Las Vegas - vegas reception lunch or dinner ideas (on a budget)

Hi
My fiancee and I will be married at the Bellagio on Oct 10th. We are staying there as well and will have about 25 guests attending. I'm looking to you fine folks for some ideas on places to have a "reception" of sorts either the night before for dinner or after the wedding for a lunch. We are paying for all of this ourselves and hence on a budget (yeah we splurged for the Bellagio - you only get married once :) ) I was hoping to find somewhere close to us that might have a private room we could reserve at a restaurant - or even something as simple as a cake and place to gather for a while after. We thought about dinner on the 9th also - my fiancee is Brazilian so we considered Samba Brazilian restaurant since her folks arent able to come I thought it would add a taste of home. Looking to keep per person cost to around 20-30 per person or so maybe a little more. I saw UA865 had a post wedding at Circo in the Bellagio - how was it and would anyone recommend anything from experience as well? Anything you suggest is certainly appreciated - thanks!

Congrats on your wedding, and Kudos for your choice of the Bellagio. You will not be disappointed!

We put together a lunch reception at Circo in one of their private rooms, and our guests were quite happy. The service and food at Circo were both excellent, and the wedding cake that they put together was exactly to my wife's specifications. Lunch, including the wedding cake (which they substitute for a dessert choice), drinks (wine & martinis-cash bar), taxes, and tip, worked out to around $75 per person.

While Circo worked out great, we had also considered getting a private room at the Bellagio Buffet (as good as any wedding food!) for our party. We called the Buffet manager, and all they needed was a headcount the day before.

Since we realized that there was no way that we could or wanted to 'out-do' Vegas, and we had a pretty diverse age group, we decided to have an initial gathering of people later that night at Rio's Voodoo lounge. For those who were still standing, we closed the night at Club Rio. Thanks to the advice from this board to call ahead to Rio, we arranged a line pass at the club.

All in all, a wonderful weekend, and we're still hearing the stories of this trip from our friends.

One more thing, if you haven't arranged for your tux yet, I'd reccomend Jennaleigh's bridal (http://www.jlbridal.com/) ... they provided 'complimentary' (suggested $35 tip) limo service to and from the Bellagio, and for $10 extra, they picked up all of our tuxes directly from the Bellagio after the wedding. We were in and out of there in 30min, WITH our tuxes!

Thanks UA835!

I liked the idea of Circo, the private room would be good but $75 a head was a little higher than we were looking for.
My folks suggested a place called Tuscany Suites about 1/2 mile from Bellagio, but upon calling the best we could do would be a room for 4 hours, cash bar and h'ors d'ouvres - since I've never been we werent too sure about it and it was pricey for what you get - definitely in range of better fare nearer to the Bellagio even. We have looked at Buca di Beppo for a lunch venue and I called the concierge at Bellagio who was very nice and suggested Lombardis - an italian place in the Aladdin Hotel and made a reservation for us. I'm playing phone tag with the manager there to get pricing and see if our wedding party can be kind of secluded from the general restaurant crowd there - so its more intimate and we dont infringe on diners as a large group. Has anyone heard of either Tuscany that can vouch for its catering or Lombardis at the Aladdin? Thanks for your suggestions! :)

I did a little research for our lunch reception into Kokomo's at the Mirage (I really like the setting there), but the prices were pretty similar to Circo ... In the end it wasn't worth moving the party over to the Mirage.

I don't know much about Lombardi's, but the location w/r.t. Bellagio sounds good. The best advice that our Wedding planner at the Bellagio gave us is keep the day's schedule tight and focused, as it is so easy for the guests to get 'distracted.'

Also, it may sound silly, but make sure your guests know where the Wedding chapel is (not the easiest to find at Bellagio) ... I actually had to hold up the beginning of our ceremony as a couple of members of my party were still sleeping at the pool a half-hour before the wedding (they hadn't slept the previous evening), and for some reason thought the wedding chapels were in the Conservatory. They had to make a run that would make any veteran of the O'Hare B - C concourse hustle proud!

One more tip that I learned through this experience was to request the wine list in advance, and pick out a few of the more 'value-oriented' :D wines on their list. My wife and I went out and bought these, and tried them out beforehand, and essentially had the waitstaff limit the guest's selection to what we had pre-selected. This assured that we knew what we'd be spending on drinks, and we, at least, would enjoy the wine!

Finally, if you got the Bellagio wedding package that includes the bottle of Champagne, you may want to request that the chapel does NOT chill it, if you don't plan to use it right away, as they give it to you as you are walking out the door from your ceremony. There is a good chance you may not be allowed to bring it in to your reception. My Wife and I were able to work around this by calling ahead to the place we were having dinner the next evening, and they kindly waived the corkage fee when we explained our situation.

Prob will be tough to find a place that will provide both a private room and meet $20-30pp budget.

Are you getting a suite at the Bellagio? If so, perhaps you can have the reception there. If not, maybe you can get a Suite for one night and have the reception there. Then you could possible order a cake from the Bell or from a place like Freeds Bakery (http://www.freedsbakery.com/). Freeds is considered the best wedding cake bakery in Vegas, btw.

Michael
http://www.biztrip.com

Hi!
Just wanted to drop a note and say THANKS! for all of your great suggestions I solicited earlier :) Our wedding at the Bellagio was everything we expected and everything people in this forum said it would be. My wife and I were simply amazed :) We loved the Bellagio and its accomodations. We had a lakeview Deluxe room on the 18th floor - the view was spectacular! The wedding went perfectly and we chose Lombardis across at the Aladdin for the reception lunch and the service and staff were impeccable. We ended up with a menu selection that came out to about $35 per person - more than we'd planned but well worth it. They coordinated great with Freed's Bakery for our cake - the owner designed it specifically for my wife from pictures she sent. My wife set up a photo blog and ill link below if you care to see - it includes some pics of the view from the room and the room itself if any are interested in seeing. Our floor seemed new or at least recently remodeled, the whole floor had that "new house/carpet" smell that says clean and new to me. We enjoyed it all. Thanks again for everyones suggestions! We will definitely be back soon to Vegas :) - Craig

photos link with login/password: (its a Brazilian site - my wife's from there :) )
http://charmed.eyes.fotoblog.uol.com.br/
user: charmed.eyes
pw: clanger

Just wanted to say "Congratulations!!" and wishing you both every happiness. ^

Congratulations! Fantastic photo's, thanks for posting them. I would love to stay at Bellagio in a room with that view. Do you recall the room number? And, was there a way to guarantee that with your reservation? Thanks for any tips.

Great photo. Nice story. Congrats!