Albuquerque: Destination Wedding in New Mexico

I'm a writer - with ink under my fingernails, and the itch to write about everything I experience. Why should my wedding be any different?

Los Poblanos Inn

Combine beautifully restored historic buildings, the Sandia mountains in the background, lawns and flower-filled gardens and you have Los Poblanos Inn. Sitting in the rural Los Ranchos area, a quasi-independent neighborhood of Albuquerque, the city is nearby, but the Rio Grande flows just down the road.

Los Poblanos Inn offers a hal-dozen or more different outdoor locations for the ceremony, each quite beautiful, and several locations for the reception.

If you rent the entire facility you can choose to have appetizers under the portal with the huge decorative pool, lawn, and mountain view, then go inside the restored ballroom for dinner and dancing. Of course, there are rooms available inside for an indoor ceremony, including the Library which boasts a fireplace perfect for a winter ceremony.

They also have a smaller room that can be rented separately which comes with its own garden options.

All food comes from the Inn. If you rent the entire place (excluding the rooms of the inn of course) there is a catering menu. If you choose the smaller (and less expensive) La Ventana room which is used by the guest-only restaurant, you’re limited to the menu of the restaurant. It’s not that the food isn’t delicious, but you can’t select it in advance, there’s a small selection of dishes, and the menu changes frequently.

Alcohol is limited to wine and beer. No hard liquor is permitted.

Casa de Suenos

If southwest charm is your goal, Casa de Suenos will sweep you away. As a B & B it has 21 rooms, but for weddings it offers large open meandering courtyard space and a small gazebo perfect for an outdoor ceremony. An odd touch but quite fascinating for those who love the ground-breaking, quirky architecture of Bart Prince - the Albuquerque architect designed an entrance way in 1976 that added this futuristic touch to 1930s adobe-style complex. A bit incongruous, but fascinating.

They offer two packages but both include almost everything you need for the wedding. And, I soon discovered, you need a whole lot for a wedding. It's far more than food and drink and a pretty space. Casa de Suenos provides tables and chairs, tablecloths, napkins, decorations, plenty of parking, an Old Town location.

In either case, alcohol is not an issue. Bring in whatever you like in whatever quantities. All you need is a licensed bartender. And, BTW, I had no idea bartenders are licensed, but they are.

The only potential drawbacks are bad weather (rare, but not impossible) in which case you can move the dinner indoors providing you haven't planned a big wedding. Outdoors, the courtyard is lined with the casitas of guests who enter and leave their rooms via the outdoor space.

Casa Rondena Winery

Wineries are often sophisticated and extravagant places evoking French castles, Spanish haciendas, and Italian villas. Casa Rondena projects the feel of a Spanish hacienda -- tasteful, and elegant, with grape vines providing an European feel. The effect is totally romantic. There are ponds, vines, beautifully tiled buildings, all available as backdrops for an outdoor ceremony.

Hold the ceremony in one of the outdoor garden areas, and then come into the Casa Rondena ballroom for dinner and dancing. Or, set the tables outside for dining al fresco. Or any combination.

They also offer a smaller space with its own gardens. You can even choose to set the tables up in a room filed with wine casks.

If you want a bit more of a homey feel, there's the building that was indeed the former home of the owner of the winery, and it is a beautiful space of wandering welcoming rooms and an outdoor terrace.

Alcohol is limited to Casa Rondena wine. Happily, they do have really nice wine.

Historic B & B of Albuquerque

A pair of beautifully Victorian style B & Bs - the Heritage House and the Spy House make up the Historic B & B of Albuquerque. There's also a separate casita on the property available for guests.

Steve and Kara Grant live in the third house and have created a small charming enclave with a garden area perfect for intimate outdoor weddings. There's a grassy area for the ceremony, two small patio areas for guests to mingle, and a step-down reception space with a small dance floor. Water features and flowers add to the garden atmosphere.

Kara is the on-site corrdinator although she is so practiced that there is little that can go amiss.

At our meeting, she had already created a complete budget with everything from flowers to cake, as well as a list of additional items that the couple may want to consider (e.g. photographer). The food is provided by an Albuquerque favorite - the Artichoke Café.

Another plus was the nine beautifully furnished rooms that could be secured for out-of-town guests.

Their alcohol policy is wine and beer, but they will consider allowing a few cocktails (e.g. Mojitos are almost as popular in the southwest as Margaritas).

Casa Esencia

The event space and night club for the Hotel Albuquerque is a large sprawling former hacienda dating back to 1783. Heritage Hotels and Resorts which owns the Hotel Albuquerque, bought the building at the end of 2008 and turned the 8,000 square feet into a delightful sprawl of cozy nooks, rooms, patios, and a long inviting bar. Today the decor of Casa Esencia is a quirky fusion of art, sofas, chairs and tables of varying heights and sizes.

Although the Hotel Albuquerque hosts weddings in their main building, the sophisticated wandering spaces (and high tech sound system) of Casa Ensencia is available for weddings and events.

They charge no facility rental fee, only a minimum requirement spent on food and drink based on the number of people attending. Although the prices are not inexpensive (more or less retail), the package comes with a deluxe room for the bride and groom the night of the wedding and breakfast the next morning. The resources of the hotel are available for staffing (included in the price) Best of all, it includes the use of Casa Ensencia until midnight. There's a champagne, or sparking cider toast (with chocolate dipped strawberry) on-site concierge, cake-cutting service. There's plenty of parking, and they are happy to reserve a block of rooms at a reduced rate for out-of-state guests.

Alcohol is certainly not a problem. Casa Esencia takes great (and justifiable) pride in their ability to create delicious and innovative cocktails with premium ingredients.

More Choices

If prospective brides and grooms want a hotel wedding, consider the southwest-themed Hotel Albuquerque, Moorish confection of the Hotel Andaluz (originally the historic Hilton), and the upscale Parc Central (which was once a hospital from the railroad days) -- these are the three poshest hotels in town, and each is lovely in its own way.

Then, there are the restaurants that offer wedding services.