Upstairs at the Cheshire

Overall the experience we had with hosting our wedding reception at the Upstairs was quite good.
I had been to a fantastic Unilocal event at the Cheshire, where we got to tour and taste our way through all of the fantastic spots on the Cheshire property. I already knew the Upstairs was a gorgeous space with warm textured wooded walls and beautiful imported lighting fixtures. When we began the process of planning for our wedding reception, we were already staying at the Cheshire (taking a Brit to the British hotel when he’s in town visiting is the way to make him feel at home, right?), already, so we decided to see if we could see the space as a possibility for our celebration. We had a few other ideas of locations, but we loved the Cheshire. It felt so right to us.
The room is split into two distinct spaces. I requested that all of the guest tables (we had 60 guests) remain on the side of the room with the wood paneling, light fixtures and windows. The dance floor and DJ were set-​up on the other side. The space would absolutely accommodate more guests, but it didn’t seem ridiculous to have so few. They let us use their mirrored chargers and votives for the tables, and we brought in vases of flowers with our own table numbers on them.
Originally, we were set to have our happy hour in the fireplace room, which is still on the second floor, but outside of the ballroom. When Lucy abruptly left, she was replaced by Karina, who very kindle advised us that the Red Room downstairs was not being used on the night of our event, so we had our cocktail hour and hors dourves downstairs. It was perfect because this meant we could easily stand near the door to greet the guests as they arrived, and then when it was time to go upstairs, it was a whole new venue. This allowed us to have our evening bar, place card table, gift table and even a selfie photo booth in the fireplace room. It was perfect.
We set-​up our cake on a table on the dance floor, which if I had to do it again, would have in the fireplace room or closer to the entry somehow, as many of our guests reportedly never say the cake prior to us going to cut it… and it was a gorgeous cake and deserved to be seen.
I didn’t enjoy the experience of working with Lucy, as I felt like she wasn’t very friendly and didn’t make us feel important at all. Working with Karina was much nicer. Because we live in London, and were finalising details from home, she went out of her way to set-​up a Skype call to introduce herself and go over things.
I have very few complaints about our event, but I had been told that the tables would be set the morning of the event or the day prior. To me, «set» meant that there would be linens, plates, glasses, and silverware on the tables. Chris and I picked up our cake and delivered it to the ballroom ourselves at 1:30pm. Nothing was set at all. The tables were in the room, but there weren’t linens or anything else. I have to admit that I started to panic a teensy bit. We were told that we could come in at 3:00pm to set the centerpieces and our other pieces. We all had planned to do this and then go get ready at the hotel. Apparently the wrong colour linens had been delivered and were moments from arrival. I was assured that by 3:00pm, this would be rectified. We arrived to set everything up, and still nothing had been done. They said that no one would be there until 4:00pm to set-​up. They asked what I wanted to happen, and I said that I needed the tablecloths to be on the table so we could get the center pieces arranged. They did that, and we set-​up the cake table, selfie booth and the place card table in the meantime. They offered to let us leave the flowers and things for them to arrange, but of course I wanted us to do it. The second thing that bothered me was regarding the cake. When it was taken away and cut, they brought out random slices and strew them over the tables. I had anticipated that they would put them out so people could take a piece if they wished. This meant a lot of cake was wasted with people not eating it, or not being able to choose what was given to them. We had been looking forward to the strawberry cake for months. We were so busy that we left our plates on the table to join our friends. We had every intention of coming back to them. Our plates were cleared after I’d had two bites and Chris hadn’t had even a taste. They also took the Champagne he’d been saving. In my opinion, we should have been asked if it was okay to do this. We did get the leftover cake sent home with us, but there wasn’t any strawberry. I’m still sad about this weeks later. My third and final complaint is that all of the place cards were taken and disposed of. I had every intention of keeping ours for a scrapbook.
At the end of the day, I would highly recommend this venue. Our guests were pleased with the staff, everyone was blown away by the food, the venue was beautiful and unique and it was an overall good experience.