Our wedding and reception took place at Burr Oak Lodge and Conference center. It is a beautiful place and has many activities to offer its guest. Our problems began when the banquet manager left. Our block of rooms was not booked as promised and the venue had rented out many rooms to another event. Sheryl, the new banquet manager worked with us to get the remaining rooms blocked for our guests. We then sat down with Sheryl and organized our Big day from start to finish. The couple weeks before the wedding, the banquet manager was not responding to emails regularly and did not inform us that she would be taking vacation the week of our wedding and would not return until the day before the wedding. This lead to a lot of stress. She did not have our final bill done until the day before the wedding, even though we had our final count in 2 weeks in advance. Our room was suppose to be prepared early on the wedding day and was not, so the Groom and Groomsmen had to change in a public bathroom. The food was delicious and the kitchen staff was helpful. The banquet manager was absent for most of the evening, so our master of ceremonies took over, and directed the staff when we were going to cut the cake and etc. Some of our guests cabins were dirty. I think Burr Oak was the perfect location for our wedding, but some of the staff needs better direction. There definitely needs to be another banquet manager when two big events are taking place at the same time.

I want to start off by saying that our actual wedding day was perfect! They did an amazing job having everything set up and ready for us! From the beginning though...things were rocky. We ended up dealing with 3 different people overall in the sales manager position because the first left (got fired? not sure...it was weird) and then we dealt with the general manager until the new person started. Things definitely got better when the new woman started, but it was still almost impossible to get ahold of anyone when you needed them...until the week of the wedding. Then they were very responsive. For example, before that week, I would send 3 emails with no response until I called and left a message but then I'd send one email and get a response (probably only because THEY needed the information). So if you are willing to be patient and proactive (call/email consistently), you'll be fine...just know what to expect. I will say it was worth it though because the venue is beautiful (numerous guests commented on it over and over!) and my guests loved not having to travel anywhere once they got there (including home that night after drinking). Overall, the price was VERY good compared to many other wedding venues...especially for them doing all the work except decorating and providing everything besides decorations. That part was super nice and made it way less stressful for me and my family who cleaned up after!

Burr Oak Lodge is a beautiful venue, and has wonderful updated accommodations. The only thing lacking is their customer service, and some good landscaping.

We visited the lodge when we were first considering it for our September wedding in January, and absolutely fell in love with the location, and the lodge itself. There were only a couple red flags during our stay; poor restaurant service and unprofessional employees. It wasn't until we first started communicating with our coordinator via email to plan our day that we realized the true extent of how bad the service was at the lodge. Emails would go unanswered for up to three weeks. There was a four week period where I could not get an answer from the lodge, and this was within the last month of our planning!

The rooms reservations were a nightmare! People were told that certain room types were no longer available, when they in fact were. People were told there were no rooms available at all, when in fact there were. People were put in room types that they were not expecting. I called to modify about 50% of the rooms reserved for our wedding, which was a huge pain.

When we arrived the weekend of the wedding, things seemed to go fairly smoothly. My only complaint for that weekend was that the facilities needed work. My family ended up sprucing up the place quite a bit; pulling weeds, picking up trash, washing windows and ironing linens. The place definitely looked better after we left than it did when we arrived!

While I do love the location, and truly support the idea of getting married in a State Park, the stress this place put me through was not worth the money we spent. I was initially surprised by the value, but once I realized what kind of service we would receive I felt like I got ripped off. At the end of the day I married my best friend, and no venue could ruin that joy!

My husband and I paid alot for our wedding. The event coordinator Kayla did NOTHING!!! But she expected to be paid extra for her services. The bar tender and high-school students helped prep and decorated more then Kayla. Kayla only sat on her ass to collect her money. She gave us wrong information, over charged us, as well as gave us false promises. I will never ever recommend working with Kayla ever to anyone. She fired an assistant that went above and beyond that we loved working with.