Listen to the Podcast About The Club at New Seabury
Podcast Summary
Chelsea Davis, an industry expert on wedding trends, sat down with interview host Katie Cronon at The Club at New Seabury to discuss the latest evolutions in the wedding scene. Her insights shed light on the contemporary trends shaping wedding celebrations today.
Chelsea highlighted a shift toward individuality, with bridesmaids opting for different colored dresses or even different patterns. She also noted an increasing frequency of varied bouquets for bridesmaids, tying them all together through the bride’s bouquet. Davis emphasizes that these individual touches grant each bridesmaid the opportunity to express their unique relationship to the bride, fashioning a wedding ceremony steeped in personal significance.
The Club at New Seabury’s expert pointed out that some traditional elements, like the bouquet and garter toss, are less commonly seen. She recounted a hilarious incident of a tossed bouquet getting stuck in a large ship sail, illustrating how the current surroundings may not fit these more traditional practices.
Davis revealed the resurgence of the champagne tower tradition, which not only delivers a stunning visual spectacle but also involves the crowd in a fun and engaging fashion.
Providing advice for new brides-to-be, she stressed the importance of booking a DJ, band or photographer first due to them often only being able to cover one event per day. Thus, prioritizing these aspects can assure availability.
Lastly, Davis praised the exceptional beauty of The Club at New Seabury’s locations. The versatility of a country club overlooking a golf course with the bonus of beach photos sets it apart from other venues, creating a perfect blend of elegance and natural scenery.
In summary, Chelsea Davis’s industry insights combined with the unique offerings of The Club at New Seabury create a compelling blueprint for any modern bride planning her special day.
Learn more about The Club at New Seabury
This interview was provided by Felix and Fingers Dueling Pianos
Podcast Transcript
Katie Cronin (00:24)
Chelsea, how are you doing? I’m good, thank you. Good, good. We’re here at The Club at New Seabury and we’re just going to talk through some things that you’re seeing in the industry and kind of just, you know, things you’re looking forward to this season. Awesome. Yeah, should be a lot of fun.
to get started off with, what are some trends that you’re seeing in the wedding industry lately? Different colored dresses for bridesmaids. So maybe like one hue, different, everybody wears a different dress or we’ve seen a lot of different patterns in dresses. So that and different bouquets, having different flowers and then maybe having like the bride’s bouquet have all those flowers in them. So making it kind of fun and different for, you know, like
every individual bridesmaid is you know part of the bride’s life but in a different way so kind of like individualing eyes in them that’s the word. That’s amazing, giving everyone their own personality and then combining it into the bouquet. love that. That’s fun. Now what about some things maybe you’ve seen couples do that you think are kind of cringe-worthy or that you you wouldn’t recommend?
it’s like cringe-worthy but one thing that we don’t see too often and people kind of like I don’t know question it is still like the bouquet and garter toss you don’t get that a lot anymore and it depends on your venue too because when you’re throwing said things you don’t think of surroundings so I actually had one done last year at our other venue and it got we have these big ship sails up on the ceiling and it got stuck up in the sail so you don’t really think of your surroundings right and I mean in
that
case it kind of made for a funny night. Sure. But if you hit something like a light fixture or whatever it could be embarrassing. Right. So I haven’t seen it that often. Well I gotta know is the sale getting married next? I don’t know it did come down for a nice washing for the season so maybe it found some friends in the laundry. never know friends are made. What would you say is the most like unique or fun thing you’ve seen lately at a wedding?
I don’t know, last year someone brought back the champagne tower. Oh wow. So with the old like coupe glasses. And then it kind of involved the crowd because you don’t actually know or realize that you have to use quite a bit of champagne for that because you have to fill the top completely for it to flow down. So then it became kind of like a crowd pleaser because they got to come up and like also help pour all the champagne. Oh, that’s fun. So kind of they opened the first one, but then like parents and grandparents, they kind of like helped. So that was a cute.
that like came back. That’s cool it gets everybody involved. Everybody gets their little Yeah because it was taking a little bit longer than they expected so kind of made for like a fun crowd thing. That’s awesome. Now what about advice maybe that you have for new planning people like someone maybe who just got engaged?
book, I would say your band or DJ and your photographer first. You don’t really think of it, but they can only do one event at a time versus your cake or your flowers that might be on Pinterest a lot, different designs. Those people can do multiple in one day. So I always say like book your photographer, your videographer, your DJ first or band and then go from there. I think that’s great advice because sometimes people don’t know what to do when.
which
thing to do first, and it’s helpful to think about what those vendors are able to do per day. That’s really helpful. Now, what would you say makes The Club at New Seabury really unique?
I just kind of our views and our surroundings. So we have two locations, one here at the country club that overlooks our golf course. And people find it really fun because you get to take a golf cart ride because you still get beach photos here, but it’s a little bit farther away than our other location, the Pomp and Ness, where the waters just steps away. So here it’s fun because you get to take a golf cart ride and go down. some people who are golfers here for the golf course find it really fun that you can go out on the course, take photos, bring your clubs.
take a shot with the tea, you know, with the golf clubs on the tee and stuff. that’s really fun. That’s cool. So people who are members here or people who just enjoy golf, we get a kick out of that. that’s cool. Now, in terms of your current availability, how far out are you guys booked right now? So we still have some small random dates for 25, but we are booking into 26. We are at a kind of special kind of crossroad where we are technically
just moving ownership. And so, some people are already asking for 27, we’re kind of on a pause. We’re in the final stages, which is nice, so hopefully we can unpause soon. So basically for us, 26, I guess, long story short. Gotcha. Now, in terms of average event size and cost, what are we looking at here? So both of our venues, we fit up to 200 guests.
Cost-wise, it really changes depending on the month and the day of the week. So something, it could be in the off-season as simple as like $30,000 to in-season, depending on how many guests, you could go even up to $60,000. So it really just depends on how much fun you want to have and what kind of menu and guests and everything. And time of year. A lot of different variables to think about. Now, do you have a cancellation policy?
So any deposit we take is technically non-refundable so it depends on the situation I would think if for some reason it was
a reason that you had to just postpone, then the money would go with you. But if you were to cancel your wedding, then anything you put forward just is kind of eaten up. OK, yeah. So that’s, guess, the cancel. Sure. Do you have an in-house catering or? So we do all food and beverage as well as day of planning. So we, myself being one of the catering managers, we show you space, sell it to you, plan with you along the way. And then we’re here to execute it the day of. And then we have plenty of bartenders and
chefs as well as a banquet staff that takes care of that day of planning. Everything but the wedding cake. We just don’t have a baker that does a tiered wedding cake. We do other smaller desserts, but we leave that fun stuff for our local bakeries. That’s awesome. Yeah. Are there any preferred vendors that you recommend? We do have quite a list. So when you reach out to us and get our information, we actually include that in there. So there’s quite a few different types of vendors on there.
necessarily have to choose anyone from there but we like to give you a starting point because it’s typically most people’s first you know go around and you you don’t know what what you need to look for so yeah. Cool. Do you have a bridal suite? We have a small shared area of our locker rooms here at the club so our our locker rooms are open to our members but in both men’s and women’s we have kind of like a small relaxation area. Okay.
Are there any noise ordinances or curfews? So we finish up at midnight. So that’s kind of just our cutoff. Okay, gotcha. Now for the parking situation, is there ample parking? Is it free? So we have plenty of free parking on site. It is what it is because we do share with our restaurants. So some people do on the larger wedding sides, kind of opt out for actually bringing in buses. We don’t have a lot of lodging on site and so
Some people have room blocks that are anywhere from half hour away. So it does actually benefit them to keep everybody together and on a schedule by bringing in buses, but you’re not required at all. Okay. Got it. So a lot of people bring in people and then they’ll just shuttle them in and out. Okay. Yeah. Depends on where your ceremony location is. We have a ceremony location on site. However, some people still do opt for a church. And so by shuttling people from
lodging, to church, to here, to potentially an after party. Sometimes the busing is actually helpful. Yeah, it streamlines everything. Yeah, that’s great. Do you guys have a backup contingency plan for weather? We do. So both of our spaces have ceremony locations and here our ceremony at the club is outdoors so the backup would be inside our ballroom and then we would flip the ballroom for your wedding when you’re at cocktail hour. And over at the tent it is what it is. So the ceremony is in the tent. You have cocktail
hour in another area and then we’re flipping where your ceremony was to dinner so it’s kind of all one area at the poppy. Cool.
And are there extra costs if it goes inside because of weather? No, we do a ceremony rehearsal the day before and we try to look at the weather and make our best plan. Obviously Mother Nature loves to change her mind. So if anything happens overnight, early morning and we need to flip flop, we still are able to do so. Cool. That’s great. How early in the day can vendors, we have a lot of vendors that watch us. How early can vendors access the venue for setup? It really depends on the day. It’s always minimum of two hours.
and so that is kind of the minimum. We are a golf course so sometimes we do have golf tournaments during the day that does you know push us to that two hours. However sometimes you can come in as early as you want. That’s great so just varies day to day. cool.
And you had mentioned a little bit about this earlier, but you have an event coordinator on site. Yes. So we are your planner. We do not the all inclusive handholding that some people do like from the getting ready to, you know, coordinating buses, things like that. Booking vendors. We are a little more low key than that, but we are on site to help organize all your personal belongings, keep to a schedule, make sure the food and beverage goes out. Everyone gets down the aisle and we are here until the end.
wrap everything up for you. That’s great.
So now tell me a little bit about this offer that you told me about. yes. So for the rest of 2025, we’d like to offer 25 % off any room rentals. If you’re looking for a bridal shower, engagement party, rehearsal dinner, a wedding even, we’d love to host you and that’s 25 % off the room rental. that’s great. Thank you so much for that offer. Yeah, of course. Anyone watching? So now tell me a little bit more about
venue on site? Where do most people find is the best spot to gather? So we, it depends on the occasion, but we do have kind of like bar areas. We have a beautiful gazebo that overlooks the golf course that is a very fan favorite. Gives really good views of the sunset and that’s kind of a nice seller. That’s great. Yeah. That’s amazing.
So now tell me a little bit about the actual area that we’re in. We’re on Cape Cod, right? We are on Cape Cod. So we’re in Mashpee, technically, but we’re in a little suburb called New Seabury. So if you’ve ever been to the Cape and have found Mashpee Commons, which is a popular kind of almost outdoor shopping area, we’re just behind that down in New Seabury. And you really have to drive into New Seabury. Most people don’t even know we’re back here, which is really unique. So it’s a little bit tucked away, a little bit hidden. Yeah. But you know, what’s
you get here, which we’re at the club at Mestiburi right now, once you get here it just opens up. It’s beautiful. Yeah, we have two different pools, we have two golf courses, beaches for members, five restaurants, one of them being open to the public as well, a beach club. So there’s a lot back here that you don’t even know. Tennis and driving range, there’s a lot. Wow, sounds like no one who comes here is bored. That’s amazing. So in terms of like when you see
brides come in, what do you find that they ask you most frequently?
They’re so worried about the timeline and you should leave that to your planner and enjoy the day. That’s like another pro tip. would say just take it all in, take a breather and trust in your planner because they nitpick about the timeline and making sure that everything in their ideal, you know, list gets checked off. But they also stress about typically like how much dancing time they get. And if you leave it to the planner and not nitpick, you probably will get more dancing time because just lean on them on what the venue is comfortable.
with. That’s cool. What are you seeing most for entertainment?
We’ve actually had a switch to a lot of bands. wow. Yeah. Our venues really do anything. We do bands or DJs, single guitarists, everything. But yeah, I’ve seen a lot of bands. Our vendor list has a little bit of everything on it, so it’s really up to the couple to what they want to choose. That’s great. Any advice for maybe the families of couples that are watching?
just listen to the bride. That is great advice. Because sometimes there’s something that she really wants and I don’t know, some people kind of nitpick about the money or something, but listen to the bride and see what she wants. She’s always had a little girl’s dream of what she wants to look like walking down the aisle or who’s there with her. So listen to the bride. And groom, I guess I should say, listen to that groom too. right. It’s his day too. It’s his day too, yes.
would the main point of contact prior to? So we are a team of three and you can reach out to anybody. Jennifer’s our director and then myself and my coworker Kelly, all three of us, execute, or sell, plan and execute. That’s awesome. So a pretty tight-knit group. That’s great. So and then how involved are you personally in the planning process? So we sit down at least twice before your wedding, one of them being ideally a food tasting and going over what
you want to see at your wedding and then kind of another planning call closer to the wedding or in person that kind of just reviews all those last minute details making sure we’re all on the same page. So that’s kind of the minimum but we really can be here as often as a phone call or email is needed but we really have two big kind of details of meetings.
How often or how far in advance I should say do you see most couples coming into plan?
At least a year we have a lot of people that are even two years because a lot more people are doing extended Education so either masters or you know doctorates things like that So those people even come out and request, you know, two or three years I had one that was like three years out because she knew that she was gonna be busy with her schooling and she just wanted to at least check something off the list right make the parents happy that she was making some effort
So
it really depends but usually a year. A year? Okay, give or take. Yeah, that’s what we see a lot too. Yeah, that’s great. Now in terms of like the different spaces, I know you had mentioned that you guys have, you know, a golf cart that people can use. Is there golf course access like for pictures or is that on the For pictures, yes. Limited on the course depending on how many players are out there. Both venues have beach access and then it just kind of depends on the
time of year on what goes out on the course or even the putting green or something like that. Got it. Yeah. So now tell me about like the maximum capacity. You had said 200, right? Is that for both ceremony and reception? Yes. So we currently max out at 200 or up to 200. We don’t have a person minimum, but we just have a person maximum.
So cool. you know, when when people ask for your vendor list, do you find that people usually are booking off of that list or do they come in with their own ideas? No, we do get a lot of people off our vendor list, which is nice because they’re here most often. They know kind of the venue itself. They don’t have a lot of questions for setup or they even have our personal cell phones and can be like, hey, can I come and drop some stuff off earlier? You so it’s really nice if if they do. However, it’s not
required. Okay. Do you have a mandatory gratuity? So we have 14 % that’s already included. You’re more than welcome to add more or leave it as is, but we do build in a small baseline. And what’s the deposit amount? Whatever the room rental is, which changes on the day of the week in the month, but whatever the room rental is would be your deposit. Got it. Okay. And are you seeing most people still booking on a Saturday?
Yeah, I would say Saturdays do go first, then Fridays, then Sundays, but we actually are getting into some non-traditional days. I’ve actually had a Thursday and a Monday book. wow. So yeah, it depends on kind of the time of the year based around the holidays too. If you see like a long weekend or something, you might get a non-traditional day. That makes sense. Yeah. What kind of flexibility do you have with guest count in case it changes? So typically we like them two weeks before.
we can go a week even out but two weeks gives us time to help you kind of look over your seating chart make sure everything’s okay get any allergies to chef if he has to make a specific dish and then you know if anything changes it’s usually a week out. so you said you do all the food and beverage here do you have any food that’s like the most popular anything that people ask for? We have a little it’s not a rowboat but we actually have a boat for our raw bars so people love it because it’s
actually kind of like capy and you see the seafood displayed out on something fun. That’s great. That’s that’s so cape like personality vibe wise. Yeah. That’s awesome. So if do you have any other advice for couples, maybe somebody who has been trying to plan for a long time, hasn’t gotten their venue yet. What would you, what would you say to that bride? come and see us.
Just take it all in. Take some notes because usually when they’ve seen so many venues, they blend together. Right. So kind of making some notes on what your favorite aspect of each was. I get a lot of people that come in. We have very mild carpet and I think it’s funny because everyone’s like, this carpet’s not offensive. Like there’s some venues that must be older or something that has like a different pattern or vibrant. So simple things like that, I guess down to the carpet is so silly, but make some notes.
and see what your favorite aspect of each venue is. It can be so important to like go in person because when you look online it just doesn’t do it justice. can’t see it. yeah. Well that’s so cool.
Is there anything else that you’re seeing at weddings here that you find just really out of the box or maybe crazy? You were mentioning you had someone at a Who was a bright no a groomsman who was well known? at my previous venue we some very fun celebrities but out of the box
This is a newer trend is the audio guestbook. So it comes in a couple of different forms down to a rotary phone to a payphone looking style. And I think it’s fun. The messages do get crazier as people consume the alcohol. So I think later in the night you might have some funkier messages, but it’s kind of fun to like go back and hear everybody say hi to you. So that’s kind of like different. That’s really, really cool because you can go back.
and you’ll always have that to listen to. Remember how everybody was on the day. Yeah, exactly. That’s awesome. So before we wrap up, just anything else that you can think of that you would want brides to know or couples to know about? For our venue specifically or in general? Anything that comes to mind. I don’t know.
love making people happy. That’s my favorite part of the job is just like making their dreams come true. So I’m hoping that whatever venue that they choose, they have a very good person on their side and listens to them and makes the littlest things, whether it be a crazy garnish for their signature drink or making sure grandma’s picture is in the right spot. I don’t know, something like that. I just really enjoy every wedding is different because everyone has a different idea. So I really enjoy making those ideas.
and dreams come to life. don’t That’s really cool. It’s a fun job. I don’t get bored. every bride, every couple is different. Yeah, yeah. Even on Cape being very blue and hydrangea forward, it’s still not the same. Everybody kind of like finds their own vibe. People put their own spin on it. Yeah. People bring their own personality. Yeah, which is nice. That’s so cool. Well, thank you so much for doing this. it was fun. Yeah. good.
All right, well, we will get this sent out to you and thank you so, much for coming on. Yeah, of course. Yeah, thank you.
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