Welcome to The Venue Series! We love helping couples find the best fitting venue for their ideal budget via our standalone Venue Hunt Consultation or Venue Hunt add-on for wedding planning packages. As PNW Planners, we've planned and designed in hundreds of Oregon and Washington venues, and we're sharing some of our favorites and why we love them. All photos featured are from weddings we've coordinated, planned, and/or designed.
We know and love Washington for the 'outdoorsy wonderland' vibe it has, but we will always love the ease and charm of indoor venues in and around Downtown Seattle. The heart of Seattle offers diverse spaces for wedding venues: sleek lofts, historic ballrooms, industrial interiors, upscale hotels, rooftop views, and more.
In this blog, we're sharing some of our most frequented indoor wedding venues in downtown Seattle and why we love them as Washington wedding planners. These are all venues we’ve been to and loved, so we’re sharing our favorite parts and a few insider tips to know before you book.
Photographer: Jenn Tai Photography
Why We Love Them:
The 101 is a beautiful blank-slate venue that gets plenty of natural lighting, with windows lining two sides of the interior. The space is bright and airy for stunning photos, and right in Pioneer Square, so it’s walkable to and from so many iconic Seattle streets and convenient hotels.
We love that you can really transform this space to fit your needs. You can use the venue’s draping or bring in additional pipe to divide the space and you can work with your florist to install dramatic, hanging pieces off of the existing poles throughout the interior.
Insider Tip:
This venue is in a fantastic area, which can be a little trick for parking. You can ease the stress and potential late arrivals by communicating parking information with your guests and making sure to communicate your desired arrival time to the venue. The Lumen field parking is just a block or two down the road, as are other parking garages.
The Edgewater Hotel
Photographer: Bear Beau Photography
Why We Love Them:
Perched along the scenic Seattle Waterfront, The Edgewater Hotel offers an easy, seamless and luxury wedding experience and incredible view. Ceremony and reception both typically take place indoors, but with floor to ceiling windows and an elegant interior. Plus, the venue has an outdoor patio that overlooks the city skyline, which is best utilized for a cocktail hour.
What we love most about this venue is that you can spend most of your budget on the venue / hotel and all its inclusions and not need much else other than a planner, florist and DJ. The Edgewater provides incredible in-house catering and easy-to-choose-from rental packages to make the decision making easy. The hotel partners with CORT Party Rentals (one of our preferred rental companies) and offers three different packages of rentals to choose from to create your wedding look. You can rent outside of those packages, but you’ll need a planner to help you coordinate and craft your order. Not only that, but a venue rental also includes a courtesy block of 9 rooms that your friends and family can book.
Insider Tip:
This venue does require a planner, and we’re happy to be one of your considerations and share our experience there as a planner. You’ll need to budget for the catering minimums, venue rental fees, and planner at the least, and we’re happy to help you figure out the rest. One thing we like to remind our Edgewater couples is that if you are wanting to secure rooms beyond the 9 rooms included in your venue rental, you’ll need to secure a contracted room block, meaning that hotel rooms blocked must be paid for in advance.
Photographer: Clancey
Why We Love Them:
The Fremont Foundry is a modern, industrial indoor space with four stories of spaces, with the highlights being the artistic reception space with 20 ft tall ceilings and a gorgeous rooftop space that can be used as a photo spot, ceremony space, or cocktail hour space. If you’re looking to tour this venue, their website has a snazzy virtual tour and various floor plans to really understand how the space is laid out. This venue is part of Landmark events, a collection of venues, which means your wedding will be catered by the fabulous Herban Feast.
While we love a “blank slate” venue, we love that this indoor space is a little different with art installations and unique features to add a little spice. The high ceilings are also a huge plus, because you can bring in hanging greenery, like our clients Jessica and Salvatore did, or twinkly lights.
Insider Tip:
The four stories of spaces are fun to spread out your wedding events, but note that only the first and second floors are ADA accessible and have access to an elevator. The third and fourth floors are accessible only by stairs, which will be important to run by your vendor team so they can account for that into their delivery and set up plans.
We have been fortunate enough to be at this venue in both summer and winter time for two beautiful weddings (and more in the future!). Summer can feel very hot inside the building, as the venue doesn’t have AC, so make sure to plan accordingly! We suggest purchasing fans to give out as favors and sharing a note with guests so they can dress accordingly.
Photographer: Tonie Christine
Why We Love Them:
This one is for the couples looking for a one-stop-shop and upscale venue! Imperia Lake Union located in Eastlake right off of Lake Union. It’s great for those who love a maximalist, art-deco look, and is so fitting for a “Great Gatsby”-inspired event. The space boasts elegant chandeliers, ornate details throughout the building, and stunning copper ceilings. If this has peaked your interest so far, there’s really no other contender in the Washington area. It was formerly the historic Lake Union Cafe, built in 1927, so it has a bit of vintage charm and round booths to use as guest tables or mingling areas. One of our couples used these booths as tables, and only needed a few additional tables to seat all their guests. There’s even a little speakeasy downstairs that makes for the perfect getting ready room, marriage license signing spot, or photo moment.
This venue not only includes food and beverage, but they also offer floral and decor in house! Their floral services include options for custom arrangements and orders, as well as a few pre-selected packages if you want easy options to pick from. The venue packages also provide options for brunch, evening or all day rentals, so you can host your ceremony offsite, or host your entire wedding here and have the incredible staff help flip the space between ceremony and reception.
Insider Tip:
The one caution we’ll leave about this venue is about parking. The venue has only a small lot, so the vast majority of your guests will need to secure street parking off of the popular Eastlake Avenue. Spots here can be limited to 2 hours during the daytime hours, so be sure to leave a note on your wedding website and encourage guests to rideshare in, carpool, and/or arrive early enough to account for parking and walking.
Photographers: Tori Osteraa (1-4) & Amanda Amphlett (5-8)
Why We Love Them:
The Olympic Rooftop Pavilion should definitely be on your list if you’re looking for rooftop wedding venues! The private event space in Ballard lives on the top floor of Hotel Ballard and is offered through the restaurant, Stoneburner Seattle. In other words, the venue and catering are wrapped into one agreement, but you have the easy option of booking rooms downstairs through Hotel Ballard. Plus, the venue rental space is at an amazing price compared to other venue/catering agreements we’ve seen. This elegant space with crystal chandeliers and south and west facing window walls has mostly everything you need, including built-in speakers and microphones, candles, place settings, tables, chairs, standard linens. This event space is suited for 150 guests or less, and is perfect for those who want to prioritize good food, views, a comfortable experience and a convenient location.
What we love most is that you get all the city views and the best natural lighting from the safety and coziness of the indoors, BUT there’s a bonus. The south and west facing windows can fully open to allow for an open air venue! The window walls and the 22 ft skylight also mean you get gorgeous natural lighting. In the summertime, we also coordinated a romantic and intimate morning brunch wedding with the windows open. We also coordinated a gorgeous dusk to night time winter ceremony with a ceremony to reception flip - the candles and the city skyline at night only added to the experience. It’s an elegant space for any season!
Insider Tip:
We recommend sticking to the venues’ recommended capacity of 130 guests for a seated dinner, and even less if you can swing it to have a little more wiggle room. At capacity, the space will feel pretty tight in between tables and chairs. You’ll also need to plan for a flip from ceremony to reception, which means you may need to have your florist stay onsite for the flip and/or have a team of planners to move all your decor, since there is limited storage space.
Keep in mind that the venue is attached to a hotel, so there are limitations on the sound levels of your music and restrictions on music outside. Live music is subject to approval and will have sound limitations, but you can always hire a DJ or DIY your music and use the venue’s in-house speakers - just remember to work with your planner and designate someone as your MC to keep the event flowing and on track.
Photographer: Jamie Buckley Photography
Why We Love Them:
SoDo Park gets its name from being in the heart of the SoDo district. This venue is owned by the venue collective, Landmark Events, which means you’ll work with their exclusive caterer, Herban Feast. The teal exterior is hard to miss, and the interior space is quite unique, featuring industrial, wooden walls and exposed beams, incredibly tall ceilings, historic features from its past as a manufacturing facility, and so much space.
There are a few things that we think make this venue stand out from other downtown Seattle wedding venues. For one, it’s huge! It has a spacious interior fit for large guest counts up to 300 for a seated reception, which most other venues don’t come close to hosting. The venue also has the largest wedding party getting ready rooms up in the loft that we’ve ever seen. Not only that, but it also has a parking lot that can accommodate most or all of your guests so they don’t have to battle with street parking. Depending on your desired layout, it may require a room flip. However, the venue includes a designated space to store tables, they offer full pipe and drape to hide the movement of the flip, and plenty of space for your guests to mingle during cocktail hour while the flip takes place to make it more seamless.
Insider Tip:
While we love the full room draping and bistro lighting you see in most photos, it’s not an included cost in the venue rental and they are both added on as a venue enhancement. However, it’s convenient to have those add-ons through the venue and not need an additional vendor.
Photographers: Jordan Voth Photography (1-5) & IJ Photo (6-9)
Why We Love Them:
Within Sodo is yet another venue to have on your list for a rooftop venue! This venue allows you to pick all your vendors, including catering, as long as they are insured companies, and has enough space to host over 300 guests. It also includes a full catering kitchen, multiple bathrooms, built-in bars, and access to The interior space is modern and industrial with artistic lighting installations, wooden ceilings, brick walls and exposed dreams for a very urban look. But if 100% indoor isn’t your jam, Within Sodo has a beautiful rooftop with wooden flooring and a covered area for your ceremony, cocktail hour or dancing.
We love this space for a moodier, ambient reception. The space doesn't get much natural lighting, but it looks stunning with added ambiance from candles and warm uplighting.
Insider Tip:
Venue is beautiful, but you’ll need to make sure one of your vendors (caterer, planner or other event staff) can set up all your tables and chairs. Typically a full service caterer will help with this aspect, but if you’re going an alternative route, that service will need to come from elsewhere. This is where a planner comes in handy - we can help guide you on the set up!
You’ll also need to secure tables and chairs, as well as any other decor needs from a rental company. If you go through the local company Pedersen’s Event Rentals , you can finagle a next-day rental pick up to save you some money on late-night delivery fees. However, if you go with another rental company, you’ll need to make sure the rentals are dropped off and picked up within your rental timeframe. A planner also comes in handy with this aspect to make sure everything is in order!
Want to know that you've found the best venue?
We love helping couples find the best fitting venue for their ideal budget via our standalone Venue Hunt Consultation or Venue Hunt add-on for wedding planning packages. As PNW Planners, we've planned and designed in hundreds of Oregon and Washington venues, and we're sharing some of our favorites and why we love them. All photos featured are from weddings Your Perfect Bridesmaid has coordinated, planned, and/or designed. View more of our Venue Series Blogs below: