My Opinion of Anthem Country Club for a Wedding

I am going to do a review of each wedding venue I visited, and the first section of each review will be the “Background.” If you have already read the background from another one of my reviews, feel free to skip to the actual venue review.

Background
I got engaged in December 2011. After a month or so of trying to settle on a state (yes, I said state), we decided on Nevada (Las Vegas specifically of course). My family/friends are primarily in Michigan; fiancé’s (we’ll call him J from now on) are in New York City area. We live in NJ. If we had it in either Michigan or NJ, we would have well over 250 guests since we assumed that most people would be willing to make the drive (or short flight if they choose) to either location (p.s. we have many friends in Long Island, and it would be at least a 1.5 hr drive for them to come to our area in NJ). Then J kept saying it wouldn’t be fair to his friends and family if we got married in Michigan (where it is at least half the cost of NJ weddings btw). So I countered with the same argument for my friends and family, haha. We were at a stalemate. Well I had mentioned Vegas when we first got engaged and told J it is my number 1 choice. But J was hesitant about having a destination wedding. After thinking of the pros and cons of being married in the mitten (aka, Michigan) or in NJ, J finally agreed that Las Vegas was actually the most practical and fun thing to do. Next on the list was to make sure our very closest family and friends would be ok with flying to Vegas for our wedding because frankly they are the only ones that matter!

We booked a good deal at Bally’s for Sun-Thurs and stayed with my dad the other days of the trip (he lives there). My initial plan was to see 13 venues, but I decided not to see the two at mt. Charleston. So I only saw 11 venues over the course of 3 days. It was a lot!!

Basically the type of wedding I want is a non-religious ceremony followed by a traditional wedding reception. I do not want to get married in what I deem a “wedding factory”, which is what some of the venues I saw felt like. In the same regard, I do not want a chapel wedding at all. I did check on the strip, but nothing met our needs or was within our budget. I began my search in January and finally narrowed it down for our June trip. My tastes revolve around golf/country clubs apparently. We are planning for a Thursday wedding in October 2013.

Anthem County Club
1 Club Side Drive, Henderson, NV 89052
http://www.anthemcc.com/Weddings---Banquets.aspx

I met with Marie at 1:15pm on Sunday June 17 (also Father’s Day). I made the appt. the week before via email. Marie asked to make the appt. for another time because they had a big Father’s Day event the day I wanted to go. Unfortunately, I couldn’t squeeze them in any other time. The same thing happened with another venue. I was ready to just write these places off since I wouldn’t see them in person. I’m glad the coordinators were able to see me because Anthem and the other Father’s Day venue I saw ended up in my top 5.

Marie takes us to the reception room first, and it’s really pretty and has great views of the strip and mountains. I didn’t take any pictures of this room because we kinda went through it quickly, and I didn’t feel like I had time (Marie seemed a bit rushed-not her fault since I knew they had a big event today).

Next is the patio where the cocktail hour would be. It wraps around the reception room and is beautiful.



We then hop on some golf carts and drive to the ceremony site. Today they are having a big classic car show, so J and my dad were in the other golf cart gawking at all the cars while Marie and I were discussing wedding stuff.


The ceremony site is nice (though they are still cleaning up from a wedding the night before). The biggest problem I have with the ceremony site is my grand entrance is down a hill, and getting up that steep hill will be difficult not only for me in heels but for my dad who has a very bad back. It was just too steep to be a practical entrance site.

The price is $95 per person for buffet with 4 hour premium open bar or $90 per person for plated with 4 hour premium open bar. The ceremony/reception fee is $3695 and includes:
Ceremony-Wedding rehearsal (officiant is not present), minister/officiante, 2 floral arrangements, white padded chairs, ready rooms with champagne, valet service.
Reception-4 hour reception, standard colored table linens, chair ties, DJ, cake cutting, sign in/cake/gift/sweetheart table, glass beaded chargers, full service coordination, printed menus and escort cards.

Overall, I like Anthem and the views it offers. Marie was nice, and I could see myself working with her over the next year. J and I need to go over the pricing because it might be out of our price range. I would recommend this place if you can afford it!

 

Second Choice

I like the venue overall but have questions...
Do they provide transportation to the wedding site?
How far is the wedding site from the reception site?
Can you golf-cart it to the top of the hill and then only have the walk downward? OR Can you enter from somewhere else? OR Can you enter on a golf cart? Maybe we could decorate it!
Does the price include set up/tear down? What about the cake?

I see the off-site ceremony being an issue. People will be transported from the strip, then transported again to the site, then to the reception, then back to the strip... that leaves a lot of room for error. We provided transportation at our wedding (yeah, it was by horse, but still) and it didn't go very well. People are late, they tell the driver to go when they aren't authorized, people end up missing, etc.

Anyway, I think the venue is beautiful and is #2 for me

 

PS-

PS- how can you have a rehearsal without the officiant?