Would You Get Married At a Sewage Treatment Plant?

If you’re looking for the perfect place to get hitched at an affordable price, The Brightwater Wastewater Treatment Center may be the venue for you.

The center, which charges only $2,000 for an eight hour rental, boasts a full-catering kitchen, state-of-the-art audio visual equipment and can hold up to 260 people (is that a big wedding or a small wedding?) at one time. Not only that, but according to KIRO TV, the Seattle area facility has a beautiful outdoor space and is 100% odor-free. Proceeds from events happening at the center will go to environmental education programs, but I don’t know if that assertion (or even the lack of odor) will win over as many people as the center hopes because no matter how nice the AV equipment is, many will still have a hard time getting over the fact that their dancing is happening only feet away from raw sewage processing. (Raw sewage processing is my new “moist.”)

KIRO TV interviewed wedding planner Jacky Grotle who had this to say about the idea:

“I think a lot of people will have a hard time getting past what really happens there. You’re having food and beverage, it somehow doesn’t feel right,” Grotle said. “I don’t think I could recommend it ever to my clients. My clients have pretty high standards in working in Seattle and the east side, and… I would never put it as a suggestion.”

Grotle admits the lower price of Brightwater may attract some couples.

Obviously Grotle has also never heard of the trendy and affordable DoWiSeTrePla neighborhood of New York City. It’s the perfect place to start a family!

I agree that it may be hard to put the idea of raw sewage processing behind you as you move to the Macarena (imperative at weddings) or look lovingly in your partner’s eyes as you dance to your first song (mine is “I Get Lost In Your Eyes” by Deborah Gibson, so please do not steal it), and even the argument that there’s sewage all around us is probably not going to change my mind. Yes, there’s sewage all around, but we try to forget about it. At the Brightwater Wastewater Treatment Center it may be a little bit more difficult to keep up the polite fiction that fecal matter does not exist.

Still, Susan Tallarico, director of Brightwater Environmental Education & Community Center, says that the attractive price and outdoor beauty of the location has attracted several couples in the seven months the center’s been available for rentals. One couple has even booked their wedding at the center.

“We’ve never really had people who were super turned off, they kind of come in and fall in love with the space,” said Tallarico.