Cliffside Park, NJ, USA < change city >

Response from the couple:
Hello Jess,

Dec 2009 ended a 10-year run of Showstoppers as the exclusive caters at the UTS -- they were the ones we used. So we can't comment on Pasha Events, unfortunately. I can tell you how things worked for Showstoppers, and you can try to see if Pasha would run things similarly. We used all three parts of the venue. The caterer handled the reception, food, cake, and logistics of moving people from one part to the next, starting with the end of the ceremony (they had nothing to do with the ceremony, except volunteering manpower to move chairs around, which wasn't needed anyway). We had 99 people attend, including us. It was pretty easy for people to find the location, even my suburban extended family (some of whom seemed scared at the very prospect of visiting NYC). The wedding took place in the chapel at 2:30 (though we and the caterer agreed to build in a delay to make sure everyone got seated). The ceremony was finished at about 3:30, and the caterer helped herd people from chapel to quad to the social hall (it was warm enough to hang out in the quad, but nothing official was set up). We supplied the liquor for the cocktail hour and dinner, and the caterer had trays of our signature cocktail ready for people arriving in the social hall. Once the cocktail hour was over, they directed people upstairs to the refectory for dinner. It all went super-smooth and we had a really fantastic day. Showstoppers did a great job of moving things along; they handled the schedule of dinner, drinks, speeches, dancing, and cake-cutting so we didn't have to think about anything the day of.

Probably one of the strengths of the caterer was the familiarity with the venue. I don't know if Pasha has had or will have growing pains as they get used to events there.

There were a lot of other really great features of the venue that made things work well. UTS has some guest rooms, so we were able to rent a room for each of us for staging and retreat. The whole campus has an enormous amount of character, which meant we needed only minimal decorations. There are several parking garages in the area, and between the UTS guest rooms, International House guest rooms, and Teacher's College guest rooms, there were a lot of reasonably-priced places to stay near by.

Some things to keep in mind, as well: UTS rents the space and connects you with the caterer. That means you need to find your own officiant and organist (or equivalent) for the ceremony. Also, despite the fact that you sign a contract with them, it seems they feel they can take precedence over your commitment. We had two things happen on that front. The first was that they pre-empted our friday night rehearsal time because of some special service they held in the chapel that night. We were flexible on time, so it didn't matter so much. The other thing was that the president decided to stage an art show using the space in the chapel and other areas, and then pieces were to remain on display during our allotted day. This created a lot of tension between us/caterers and the management. In the end the caterers smoothed things out and the art itself was pretty tasteful, but it did mean we had a few "extra decorations" in the chapel. Not our first choice, but we are laid back enough to take it in stride.

Like I said, we had a really great party, and everyone loved the venue. So we highly recommend it. Assuming Pasha can perform like Showstoppers, it's a great package to work with.

Here's a link to the photos from the day, in case that gives you a sense of how the day unfolded:

http://www.davinaz.com/clients/makikoanddave/

Whew, that's a lot of info -- Sorry for the long-winded answer to your question. I hope it helps. Feel free to ask about anything I missed.

Dave