Including the Police in Winslow Park

If you do not want to serve alcohol at your reception in Winslow Park, this post is not for you!  If you do, prepare to invite the Freeport Police Department!

After realizing that the Freeport Police Department would be a part of my big day if it was in Winslow Park, I checked out their website and found the email address of their secretary, Gabrielle Tilton.  I emailed one morning and heard back from Gabby within 20 minutes!  She forwarded the email to Detective Bianchini who got all of the info to me within 2 hours.  I tell you all this because it was so nice to deal with people who respond so quickly!  This has not been the case with many other emails during this planning journey!!

Here's the Freeport Police deets:

• the hourly rate for outside detail is $50.60 per hour with a minimum of 3 hours ($151.80)
• if the detail is scheduled on one of the following holidays (Memorial Day,  4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) the hourly rate will be $84.30 per hour with a minimum of 3 hours ($252.90)
• An administrative fee of $5.00 per day per detail will be added to the bill to defray the cost of processing.
• Any function serving alcohol with more than 100 participants must hire a second officer at the specified rates.  **for us, this was the key cost changer since we will have at least 150 people**

If you choose this venue, the police officers can come in plainclothes, you just have to tell them ahead of time.

Winslow Park in Freeport...an outdoor venue

One of the great things about our group of friends is the fact that we love to get together for a BBQ...in fact, that's how I met my fiance!

This led to looking for an outdoor venue where we could BBQ (there will be a post for this another day!) and play some outdoor games like lawn darts, badminton, or horseshoes.

Winslow Park in Freeport offers covered picnic areas, one of which can seat 150 people.  Here is the scoop on Winslow Park:

-Neil is the guy to talk to about booking at 207-865-9052.

The Space:
-My fiance and I went to Winslow Park to check it out and the tables are all smushed together under the roof so there is no additional room for covered dancing, food tables, or anything.  There is another, smaller shelter nearby that could possibly be rented as well.

The Shelter at Winslow Park

-The shelter does have a few electric plugs, but they look like the type you'd see in a living room wall so I'm not sure how much power they can support.

Alcohol:
-Alcohol can be served but must be done so by an insured caterer or bartender.  Also, you must get a separate contract through the Freeport Police.

Money:
-$150 to rent the covered picnic area that seats 150 people for the day.

-Winslow Park is a Town owed park and one of the rules of the park is, if a function is serving alcohol they need to hire a detail Police Officer to make sure the alcohol does not leave the designated area. I will talk more about this in another post.  


I love this space and it would be a fairly cost effective way to throw a wedding, but we have ended up deciding on an October date so we don't necessarily want to be outside in Maine that time of year!