After a long and thorough search of wedding reception venues around Monmouth and Ocean County my wife and I chose Jumping Brook. See my previous review for thoughts prior to the wedding.
Keep in mind, I am actually one of the pickiest people around, and will call a place out if it is not up to my standards. I also understand that since it was my wedding I may have had a different experience than guests, so I tried to also incorporate what I heard from them. Contact me if you have a question.
Review of the Big Day!
Service- The staff at Jumping Brook was on point. Denise the sales manager makes sure everything is in order leading up to the wedding. She is very detailed orientated and responsive to every phone call and email. Megan, the maitre d checked with us and our parents making sure that everything was running flawlessly and there were no problems. Megan did a great job of coordinating events with the DJ to make all the transitions smooth. Megan assigned a server, his name was Kevin as well, to take care of our every need. He would literally pop out of no where with our "go to drinks" in hand before we even asked. He was like a ninja! As everyone knows the bride and groom walk around a lot and he defiantly made sure our meals were hot and informed us when all the food was set on the table. The bar tenders were quick and on point. No one waited more than a minute for a drink and there were over 150 guests at our reception. All our guests were impressed with the 1st class service they experienced.
Venue- When checking out Jumping Brook make sure you go on a day the room is set up. We were a little worried things looked dated when we saw the empty room, but on the wedding day, the reception looked impressive, great golf course views, and even an outside terrace for smokers.
Cocktail hour- Do not miss your cocktail hour, you will regret it. There was so much food. I honestly forget how many stations of hot food there was. Some of our guests asked if there was dinner after because of how many stations and food varieties there were. I tried a small plate from every station and all the food tasted awesome. The Asian station was a good choice because a few of our guests who did not eat meat where glad they had a non meat option. We selected 10 orderves to be passed around. Everywhere you looked there was servers walking around serving guests. The one thing that Jumping Brook has that other places don't is a monstrous cocktail hour room with tables and 2 bars. There is literally 3 rooms. The main lobby with a bar, another room with a bar, and then the large cocktail hour room with plenty of seats and tables. The one thing people hate is when they can't eat and drink during cocktail hour at the same time and they have no where to put dirty plates. This is a non issue here. We had a string quartet play during the hour which added to the ambiance. If a bridal party chooses not to participate during cocktail hour they do have a large room upstairs with food and drinks that are put out.
Food- We received so many praises about the food from our guests. Penne Vodka app was awesome, salad was pretty standard, and the main entrees were delicious. We tried all the main dishes besides the Chateaubriand at the private food tasting. We selected the stuffed chicken, pecan salmon, and the chateaubriand. I was little nervous with getting the chateau because I've worked at weddings in my high school days and I can tell you that with chateau typically places will skimp out on the cuts, and take a slice out of a fillet and add it to the next plate. Also the temperature sometimes is off. The chateau at Jumping Brook is second to none! There was two HUGE pieces on every plate cooked perfectly medium rare. The vegetable wrap was tasty and created a nice plate presentation. When guests tried their dishes we over heard them say "wow" and "man this is really good". We didn't here one negative comment about any of the food. As one guest described it, everything was over the top.
After party room- Do not miss out on this. It is a secret disco room off to the side. It was about $1500 to keep the party rolling for 2 hr in the after party room with open beer, wine, and finger type food. You also can hook an ipod up to the sound system in that room, so you don't have to extend your DJ, which is great. The sound volume was a little uneven in the room, but at that point in the night I couldn't tell. None of our guests have ever been to an after party after the wedding before. At that point in the night, all we heard was this is the best wedding we HAVE EVER BEEN TO from many people.
Lastly the cost- This is the best bang for your buck in the area. Trust me I looked everywhere. See my other review which breaks down cost.
If you are looking for a venue to have your reception, do not hesitate when selecting Jumping Brook. I'm still surprised how I can't think of one thing that went wrong. Perfectly executed. read more