JOE WITTE, announcer:
TODAY'S WEDDING:
MODERN LOVE
is brought to you by...
ANN CURRY, co-host:
MODERN LOVE
, the reception venue. Once
Melissa
and
Jeremy
have exchanged their vows and rings on our plaza, it'll be time to party, and you get to pick where that's going to happen. We've got celebrity wedding designer
Colin Cowie
. He's helped us line up our choices and he's here alongside our bride,
Melissa McMillin
, and also...
This morning on TODAY'S WEDDING:
Good morning,
Melissa
.
Mr. COLIN COWIE:
...out at
Bagram Airfield
we've got joining us again live,
Jeremy Gebhardt
. And he's on duty, by the way, as we've been mentioning, in
Afghanistan
. Good morning again, everybody, and it's nice to have you,
Colin
.
CURRY:
Good morning.
Ms. MELISSA McMILLIN:
Good morning,
Ann.
Thank you.
Mr. COWIE:
So what should people be thinking about when they think about where to have a reception?
CURRY:
I think the most important thing with a venue is it dictates so many things. How many people you can have or when you can have it, and also you want to make sure that you can have indoors and outdoors and make sure that you take care of the weather. And it needs to be a
space
that speaks to you.
Mr. COWIE:
Mm-hmm.
Ms. McMILLIN:
It needs to be a
space
that is going to allow you to put as much as you can in front of your guests without having to reinvent the
space
. So we looked at three great spaces in the city which I was quite excited about.
Mr. COWIE:
Right. So you considered the -- this couple and you chose among your three choices, one of the choices is
Hudson Terrace
.
CURRY:
Yes.
Mr. COWIE:
Which is a venue, a place where people have parties and weddings and things like that?
CURRY:
It's downtown, it's young, it's hip, it's kind of chic and friendly and it's right across the -- with a fabulous view of the
Intrepid
. So it does have that little patriotic moment as well.
Mr. COWIE:
And you can see a lot from those windows, including the
Intrepid
and from the roof deck and there's so many things to look at?
CURRY:
It gives you a great view of the indoors and it gives you a great view of the outdoors. And one of the things, they have a big retractable ceiling so you can start up outdoors and should there be a problem with the weather you can fix it real easily.
Mr. COWIE:
OK, let's take a look then at what you found.
CURRY:
The reason I selected the
Hudson Terrace
as one of the possible locations for our wedding is working with the team of
MODERN LOVE
, we're looking for something that was edgy, young and downtown. The great part about this location is not only do you have the ability to be outdoors on this wonderful deck but there's a magnificent view of the
Hudson River
right behind me. While we love to entertain outdoors, you should always have a good plane
B. The
first thing I'm going to do is remove all of this furniture and work with square table tops with 10 guests seated at each table. For the dancing, we're going downstairs. After they cut the
wedding cake
, the
bridal party
and guests will come down here to dance where you've got a stocked bar to keep the party well-fueled.
Mr. COWIE:
Hm
.
Looks
like fun.
Melissa
's smiling.
CURRY:
Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Ms. McMILLIN:
That's a good sign. All right, and now we -- let's take a look at another venue that
Colin
has picked out for you possibly, and that is the
Central Park Zoo
. Let's take a look at this.
CURRY:
Cool
space
.
Mr. COWIE:
The
Central Park Zoo
is an exclusive tranquil oasis right in the middle of
New York
's
Central Park
and home to over one million visitors a year. Behind me the sea lion exhibit is an ideal spot for us to host the cocktail reception. It's a very unique venue and not many people know that you can host a wedding in
Central Park Zoo
. We call it one of
New York City
's jewels. This great tent will serve as a wonderful venue for our reception. I love the fact that the tent is clear because it brings the outdoors in and we're protected whether we have rain, hail or shine. From the vision point of view, I foresee one or two very long banquet tables down here. The
Central Park Zoo
is home to over
1400
animals. Any proceeds that come here benefit the
Wildlife Conservation Society
.
Mr. COWIE:
Colin
, this is a surprise. I think most people wouldn't realize you could get married at a zoo.
CURRY:
It's a great
space
. It really is a beautiful
space
. We overlook this gorgeous, it's lush, it's green in the middle of this oasis right in the middle of the city.
Mr. COWIE:
All right, let's take a look at our third choice, which is at
Gotham Hall
.
CURRY:
This is
Gotham Hall
. Originally commissioned as a bank, it's an historic landmark building but recently has been host to some of the most beautiful weddings and parties in the city. The reason I love this
space
is because of the elegance and the scale. The details are quite extraordinary. If you look at the
Corinthian
-style columns, gilded ceiling with the beautiful chandelier, the domed roof with the crystal glass all make for wonderful details. But what I really like are the finials that are used over here,
Mercury
and
Minerva
, who represent wisdom and commerce, two things I think every marriage would like to be blessed with. My vision for this would be to host the cocktail reception up on the mezzanine level overlooking this beautiful, elegant ballroom and then have the
bridal party
seated at one long table here with all the guests seated at round tables around them.
Mr. COWIE:
It looks amazing. I want to ask
Jeremy
what he's thinking about all these choices because he's way out there in
Afghanistan
, about ready to come home.
Jeremy
, you must just be ready to lose your mind with all the excitement. You're going to get to come home from
Afghanistan
, see your girl and get married. What do you think of these venues?
CURRY:
Oh, I think -- I think they all sound wonderful. It's so surreal to have this happen, to be here and it's not necessarily -- I don't -- I don't really comprehend, you know, or -- I don't really see it all happening, but I know
when I get home
it's going to be -- it's going to all hit me and everything's going to be amazing, so I can't wait to see what everything turns out to look like. It's going to be great.
Mr. GEBHARDT:
OK.
Melissa
, he's so sweet. Obviously, it's still hitting him.
CURRY:
Yeah. He's still in shock.
Ms. McMILLIN:
Well I think we -- I'm sure that you both are.
CURRY:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ms. McMILLIN:
But it's so exciting
to be with you
.
Colin
,
thank you so much
this morning.
CURRY:
Thank you,
Ann.
Thank you,
Melissa
.
Mr. COWIE:
Thank you so much
.
Ms. McMILLIN:
And so we want to tell people how they can vote. You can go to our
Web site
at todayshow.com and you can vote for your favorite or you can head to facebook.com/todayshow. And don't forget to like us, if that's not too hard, on
Facebook
to follow our wedding progress. And we will be checking our page for you comments and your votes. And you can also text in your votes to 622639. Text one for
Hudson Terrace
, 2 for
Central Park Zoo
and 3 for
Gotham Hall
. And we'll reveal the winning location next Wednesday. And coming up next, why you should be adding healthy whole grains to your diet. But first, this is TODAY on
NBC
.
CURRY:
“ ”