is more unique, and the other space (the JRVC), while cool, still looked like a big hall. So, the barn it is!

The “dance floor” is actually a chess board that’s been painted onto the floor, and is usually used to display big chess pieces made out of machine parts. And right outside the barn is the entrance to the main part of the museum, where guests and check out the art. If the ceremony can’t be outside, we could use the open, spiral staircase in the museum. There’s a wooden sculpture in the wildflower garden that makes for a beautiful ceremony backdrop.

It was so exciting standing here with Ginger in the place we are getting married! It was the first place we looked at, and we are ready to book it (except for that whole date thing I was complaining about). Last time I wrote about this venue someone suggested the gift shop here was cool. Uh, BEST gift shop EVER! Anyway, the tour was a success, and now we know where we are getting married! Yey!