Hartwood Acres Mansion

I worked mostly with Kim as my venue coordinator at Hartwood, and she was prompt, friendly, and extremely helpful! We were very pleased with the price, the gorgeous mansion and outdoors location, and the staff! There was some construction going on when we first signed our contract, so we weren't able to tour it until a few months later, but we knew it would be in tip-top shape! By June 12, the formal garden and all the flowers around the terrace were blooming beautifully! The venue was so beautiful, all around. We loved having everything outdoors. Thankfully, they do have a tent to use in case it rains on your wedding day. I was worried about the rain, but they were so flexible to help me adjust things last minute and make it all work wonderfully!

From our first venue tour to our wedding day, we had a fantastic experience working with staff at Hartwood Acres. The venue is breathtaking (we used the pavilion, terrace and garden). Our guests loved the setting and the walkability of our events. Shaunden and Sarah were so helpful the entire time! They helped us think through locations for the cocktail hour, ceremony and reception and setup an online diagram for us to review. They made all changes we requested and were so patient! Also their help with the table scape planning and coordinating certain vendor related tasks took so much stress off our plate! Shaunden facilitated our wedding rehearsal and was so accommodating! She had answers to all our questions and was just so helpful with last minute vendor needs. I can’t say enough about how awesome it was to work her and how much stress was taken off my plate. Thank you ladies for helping make our wedding so special and stress free!!! (Photos from Lisa West who is also awesome!!)

Hartwood is extraordinary! Every single space is beautiful, a historic landmark that looks like a Tudor palace but was built for a suffragette? Iconic. We used the terrace, got ready in the bridal suite inside the house, had our cocktail hour in the beautiful formal gardens, and the reception in the gorgeous grand pavillion. And all things considered the venue isn't crazy expensive compared to anything approaching similar quality in Pittsburgh. I've seen weddings where the venue is pretty meh and folks make a statement wall to have one nice picture backdrop. We have the opposite problem where there are too many stunning areas to photograph, including the sculptures in the park on the way in. Deciding on where to go with your photographer is gonna be the hard part for you, which is the best possible problem to have.

That said, the place itself is so gorgeous that people probably would excuse bad service. Like if a trained chimp was in charge of managing this place we'd have still been like "we HAVE to get married here we'll make this work". So its even more above and beyond that Shaunden and Sarah are EXCELLENT at their jobs. Warm, thoughtful, organized, deeply competent. We booked in February 2018 for our August 2019 wedding. They came in part way through after we had booked and Alexandria (the old coordinator) had left. It was so smart of the county to leverage Hartwood. Hiring two people was a great idea - Alexandria was nice, but visibly overworked. Shaunden and Sarah stepped in to the new job without missing a beat, which is great when your venue coordinator leaves 6 months before your wedding date! They ordered new chairs and tents that we could get excited about. They had great insight into running the day smoothly. These two women are leveraging the incredible potential of an already great space to the fullest extent.

Even the couple things we were worried about as potential snags didn't become an issue!
Because it's a historical landmark with a lot of valuable artifacts, the committee in charge of it is very understandably a little specific about using the actual house, but we had as much time in the bridal suite and other room as we needed! My (now) husband and I met at Pitt but currently live in New York and don't have much family in the area- we were worried that navigating the car trip from our downtown hotel options would be difficult for out of town guests who are unfamiliar with the ugh... lets just say quirks? of driving in Pittsburgh. We sent specific instructions to guests a few days out and literally no one had trouble getting there.
Part of my day job is event planning (I work in nonprofit development so lots of galas and other fundraising events) so I've seen some crazy terrible and some truly amazing vendors in my time. I was blown away buy how well Hartwood works as a venue- from its natural gorgeousness to the great people managing it. So many guests commented on the beautify of the location. My mom called it spectacular, that even great photos don't do it justice in person, one of my friends even jokingly tagged the location as Pemberly on instagram, which made my day.

We'd recommend Hartwood to anyone and everyone! (also sorry I ended up writing a novel length review!)