FAQs

Great question!!!  As we host three events on most weekends with staff onsite up to 15-16 hours per event, well, let’s just say it truly takes a great team to make it happen.  Here’s an overview of who will be working with you from beginning to end…

Jenna is our venue manager and her job is to oversee everything related to every event at The Cheney Place.  Her primary job is to lead the team and to oversee the workflow that ensures the highest level of service at every event.  You will definitely receive emails from Jenna and there’s a good chance she’ll meet with you at some point along the way.  As with every person on our team, Jenna works a couple opening/closing shifts most weekends.

Here’s a quick introduction to that team —

Aubree —  Aubree started as an intern with The Cheney Place as a senior at Grand Valley State University.  Her internship involved opening and closing events every weekend.  She killed it as an intern so we brought her on staff right away and she’s been working full time since Spring 2016.  Aubree is the machine behind the scene that takes care of most of the details for your event, including all of the coordination with your vendors, and she also leads many of the final details meetings for weddings.  As with all of our staff, Aubree opens/closes multiple events on the weekend.

Stephanie —  Stephanie also came through our internship program while she was a student studying hospitality/events at Grand Valley State University. After her internship, we couldn’t let her go so she’s been here over two years. She heads up our fancy fray division offsite as well as some coordination onsite. She’s our tour guru so she may have been the lady who showed you around. She does a little bit of everything from office coordination to working events so you’ll be sure to work with her at some point!

Interns — We’ve been running an internship program for students entering the hospitality/events profession since 2012.  We have 3-4 interns working with us at any time, with their primary responsibility being to assist our openers and closers at every event.

There are so many great things for your guests to do in Downtown Grand Rapids, so we definitely suggest you check out these nearby hotels:

Amway Grand Plaza Hotel

Hampton Inn & Suites – Grand Rapids Downtown

Courtyard by Marriott

Hampton Inn

Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn Express & Suites

JW Marriott

Our doors open at 10:00 a.m. the day of your event. This is when you will have access to the building to start getting ready! We generally ask vendors to arrive anytime after 11am so we have time to lay linens and get a few things ready. We’ll confirm this with them, don’t worry.

If you’re wanting to arrive before 10am to get ready, we’d be happy to arrange this for an additional fee. Shoot us an email to chat this over! 

Unless prearranged, our evenings generally have a similar timeline. Our bar service always needs to close at 11pm, music ends at 11:30pm and vendors + guests are out by 12:30am at the latest.

We have parking right on our property in addition to street parking and one overflow lot right next to us. Our parking attendants will direct your guests right where they need to go. We will discuss other parking options with you if your parking requirements exceed what we’re able to park in these three places.

We have a SONOS sound system available for your use on the second floor during Cocktail Hour and also in the Bridal Suite.  This Hi-Fi system allows you to play songs wirelessly directly from your iPhone or Android Smartphone.  To use the system, you will need to download the free app available on the App Store, Google Play and Amazon.  And it also requires that your phone be logged on to our private network.

We encourage you to download the app and review these instructions prior to showing up for your event.

Click the following link to view and/or download the PDF instructions:  SONOS INSTRUCTIONS

YES!  We have a heating and cooling unit for each of the first two floors and our staff will take care of monitoring the temperature throughout the event.  There is no unit on our third floor, so if you were hoping to take pictures up there, please note that it may be quite warm in the summer and quite cool in the winter.

If you’ve booked your ceremony with us you can start anytime after 4:30pm. You’ll find we recommend 5pm, as we’ve found it’s the perfect amount of time and pairs nicely with our bar service hours. 

If you’re just hosting your reception with us, your cocktail hour / guest arrival can begin anytime after 5pm. 

If you’re wanting to start your event before this time, we’re happy to talk with you on this but it most likely means your event would need to end before the typical 11:30pm. If you’re curious what this looks like, shoot us an email and we can create something custom for you.

Great question! We do ask you set up a time to pop in as we do have weekday events, other weddings and just a ton of things happening over here. We try very hard to keep every clients day exclusive, which we’ll do for you as well so please make sure to help us with this! We’d love to make sure a team member is available to answer questions as well. 

The office team is generally in Tuesday’s + Thursday’s from 10am – 6pm and we’re here a bit on Wednesday’s as well. Since we’re working all weekend and often hosting events on the weekdays, our hours are sometimes sporadic so please make sure to set up times to stop in or meet with us!

We’re always happy to help!!! Day of, we’ll be assisting with tons of things to make your day run smoothly. This generally consists of setting up your decor (including hanging items), checking in and working with your vendors, running your timeline, greeting guests, directing guests from ceremony to cocktail hour to reception, putting out desserts and then tearing our your decor and storing that for you. We’ll be chatting with you in meetings on what this looks like but please reach out if you have any questions on this!

We’d be happy to send you an electronic invoice to do this online! Feel free to shoot us an email to events@thecheneyplace.com and let us know how much you’d like to pay and we’ll send it out.

Yes! If guests aren’t able to make it home safely, we’d prefer they left their vehicles here however we need them picked up no later than 9am the next morning.

Included in your rental, we have 6’ rounds (or 72”) and comfortably seat 10 guests. We also have 8’ x 30” longs, these generally seat 8 guests, 4 on each side. For both our rounds and longs, those are included in your rental but we do recommend linens on those tables.

If you’re wanting to rent Farm Tables from Fancy Fray, those rent at $75/table and are 8’ x 42”. Those also seat 8 guests, 4 on each side.

We know we have lots of options to add on so here’s a list of when things are generally due unless previously discussed! 

Venue: We take your deposit when booking, and your balance is due 90 days before your  wedding date. Your $500 refundable damage deposit is due the day before your wedding  and is refundable pending damages. 
Linens: We take a $100 deposit and the balance two weeks before once your final numbers are in.
Bar: When you book we take 50% down and the remaining 50% is due one week before your wedding. 
Fancy Fray: When you book we take 50% down and 50% down is due two weeks before your wedding.

We’re flexible if you’d like to get things paid ahead of time, so feel free to shoot us an email (events@thecheneyplace.com) if you have questions!

We highly encourage you to select a Fancy Fray package as early as possible as Fancy Fray needs to limit the number of weddings they do any given weekend.  We can help you determine which package is best for your wedding based on your vision and approximate number of guests.

And then it’s a great idea to select and reserve your furnishings shortly after you have the first draft of your floor plan (which we encourage to have done six months prior to your wedding).  We can’t guarantee the availability of any pieces of furniture without it being reserved, so earlier is definitely better!

All that said, if there’s something you know you definitely know you want, let us know when you’re booking your package and we can get that reserved right away for you.

Weddings

We’ll store most items overnight after your event but there are a few things we ask that you take. This includes florals, gifts, any left overs and personal items from the bridal suite + grooms room. Any other decor that is stored with us, we ask that all of your decor is picked up Tuesday following your wedding. We are closed on Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. 

Other/Corporate Events

Decor is usually brought in the morning of your event.  Please let us know if there is anything that needs to be dropped off in advance and we can work out those details with you.

Unless prior arrangements have been made, all decor and supplies must be removed the same day as your event.

Absolutely!!  Please be sure to coordinate your dropoff and pickup times with us ahead of time, and let us know what you’re bringing so we can make sure we’re prepared!

You are welcome to use candles so long as the flame is fully covered.  In other words, the container that the candle is in must be taller than the flame itself.  We are not able to have any open flames in our building.

Linens are not included with our venue though many caterers do have that option.  We’re big fans of floor length and well designed linens, so we do have a rental collection on our third floor that we’d LOVE to show you.  Let us know if you want to chat linens as we’d love to help!

You’re welcome to bring in linens if you want to make sure they work with your decor. BUT… you’re more than welcome to use the ones we already have out at no additional cost for the second floor. 

If you decide to add cocktail tables for your reception on the first floor, we do not have those included so we’ll want to make sure you bring those in or we add those to your order with us.

We do have specific areas where stuff can be hung from existing hooks in the ceiling.  Due to general liability concerns, our staff will take care of hanging stuff for you.

Generally speaking, if you’re hoping to have stuff hanging at your event, please email us (events@TheCheneyPlace.com) so we can let you know if it’s something we can do.  Thanks!