“My husband and I decided to get married last-minute due to my mom's late cancer diagnosis and terminal prognosis. With only two months, our options for venues were very limited. Harmony Hall Estate quickly became the obvious choice!
PROS: Their pricing package is flexible, with lots of options to tailor your experience to your budget. With great options for in-house catering and decorating, you'll save a lot of money and time on both. You can also pay an additional fee to bring in outside caterers. The food at our wedding came from Karen's Catering, their in-house caterer. We enjoyed our dishes at dinner and during cocktail hour. The pretzel cart absolutely hit the spot, though, and was a hit with our guests. Overall, I'd say the food was satisfying. The bar options, like the food packages, are quite flexible. We chose to prepay our bar tab for our guests, which allowed us to be open bar up to a certain price. We were able to add more to that tab via cash during the wedding. The venue itself is beautiful, with plenty of outdoor location choices for your ceremony. The location is convenient, with hotels nearby and shuttles that run you and your guests to and from the venue. The farmhouse to get ready in is gorgeous and historic, making it a wonderful location for pictures. There are plenty of places on the property for taking beautiful portraits with your partner and family. The ballroom is spacious, with flexible floor plans that Jill will work with you to design. You'll receive access to Aisle Planner when you book with Harmony Hall Estate, which is a nice online service to upload all of your wedding information. Included is a service to make your reception floor plan.
CONS: I was told the key to the farmhouse would be placed in the lockbox, but couldn't find it morning of. None of the contacts at Harmony Hall answered when I called, and it took us nearly 45 minutes of searching to finally find the key in a mailbox. We lost a lot of valuable time to get ready, which created stress, and on top of that the farmhouse was so hot that my bridesmaids and I were sweating bullets while trying to do our hair and makeup. The temperature inside the building was in the mid and upper seventies, which was brutal with so many people and hot hair tools on. Additionally, while they have plenty of pricing options, I will say that their information package is somewhat confusing and rather lengthy. It could be tweaked to be more streamlined for the sake of clarity. The crab dip that we paid extra for during cocktail hour was disappointing. I don't recommend paying the upcharge for it, sadly. It's also good to keep in mind that you will pay the same price for a vendor's plate as you will one of your guests. This wasn't communicated to me until I asked, so I do recommend that the staff at Harmony Hall make sure their clients are aware of this. Our bartender, though kind, was unfamiliar with many of today's popular drinks and was rather slow, which was disappointing.
OVERALL: Harmony Hall Estate is a great venue for a budget-friendly, beautiful wedding!
I'd like to add as a disclaimer that our timeline for wedding planning was especially short, so some of the shortcomings when it comes to clarity/explanations of things may very well just be due to our rushed timeline. Since we are based in Kentucky, it made it harder to communicate effectively with Jill and the team at Harmony Hall.”
