Weddings at Riverside Casino & Golf Resort.
A full resort twenty minutes south of Iowa City: a 12,000 square foot event centre, a two hundred room hotel, a spa, restaurants and the Blue Top Ridge golf course. Weddings start at $2,000 for up to four hundred seated, which is the cheapest entry to a room that size anywhere in this guide, and there is a reason for that.
Twenty minutes south of Iowa City, with Blue Top Ridge attached
The Venue
Why Riverside Casino & Golf Resort photographs the way it does.
The economics first, because they explain everything else. A casino makes its money on gaming and hotel rooms, so event space is not the product, it is the thing that fills the rooms. That is why four hundred seated guests starts at two thousand dollars here when a comparable room elsewhere starts in the five figures. It is a genuinely good deal and it is not charity: push hard on what the number includes, and expect food and beverage to be where the real total lives.
What you get for the location is that nobody drives. Two hundred rooms, a spa, several restaurants and the golf course are all on one site, so out of town guests arrive on Friday and never touch a car again. For a wedding pulling people in from Chicago or Des Moines, that is worth more than a prettier room forty minutes from their bed.
Then the part that is specific to getting married in a casino, and that no venue will raise first. The gaming floor is open to the public twenty four hours a day, and your guests will cross it. Casinos also restrict photography on the gaming floor almost universally, for gaming regulation and patron privacy reasons. So the walk from the lift to the ballroom is both a background full of strangers and, quite possibly, a place your photographer is not allowed to work. Ask for a route that avoids the floor and get the photography policy in writing.
Guides that cover this venue
If this one is not quite right
What you actually need to know
- Guest capacity
- Up to 400 seated for a wedding. The Event Center runs about 12,400 to 12,600 square feet and the ballroom is quoted at 600, with configurations from a ten person boardroom up to a 500 person dinner and a 1,200 seat entertainment layout. Get the seated number for your own floor plan with a dance floor in it.
- Ceremony sites
- Indoors in the ballroom, which has vaulted ceilings, or outdoors in the hotel courtyard or on the Blue Top Ridge golf course. The courtyard is the practical outdoor option; the course is the pretty one and needs arranging.
- Reception spaces
- The Event Center, which divides into five smaller rooms. That flexibility is genuinely useful for a wedding under two hundred, because a half or a third of the space will feel like a room rather than a hall.
- Getting ready
- Hotel rooms and suites on site. Ask for a room away from the casino floor and, if you can, one facing the courtyard rather than the car park, since a resort hotel window is the only natural light you will see before the ceremony.
- If it rains
- Excellent by default. The ballroom takes 400 and is always there, so weather costs you the courtyard or the course rather than the wedding.
- What it costs
- Full weddings start at $2,000 for ceremony and reception, which is the lowest entry point for a 400 seat room in this guide. Catering is in house with buffet, plated, family style, French service and hors d'oeuvres options. Ask for the per person figure with service charge and tax shown, because that is the number that actually decides your budget.
- What's included
- Get it itemised. At this entry price the rental is doing very little of the work, so what matters is which of tables, linens, staffing, setup, teardown and audio visual sit inside the package and which are added later.
- Parking
- Vast and free, as at any casino. This is one of the few venues in this guide where parking is genuinely a non issue.
- Where guests stay
- Two hundred rooms on site, plus a spa and restaurants. This is the strongest argument for the venue: guests fly or drive in once and then walk everywhere for two days.
- End of night
- Ask, and ask specifically about the outdoor spaces. A resort has more latitude indoors than a downtown hotel, but the courtyard and course will have their own end times.
- Vendor rules
- Catering and bar are in house, as at every casino resort. Treat food and beverage as fixed structure and negotiate on menu rather than supplier.
Worth knowing early: Two things, and the second one surprises people. First, the Event Center divides into five rooms and this venue books concerts, with a 1,200 seat entertainment configuration on the books. An airwall stops sightlines and not bass, and a concert is considerably louder than the company party you might be imagining next door, so ask what is scheduled on your date. Second, Riverside holds TrekFest every June, an annual Star Trek festival the town has run since 1985. It fills the hotels and the streets. If you are looking at a June date, check it against the festival before you sign anything.
The four places worth your time
Blue Top Ridge golf course
The hour before sunset
Open turf, mature planting and long sightlines, and unlike a municipal course this one belongs to the resort you are paying. Agree a cart and the holes in advance anyway, because paying golfers still have tee times.
The hotel courtyard
Cocktail hour
The outdoor option that needs no arrangement and no drive. It is also the release valve if the ballroom is being turned over.
A high hotel room in the morning
Getting ready
The only natural light in the building's interior. Ask for a courtyard facing room and get in early, because once you are in the event centre the day is lit by fixtures.
The Captain Kirk monument in town
Ten minutes, whenever it suits
Riverside has declared itself the future birthplace of James T. Kirk since 1985, and there is a monument and a bronze statue to prove it. For the right couple this is the best ten minute detour in this guide. For the wrong one, skip it entirely.
Your day, hour by hour
At Riverside Casino & Golf Resort
Full Wedding GalleryPhotographing Riverside Casino & Golf Resort
Settle the casino floor question first
Gaming floors are almost universally off limits to photography, and your guests walk across one to reach the party. Ask for the back of house route from hotel to ballroom, and get the photography policy in writing rather than discovering it from a security officer during cocktail hour.
Cheap room, expensive dinner
Two thousand dollars for four hundred seats is not a mistake, it is a business model. The room is inexpensive because you are filling hotel beds and the food is where the margin sits. Ask for the per person catering figure before you compare this against anywhere else.
Ask what is playing next door
This is a venue that books actual concerts. Of all the divisible rooms in this guide, this is the one where finding out what is scheduled on the other side of the airwall matters most.
Check June against TrekFest
The town has run a Star Trek festival every June since 1985 and it fills the place. It is charming, and it is also a hundred hotel rooms you were counting on.
Riverside Casino & Golf Resort Questions
What couples ask about this venue.
How much does a wedding at Riverside Casino & Golf Resort cost?
Full weddings including ceremony and reception start at $2,000, which is the lowest entry point for a 400 seat room in this guide. Catering is in house, so ask for the per person food and beverage figure with service charge and tax, since that is where the real total sits.
How many guests can Riverside Casino hold for a wedding?
Up to 400 seated. The Event Center is roughly 12,400 square feet, the ballroom is quoted at 600, and the space divides into five smaller rooms, so a wedding of a hundred can have a room that fits rather than a hall that echoes.
Can you take wedding photos in the casino?
Assume not until told otherwise. Casinos almost universally restrict photography on the gaming floor for regulatory and privacy reasons. Ask the venue for the policy in writing and for a route between the hotel and the ballroom that avoids the floor entirely.
Is there an outdoor ceremony option?
Yes, the hotel courtyard or the Blue Top Ridge golf course. The courtyard needs no arrangement; the course is the better looking option and should be agreed in advance, including cart access for portraits.
Where do wedding guests stay?
On site. The resort has 200 rooms plus a spa and several restaurants, which means out of town guests arrive once and walk everywhere afterwards. That convenience is the strongest reason to choose this venue.
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