Pioneer Arizona Living History Village Reviews

I can not rave about this place enough! 1st it saved us sooo much $ but you would have never really known because it was so beautiful and we hired such good people! 2nd the food was absolutely AMAZING!!!! People couldn't get enough of it. 3rd Tamara was very attentive and helped out a lot she was awesome! I have had so many guests tell me that was the most fun wedding they have ever been too. If you are laid back and want to have fun this IS the place for you.

Tamara with Pioneer Village is very easy to work with and very flexible. I appreciate her experience and ideas. She also offered her staff to help me decorate the venue which took a huge amount of stress off me.

Pioneer Village was an incredible place to have our wedding! We got married in the old Community Church which everyone loved. Our guests lined up and tossed birdseed at us and they rang the church bells! It felt so classic. Then we moved on to have the cocktail hour and reception in the Livery which felt very much like a barn with beautiful white lights strung all around. Couldn't have asked for a more country/ hipster feel.
Also, Tamara the coordinator was so fun to work with and our guests are still talking about the food she catered. In particular the beef brisket and garlic mashed potatoes.
Side note: The website doesn't do the place justice. We almost didn't go tour it but are so glad we did. We also decided to use our own photographer and DJ, but the venue, catering, staff, tables, chairs etc. were all included in the very reasonable price. They allowed us to purchase our own alcohol as well which saved us money.

Overall, all of our guests were loving all the charming details and scenery and we saved a good chunk of $$. It was my Pinterest wedding dream come true!

We were blown away by the value and quality of the catering for our wedding. We initially fell in love with venue and were a little hesitant about there only being one catering option - but we ended up being very happy with the choice. We went with a BBQ buffet - beef brisket, pulled pork, and pulled chicken. We loved the food but most importantly our guests did too!
And the icing on the cake - the staff was amazing. We loved meeting everyone who worked our wedding. I would recommend the food and staff in a heartbeat!

Pioneer village was beautiful and amazing and I was so happy to be married there

Absolutely a wonderful experience! Tamara, the wedding coordinator, was amazing and made sure everything went flawlessly! She was there every step of the way, taking care of all the small details so that the groom and I could enjoy our day. We were so blessed to have her there for us!

The location was beautiful and unique and was the perfect location for Arizona scenery along with history, our photographer and family and friends were totally thrilled. Especially because our photographer was married there herself and works with Tamara out at Pioneer, Kelly Gilliss with the Big Picture Fine Art & Photography. We had our wedding in the chapel and our reception in the opera house. It was very helpful that they do setup and tear down so we did not have to worry about it, but the family and friends did pitch in to help clean up and we were required to help clean up or be charged for a clean up. We did have to do some of the setup ourselves for the reception, but you can pay more and have it done for you, but my interior designers/decoraters, my mom and grandmother, are the experts and took care of the bigger details. The food was DELICIOUS and everyone made sure, including myself as the bride, made sure we ate and the groom had seconds.

One of the neat things about this location is the unique touches you can have. We had a horse and carriage, we even had the church bell ring for us after the ceremony! And a DOVE RELEASE! The Dove Release was set-up by the bride and the bride told NO ONE about this, other than Tamara of course and it was the most amazing experience to have and all of the guests LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the surprise in store for them, but what an amazing surprise for the bride and groom! It was the most perfect touch to our Cinderella Fairy Tale. Our guest were even able to look around the history of Pioneer and experience the village themselves while we took our pictures.This is a very special location to have a wedding that will get your family and friends gossiping about, in ALL GREAT WAYS for years to come! :)

Let me start by saying that you to Opal and her crew!!! We started with everything being outside on the lawn with the ceremony in front of the water fall and the mountains in the background. We had a possible scare for rain for the recepiotn and they did everything they could to try and find a solution for us and we didnt have to do anything they said they would take care of it... and they did! We ended up having the reception under the livery stable area and we couldnt have asked for a better setting!! It had lights set up where it made the setting romantic and breathtaking.
My photos came out so well, since it never ended up raining(YAY), we have trouble now deciding which one we like more. If you want a place that is laid back, elegant, classy, or all of it this is the place to have it!!!! Thank you again!!!!

Justin and Kaycee

Absolutely a wonderful experience! Tamara, the wedding coordinator, was amazing and made sure everything went flawlessly! She was there every step of the way, taking care of all the small details so that the groom and I could enjoy our day. We were so blessed to have her there for us!

The location was beautiful and unique, our photographer was totally thrilled. We had our wedding in the chapel and our reception in the opera house. It was very helpful that they do setup and tear down so we did not have to worry about it. We did have to do some of the setup ourselves for the reception, but you can pay more and have it done for you. The food was wonderful and we even got a chance to eat it!

One of the neat things about this location is the unique touches you can have. We had a horse and carriage and we even had the church bell ring for us after the ceremony! This is a very special location to have a wedding!

I really loved this venue!! Tamara was great once she realized what Lisa I was ;) and on the day of the wedding to me she was wonderful. However, I had a couple guest say she was rude to them but her directness maybe was mistaken for rudeness as she was trying to make my husband and my day perfect. Which she did! He also wanted to surprise me with the horse drawn carriage and she wAs fabulous in keeping the secrete until it arrived at the bridal door. The catering was courteous and prompt. And the food was delicious!!

We loved the location/scenery for our ceremony and reception. It was a great atmosphere. We were also impressed with the quality of food and the service our guests received from the catering crew. If I had one complaint it would no bathrooms. However, they are in the process of correcting.

The location was so beautiful and different. I was really glad I had my wedding at the location - however there were a few set backs. My ceremony was in the little white church (which turned out adorable I loved it) and reception in the opera house. We had our wedding in the heat of summer here in AZ. I wouldn't recommend this venue for any warm months here in AZ (like end of May- September). We were told both places were fully air conditioned.. But the air conditioning was very minimal.. The church wasn't as bad, but the opera house was hot the entire time. At moments trying to dance was unbearable. Even though we complained about the heat (and we brought this concern to attention many times before, as well as the day before at set up), nothing was done to turn it down or fix it.. Also, they do have a bat (yes the animal) infestation in the opera house.. It smelled so bad (like bat poop) in the opera house when we went to set up, that we had to go out and buy a bunch of scented items to leave over night, just to try to cover it up. You could still somewhat smell it the day of, but luckily all of scented things, flowers, and food covered some of it up. This was something I wish I had known about before I booked the venue..
The food was good. And there's so many fun spots to take photos! Overall it's a great site for a rustic wedding, I think the church and doing the reception outside would be a great option for anyone looking to have it here. I would not recommend the opera house for reception (they also left all their stage props in the opera house - so my DJ had to maneuver his set up around it.. I thought that these props being left on my wedding day like it was nothing, was kind of strange).
My DJ did have to bring extension cords, so I would recommend your DJ check out the venue before the wedding to see what he needs to bring. And even though it's an old building, we had no problem with the power.

Do not have a wedding here unless you'd like to be told where to place everything in the reception. Also, the bartender was her son who isn't a real bartender.... Why would you pay 125$ for a fake bartender. Not able to have liquor. Also you will not get all that you want unless you do it yourselves.... My mom did 50% of the work of cleaning up the ceremony area. Horse & carriage was also not worth it. Everything cost extra........... Food is great but cannot bring other food venues.

RUN!!! I made the mistake of not listening to the bad reviews of this venue. The "wedding coordinator" was all nice and happy when we went to view the venue. I asked her about some of the bad review items people had said about the place, and she swore she had learned her lesson and didn't do those things anymore. Yeah wrong!! Once she gets your money she stops responding, she took weeks to call back or respond to emails if she ever did! She was very unprofessional! She double booked our rehearsal time which was very rude, unprofessional and unfair. We could only decorate the day before and we get there to decorate and she’s not there, she finally shows up 45 min later and says oh well I have rehearsal in here at 3pm those people were late which cut into my rehearsal time not to mention we had to stop decorating for 45min for a rehearsal when our wedding was the next day! She was very rude and uncaring about the whole thing and said well I just assumed you’d decorate after your rehearsal which is bull because I had emailed her about decorating at 2pm so she was very aware of our wishes, she just didn’t care. She makes it sound like the venue receives most of the money when she is keeping the vast majority of it. When it came to paying the remainder of the fee, and she wanted it put into her personal account it raised a bunch of red flags for us! She over charges for the venues, with the unmaintained, run down state the sites and buildings are in, it’s a rip off. You can go to a much nicer venue and pay less then what she charges! She claims to be the wedding coordinator but doesn't communicate with you at all, she doesn't coordinate anything, she pockets your money and goes on vacation. On the wedding day she did nothing to help, she was supposed to tell us when to go to the chapel and was nowhere to be found. The photographer had to call us to tell us when to come over. Oh and she tried to schedule tours of the place during our wedding which is just ridiculous. After our wedding she was trying to hand out her business cards to the guests which everyone found very distasteful. The whole thing was a nightmare and very unfair with the price you pay for the venue and a supposed wedding coordinator. It's a shame because the site could be very cute but it needs a lot of fix up and a different coordinator to be successful. Unfortunately, I will always have bad memories of my wedding experience at Pioneer Village Living History Museum, because of the “Wedding Coordinator” Tamara!!! Thanks to her, my wedding experience was tainted!! Do yourself a favor, save your stress and money and go somewhere else!