The Benedict Castle

Today Darryl and I took a tour of the place we were considering using as our ceremony venue: the Benedict Castle on the grounds of Teen Challenge in Riverside. We had seen a video about it online, and had heard from different sources that it was a really neat wedding location. I had also contacted the castle coordinator, Ardee, and received a bunch of info on it a few months ago. The whole two year thing still earned us a couple of confused remarks, but I figured it was never too early to get the venues straightened out since that pretty much determines everything else about the big day.

One thing that is important to remember about this location is that it is on the grounds of a drug rehabilitation center run by the Assemblies of God church, which is actually one of the best programs in the country. Apparently it's not where the people going through the first phase of rehab are, but the people in the second phase of recovery, meaning that they're off drugs and putting their lives back together. Part of that often involves working on the grounds of Teen Challenge, and I gathered that the two guys who let us in were in recovery judging by their overall demeanor, but they were very helpful and I've heard that the entire staff there is very accomodating and nice. One of them was starting to set up for a wedding that's taking place tomorrow and is the worship leader for their chapel services; he said he would be there the day of our wedding, assuming he's still there in two years, to set up all of the sound equipment and run it for us, which was nice to know. Another nice thing about this location, unlike the Mission Inn chapel next to our reception venue, is that we would have the whole day to set-up and decorate and it's uncommon for them to schedule more than one wedding in a day.

As soon as we walked into the building, we were in love with it. It was actually better than the pictures and video we had seen. For one thing, there is a lot of natural light that shines through these big windows on each side of the room; my pet peeve is nice buildings with crappy lighting. It has a lot of space on the stage for everyone to stand and to have our huppah. They have a piano off to one side for Stella to play, and also an area for our bestman, Johnny, to play a song during the ceremony on his guitar. As you go through the main entrance, there is a double-sided iron and marble staircase that leads to a balcony that looks out over the sanctuary. The castle was built in 1922 and still has a very vintage feel. We didn't get to see the rest of the castle, but it has two other towers and hidden rooms from when it was a house. The whole place just had a really good vibe, and I'm more excited now than ever to get married there.