My grandmother on my father's side, Eleanor Parker, was killed in an automobile accident less than a mile from her home in Lewiston in January 1984. The driver of the other car, who survived, was under the influence of marijuana and alcohol when he hit her car as she was driving from work. She was cremated and her ashes were spread in the ocean off of Land's End on Bailey Island, ME.
Growing up, Bailey Island was a popular destination for my family. If it was a slow weekend, sometimes we would just drive out to the ocean there and fly a kite, or shop in the gift shop at the end of the road. For my brother and me, it was the only way to connect with a grandmother we never got to meet.
This past Sunday, a rainy September Sunday, Katelyn and I made the familiar drive (to me, anyway) to visit The Driftwood Inn on Bailey Island, Maine.
Despite visiting Bailey Island for over twenty-five years now, I had never previously been to The Driftwood Inn. Bailey Island is close enough from home in Lewiston to always just make a day trip out of it, so I've never stayed in the area. After looking at the inn's website, I was fully expecting this to be a sub-par venue, but I was pleasantly surprised by what we found through visiting it in person.
The word "inn" seems a bit of a mis-nomer, as The Driftwood Inn is more correctly a collection of buildings with bedrooms on the coast of Maine. The main building features a restaurant on the ground floor, the office, and bedrooms on the second floor. The other buildings (we visited two that were open) feature living spaces on the first floors (and some bedrooms) with bedrooms mostly occupying second floor space. There is a very rustic feel to these buildings, with old books on shelves and old TV sets still hooked up. For me, it was reminiscent of visiting various campside lakes in my childhood; as Katelyn put it, a very "rustic" feel.
With our wedding party number over 100, it would be difficult to accomodate everyone on the grounds for the ceremony and reception. In the event of bad weather, there is really only dining space for 30 people or so, which would leave a good number of people seeking shelter elsewhere. One feeling I got, even though it was just Katelyn and me walking around (the inn is off-season right now), was that the ceremony and reception could potentially be very claustrophobic even with the space spread out across multiple buildings. It would be nice to be able to have out-of-town family staying in the rooms on-site, but many of the rooms are also either single-occupancy or have two beds, which would be problematic in terms of hosting couples.
If the weather would be cooperative for a wedding day at The Driftwood Inn, however, there would potentially be very pretty views on the coast of Maine. Of course, the day we chose to visit the weather was cold and rainy, so there's a chance that an October wedding would face the same conditions; in that case, the venue would not be so fun for our wedding. And, since the interior space is so limited, there really isn't an alternative interior ceremony site here.
In terms of pricing, it would be quite affordable to use The Driftwood Inn and we would have flexibility in terms of selecting an off-site caterer and choosing rental services for chairs, tables, and tents. While this is an asset for us in some ways, it also means that we will have to do a lot of coordinating to make sure that everything is in place on our special day.
As Katelyn and I sought shelter from the rain and got back in the car to leave The Driftwood Inn, I think we were on the same page. If we were having a late spring or summer wedding, this could be a really nice venue, provided the weather lived up to its end of the bargain. The temperatures would be warmer and we wouldn't have to worry about the out-of-town people staying in the camp buildings on the premises. Thinking in terms of an October wedding, however, it really would be difficult to convince ourselves that it could be done when interior shelter space is so limited.
We are still considering The Driftwood Inn on Bailey Island, Maine as a possible venue choice, but chances are if we're going to use a seaside venue like this one, we'll be using the venue I talk about in the next installment of my venue search blog posts.
More information and photographs of The Driftwood Inn can be found at the venue's website, http://www.thedriftwoodinnmaine.com/. The Driftwood Inn is located about an hour and five minutes from Portland, an hour and ten minutes from Lewiston, and two hours and twenty minutes from Bangor.
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