This venue is beautiful and we had a wonderful wedding day. There were, however, several things…read morethat I felt brought on unnecessary stress and additional planning that you wouldn't expect to need to do. For awareness, I will list the biggest pain points below.
1. Bridal Suite: The good - it was the one spot that actually had functional AC. The bad - you are renting out the entire venue, but there are unexpected stipulations to this- you're expected to remove your belongings from the bridal suite immediately after the ceremony, or they will be removed for you. The bridal suite is where you get ready, so there are temperature sensitive items like makeup, hair products, etc. that need you need to find a place for while you still have several hours remaining of your wedding day.
2. The Reception Barn: Cocktail hour/reception space is held here.
- The doors are locked to this space ALL day and rarely unlocked. We mostly had to use side doors.
- There is a ramp (on the side of the barn to the loft) for accessibility, which is a great function to have available, however it is pointless if the door to where it located is locked during the time that people would use it. A family member who needed the ramp was unable to get into the venue to be seated because it was locked off and ended up giving up and leaving.
We did not mention this family member during a final walk through because we were unaware this guest would need accommodations. Regardless, it should be available.
- The contract said the facility was climate controlled. It was not. Outside of the bridal suite, there was so little AC that they had a few standing oscillating fans placed around the reception area, and they did not do much. Most of our guests left before dinner because of the heat, including one that I had mentioned to the owners had health conditions affected by heat and that functioning climate control was very necessary. Their response to that was, "I have no idea what that even means." I found this very unprofessional and unaccommodating.
- I had my coordinator come up to me regarding my children who were having fun & talking into one of the fans to make funny voices because they were concerned that lightly touching it while talking into it would break the motor. What?
3. Parking: Everyone was told where and how to park.
- A guest had his car detailed prior and refused to park under a sapping tree where they wanted them to go
- No one, not even vendors, can drive up to the barn for pick up/drop off, and it is a LONG walk from the parking area to the barn. Our florist was even told to leave the flowers down the road, which they refused because there was a dog wandering around. Not to mention the risk of expensive floral arrangements wilting in the 100+ degree heat that day
- During our final walk through they wanted to know how many vehicles we would have on the Wedding Day to drive up to the barn (the one exception to this rule). We said we would have 1 vehicle that morning. Well life happens, and you know what we needed 2. That was the end of the world it seemed. I was not allowed to drive my vehicle up to the barn, and had to instead use the fancy golf cart to transport the items in.
- We had classic vehicles at the wedding, that would be parked and not running - that was an orchestra in itself. Yes we had to make sure vendors and emergency vehicles could get through that's a given, but the analness about anything else that could possibly occur from them - bending the grass blades, doing spinouts and the exhaust burning grass was highly unlikely.
4. Misc.
- Any children in attendance were only allowed to use color pencils, no markers or crayons - yes, I get the thought process behind it but that's an excessive ask for guests to. How do you control what guests bring in for their kids?
- Ironically - you can have sparklers but no bubbles for the send-off - which we didn't even have because it was so hot and half of the guests had left
- Lastly but I'm sure there's more out there - the gable barn... we were looking forward to using this original, rustic barn in wedding photos. Nowhere in the contract did it say the owners would or should change the venue without notifying their brides/grooms - you know the people paying for the venue. They did mention door handles but not PAINTING a barn black right at the beginning of wedding season, which is exactly what they did after we had already signed a contract and had planning sessions with our photographers. They said was done because it was wood from the 1900s..undoubtedly so. To treat that wood for whatever reason...you wouldn't necessarily paint it black. You would think to white wash it or treat it and then re-paint it white or red to match the aesthetic. Instead, nope. It's black. Done suddenly and excitedly announced on social media. When we expressed our unhappiness with this happening and not being informed of it ahead of time, especially since we had planned