We had our wedding reception at the Grand Vista. They do not allow outside caterers, so they did our catering for us. (They DO allow outside wedding cakes though)

The Grand Vista was the nicest place we could find that was also within our budget. We checked out a few wineries (way too pricey) and a few other less expensive places, but this one was the most elegant for the price.

The food was....ok. I didn't hear any stellar reviews, nor did I hear any complaints. The food was just food I think. The menu we had to choose from didn't have as many options as we would've liked, and since they don't allow outside catering the prices were pretty high, which can only be expected. By "menu" I mean you get a list of plated "dinners" you can choose from, or a list of "buffets" (a list for lunch or a list for dinner). None of the choices were that spectacular, and surprisingly they had a lot of rather casual-like meals, such as chicken fried steak, pizza, burgers, philly cheese steaks, and things like that, not as many options for higher class meals. At least that's how it was for the buffet options (lunch or dinner). I guess I sort of expected buffets like I've seen at other weddings, like roast beef or some kind of chicken or other meat with different kinds of potatos and veggies, but there wasn't this basic sort of option from what I remember. The dinner plating options looked a bit better (fancier), but they were out of our budget and we didn't send out menu cards with our invites. We eventually landed on something that wasn't very elegant but it wasn't pizza either, and it was a noon reception anyway.

We ended up buying too much beer and wine, but they let us keep the bottles wine (also overpriced, as expected since you can't bring it in separately yourself). (They said we could take the wine upstairs but they couldn't see us leaving the building with it). My brother convinced them to let the bar in the hotel keep our keg so he and my other siblings/family could drink more of it that night, so not as much beer went to waste ((awesome)).

The Grand Vista set aside a block of rooms for our guests so that they could reserve rooms at a slightly lower rate for the wedding, which was nice. They also gave me (the bride) the "Presidential Suite" the night before the wedding for the same low price of a regular room, which was nice. Plenty of space for my family and I to hang out the night before.

Nobody in our families are the "dancing" types, so we didn't have a DJ. Instead, the Grand Vista let us hook up my ipod to play through the speakers in the reception hall. Very cool. We had the dance floor set up (no extra cost for these things) so that we could have our first dance, and it was good because they let us have all three adjoining rooms for our reception so there was plenty of space.

When we arrived at the reception I noticed the buffet table had christmas lights underneath the table cloth, so that was a nice touch that I wasn't expecting. The Grand Vista has an array of different colored table cloths and napkins to choose from, but we just used white with some table overlays that we bought to go with our particular color theme. They also have candle holders you can use as center pieces or as accents to center pieces.

We were allowed to set up our reception hall the day before the wedding, so that was very helpful since we had the wedding rehearsal that night and the ceremony was in the morning the next day.

Overall, a good experience with the Grand Vista for our wedding reception. I wish now that we had set aside more of a budget for food, but that money went to our photographer instead. Work with what you've got I guess! They were very helpful with us setting up the reception our big day.