So quick(ish) story about the reception venue! My friend Brittany had told me about Bobo before we even moved to NYC. She flagged it as a spot we had to visit when she came into town. I saw it was in West Village and right down the street from our apartment, so I opened the link she sent and instantly fell in love with the space…and their oyster happy hour.
When I started looking at reception venues, I knew deep down that Bobo was probably it. But there was one problem – it had temporarily shut down due to covid in 2020, and even when we moved to NYC in the summer of 2021 it still hadn’t opened back up yet.
Thankfully the restaurant was part of a restaurant group, so I reached out to their event planner and told them we were interested in the space and hoped to see it when it reopened.
After a few months I started getting a little nervous about locking something in, so I decided to look around just in case. I went to 20+ restaurants/venues in lower manhattan…but nothing felt right. I knew I wanted a cozy and intimate venue and somewhere that was special and unique to NYC.
I’ve also always been in love with the Italian countryside type of wedding – a long family style table with florals down the middle and dinner under the stars. So I was just hoping to find somewhere where I could make a some version of that vision work.
And juuuuust when I thought I’d have to settle for somewhere I liked but didn’t love, Bobo reopened their doors and we got a call to come see the space!
The online photos didn’t even do it justice – the restaurant was cozy and romantic and very much unique to NYC.
They had two long tables set up in their garden area with a ton of natural greenery and a retractable roof for dinner under the stars. It was perfect.
We booked it within days and then finished planning out our night! We opted to do a few traditional things at dinner including a first dance, mother/son and father/daughter dance, speeches and a cake cutting. Otherwise, it was just a beautiful dinner with our closest family and friends!
If you’re looking to book Bobo for your own wedding, I would definitely recommend. You can do a full buyout, or a partial buy out and mix and match their spaces. We opted for just the garden area and thought it was perfect for under 30 people! The food was SO good and we had the option to do family style or individual dishes (we did family) and then we were able to use their sound system for our dance music. The flowers and candles were brought in from Pink Jasmine Designs, but otherwise all of the greenery was already in the space!
A few of our favorite photos are below 🙂
