Wedding Hall Review - Carmela's Banquet House

Carmela's Banquet House located at 301 Washington Ave in Rensselaer, New York is a great place to hold a small to mid-range wedding. I would say that if you are a bride or groom and have about 75-125 people on your guest list, this hall could be a great affordable option for you. At the same time, Carmela’s also provides quality for your night to remember.

LOCATION – Location is a great positive when making your venue selection. Carmela's is pretty much out of the busy are of Albany and offset the main drag in a residential area in Rensselaer. It has its own spacious parking lot, so that your guests have no parking issues. It also is only a block or so away from a ramp that will lead your guests directly to Interstate Route 90.

FACILITIES - Downstairs, there is a place for the wedding party to collect and wait for the grand introduction. There is a nice round bar off of the main dining room, which allows for more people to enjoy the bar experience. There is also room in the corner of the bar for traditional wedding decorations/activities, like an acoustic guitarist, photo booth or ice sculpture, perhaps. In the dining room, there is a spacious dance floor and great adjustable lighting.

FOOD - The food is really great. Recently, I was the disc jockey for a wedding that had a nice chicken breast, or strip steak, as well as a vegetarian dish available. The garnishes that the bride and groom selected were garlic smashes potatoes, and a great mixed vegetable medley of peppers, onions and cauliflower.

STAFF - Super friendly and easy to work with.

Overall, I think if the size of the guest list works for you, you should stop by and take a look. I give this hall a big, "bravo!"

Wedding Activity - Sing For Your Supper

If you are like me, you have been to a wedding reception where the buffet line was like six miles long and you were in the back of the line twiddling your thumbs. As y ou waited impatiently, bored out of your head, you looked up to notice that they were only serving on one side of the table.... If you are like me, then you know that a food line can often feel like an eternity.

With all this being said, do you have a buffet planned for your wedding and hope to erase the boring parts? If so, one fun alternative activity for table serving order is called, "Sing For Your Supper."

The "Singing For Your Supper" game is a great activity to entertain your waiting guests that also creates entertainment for others waiting for dinner to be served.

As with all wedding activities, this game probably is one that won't work everywhere. This activity should only be chosen specifically upon the bride & groom's request. And while this activity may not be for everyone, it can really be a fun icebreaker with the right people, who want to kill the wait associated with a mega-buffet line of, maybe 150 hungry guests.


Typically speaking, a microphone is passed from table to table by an emcee or maybe the best man, and the only way that a particular table can move up to the buffet line, is to have a volunteer from the table dedicate a song to the bride and groom and then sing it.

In the loving spirit of any wedding celebration, the song is usually supposed to be a familiar chorus selection of a romantic song, "dedicated to the bride and groom from table number eight," for example.

Often times, your guests may be reluctant to start. However, once wedding guests see how fun it can be, they will quickly catch on. Then, once they buy in, the activity can really become creative and very entertaining! (...Especially if the cocktail hour had an open bar!)

POSSIBLE GUIDES -

"LOVE" - guests must sing any song they like, containing the word "Love" in it, somewhere.

"DUETS" - Two people have to sing a song in order for their table to move to the buffet line.

Whatever you choose to do, have fun with it! You only live once. :)

Consider a theme wedding...

Want to really make your memorable? Like things a little different? Why not consider a theme?

When you really think about it, most weddings blend together in your memory banks, years to come when you reflect.

Picking a theme makes your wedding have that wow-factor as well as gives you direction. Just think about the decorating potential you get if you selected a beach wedding, for an example. Flip flops, sea shells, surfboards and more!

Good Bye Steve Jobs

Everytime I meet up with a bride and groom for what they want to hear at their wedding, Steve Jobs has played a big part. We can only hope that his innovative impactful ways in technology will continue.

I have in the last year become an avid iPad 2 user, and now I barely can live without it. I use it for calander planning, song samples, photograph album capabilities and to surf the net. All of this in an easy compact tool.

Steve Jobs will be remembered as a person who was associated with making modern computing simple, seamless and very satisfying. The iconic co-founder of Apple, helped to create the old school funny-looking Apple I & II computers in the 1970s. As time went on, he gave us the Macintosh and the iMac. Then he added music to loop with the iPod. Then he added phone calls with the iPhone, and then bundled it all together with the Star Trek-like iPad. Who knows where things will go in the future? I can only imagine Jobs has left his company behind a truck load of ideas for the years to come.

I just jumped on the apple band wagon the last couple of years, but know that people have been here a long time.

Steve Jobs will be missed.