A COUPLE exchanges vows on the lawn of The Sullivan House on Block Island, which hosts at least 20 weddings per year, many involving New York brides.
A big, white-tent wedding on a lawn overlooking the ocean – it’s many brides’ romantic dream, and Rhode Island venues have long catered to them. Now Bristol, Newport and Block Island are cranking things up a notch, marketing themselves as wedding “destinations.”
In August, the Newport County Convention & Visitors Bureau launched YourNewportWedding.com, which now gets an average of 5,000 unique visitors per month, said Anne Marie McLaughlin, communications manager at the bureau.
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Bristol’s Web site, DiscoverBristol
.com, has a full page on wedding planning.
And Block Island, which got lots of publicity from the Edward M. Kennedy Jr./Katherine Anne “Kiki” Gershman wedding in 1993, is seeing its appeal grow every year among brides from New York and Boston, who can get a better deal on the island than in their home cities.
McLaughlin could not estimate the tourism dollars such weddings generate, but she said the impact is significant, because wedding parties usually stay more than one night, and the events “touch every aspect of the hospitality industry,” from spas, restaurants and retail, to boating, tours and golf.
Newport issued 750 to 800 marriage licenses per year from 2003 to 2005, but those figures include only those issued to Newport residents and out-of-staters, said Kathy M. Silvia, city clerk for Newport. Residents of other Rhode Island communities file for licenses in their hometowns, as is required by state law.
In recent years, weddings have been getting larger, said Natalie Ward, general manager at the Castle Hill Inn & Resort in Newport, which has been hosting weddings in its 5,000 square foot tent overlooking the harbor for about a decade.
The inn hosts about 70 weddings per year, Ward said, but rather than parties of 150, now they’re closer to 200.
Bristol, on the other hand, has seen the number of weddings grow.
“In the past four years, Bristol has really exploded as a wedding-destination town,” said Jim Connell, executive director of Linden Place Museum, the nonprofit charged with preserving Linden Place, an 1810 Federal-period mansion.
The mansion plans on hosting 50 weddings this year, up from 40 last year, Connell said. Wedding revenue covers 75 percent to 80 percent of the organization’s operating costs, he added.
Joining forces with the Blithewold Mansion and Mount Hope Farm has really helped the museum, Connell added. The three venues combine resources so they can afford to advertise in magazines such as Southern New England. The advertisement has generated five bookings for Linden Place, where the average wedding party is about 130 people.
The East Bay Tourism Council sends at least one packet a week to brides planning weddings in Bristol, said Betty Pleacher, president of the council. And she doesn’t see it slowing down. The further into the season, the more materials they send.
Block Island is also seeing more weddings. Last year, the Town of New Shoreham issued 151 marriage licenses, said the town clerk, 10 more than in 2003.
About 45 percent to 50 percent of The Sullivan House’s business comes from weddings, according to Sean Kivlehan, event manager for weddings at the Block Island resort, which has hosted more than 350 weddings in the past 15 years.
The resort has accommodations for up to 70 guests, he said, and also owns and operates a full-service special-events company that supplies tents, chairs, tables, linens, lighting, stages, and more.
The Sullivan House does at least 20 weddings per year, about 40 percent of the wedding parties come from Manhattan, about 20 percent from Rhode Island, 30 percent from Connecticut, and the rest from Massachusetts. The average cost of a 150-guest wedding is $18,000 to $25,000, including the catering, tents and grounds, but not the accommodations.
Kivlehan said The Sullivan House is seeing more weddings during the week, because the weekends fill so quickly.
The same is happening at the Castle Hill Inn, Ward said. “We’re seeing a lot more of a demand for Thursday and Friday night weddings,” she said. “We’re even having weddings on Monday night and Tuesday night.”
