Stein Eriksen Lodge: The Ballroom

Let’s Discuss.

The ballroom at Stein Eriksen Lodge is in many ways a dream come true for your dream mountain wedding reception.

Here are the most popular reasons to love it:

-It's newish. Deer Valley is home to so many charming spaces that have been around for awhile. Stein’s is one of those places, and that’s one of the reasons I really love it. It’s authentically wonderful. But the Stein Ballroom is newer, so it feels fresh compared to most other ballrooms. They put immense thought into it so even though it’s technically a ballroom, it doesn’t have that “event in a box vibe” that most ballrooms do. It’s tall beamed ceilings and double fireplaces go along way when we’re talking about an intimately elegant reception.

-It has panoramic doors that open up to the outside. That means during the entirety of your wedding day, your guests are connecting with nature and they’re constantly reminded of the beauty of the mountains. I particularly love this because even when the weather is not ideal, we don’t have to ever sacrifice the safety of a room and walls for a view of the mountains and fresh air.

-It’s big. It can fit up to 325 guests for a seated dinner. I love this because if you have a smaller guest count that leaves plenty of space for lounge furniture, creative floor plans and of course a large dance floor.

The thing that seems to be a moment of hesitation for couples is the carpet. Keep in mind, I have yet to find ballroom carpet that I am head over heels for, so I am constantly thinking of ways we can work with the carpet instead of against it. Usually, clients are much more interested in allocating their budgets to fun design elements such as ceiling installations, specialty lighting and chairs to help distract from the carpet instead of paying someone to install carpet over it and hide it.

As planners we are always sharing images of empty rooms, so keep in mind carpeting is noticed even less when a room is filled with dancing guests.

That being said, I wanted to share a comparison of the way different lighting / floral /rentals affect this room.

1. Party Lights

When a band or a DJ brings party lights, it combines with the uplights and changes the entire vibe. Most people notice the colors vs. the floor.

2. Pinspot Lighting on the tables:

As often as I can, I suggest pin spotting the centerpieces. This helps guide the eye right where we want it to look as it travels across the room. Paired with ceiling treatments, this helps keep the eye at table height and above.

Note: in this photo we have the curtains closed to the panoramic doors before we reveal it to the guests for their invitation to dinner.

This is the same reception, different angle. The eye can absorb that the carpet exists, but the chairs keep the contrast to the carpet low and the eye focuses mostly on the floral chandelier.

3. Floorplan.

The design of this room and the space needed around the larger 16 top tables left more open space for the carpet to be more obvious. There was plenty of other things in the room to distract the eye. This photo was photographed with the overhead can lights all turned on, so the room is of course much brighter as well.

4. Linen / Rentals Selection.

In less bright light, the carpet is less glaring. We also made sure to select linens, chargers and chairs that had similar undertones to work with the carpet and walls vs. adding more contrast. Think warm ivories vs. cool whites.

In contrast, the wedding below did not opt for upgraded chairs, they used the in house banquet chairs and went with cool white. To me, this actually makes the carpet stand out:

Another element that people ask me about is the quilted walls, which also seem to pop more in the photo above in comparison to the other images. Of course, the quilted walls help so much with acoustics and sound dampening so they are necessary, but if you scroll back up through the previous images, you’ll see you notice them more or less depending on the image and the lighting.

Here are a few other images that provide an example :

I’m including this image because you’ll notice when the lights are turned down low, if the uplights aren’t specfically shining on the quilted sections of the walls-they are a non issue.

For a wedding reception that had lighting coming from above vs. only ambient lighting placed around the walls, they are not highlighted. Think floral chandeliers + pinspots or draped string lights overhead vs. wall uplights.

The other moment that the quilted walls are more noticeable, is behind the band. When we have the band stage against that wall, it does feel more highlighted, especially because of the band lighting. Many clients leave this unaddressed, but some add a decorative backdrop instead.

In the below photo, we had the combination of the ceiling treatment as well as the twinkle light band backdrop. These two elements added some magic in real life but also elevated the way the wedding itself photographed. In this photo, the quilted walls are almost not noticeable at all. If desired, this twinkle wall could actually cover the entire distance of the whole back wall instead of just behind the band stage.

In this last photo: We had a ceiling treatment that was floral only, so we had to actually shine lights on the florals from the front edge of the stage to bring light and depth throughout the whole evening. As you can see we also had pinspots lighting the centerpieces . We had ambient lighting from the uplights along the right and left side of the room shining on the quilted panels, in addition we had the twinkle lights installed for the band backdrop.

Of course, there are endless ways we can design this room that will transform it including twinkle lights, draping and more. It really just depends on what each client’s particular priority and personal style is.

While I absolutely believe carpeting and walls are important design elements of every event, it should not be a factor that would cause one to veer away from a venue as fab as Stein Eriksen Lodge. I have had more people than I can count tell me the weddings they’ve attended here were the best wedding they’d ever been to. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the carpet or the quilted walls.