Mansions on Fifth

Our wedding day was perfect and we could not have asked for a more beautiful day! The mansions staff assisted us the entire evening and were incredibly helpful with keeping the wedding timeline running smoothly and with checking in with us throughout the evening. Marissa was very helpful in the planning process and Zach, the event manager on our wedding day, was so incredible and helpful throughout the whole day to make sure that everything ran smoothly and to make sure we did not need anything. The whole staff was so friendly, helpful, and professional and we were so thankful to have such a perfect wedding day and experience.

The first time we saw the Mansions on Fifth, we thought it was the perfect venue for our big day... and it was! The entire historic property is absolutely stunning, both the exterior and the interiors of each room (you'll have some amazing photos!). The many food options we tried were all delicious and the chef was accommodating in making any menu adjustments we requested. The whole staff was super helpful and professional, with a special shoutout to the event manager Marissa, who helped plan our wedding though the months leading up; and to the day-of event manager Zach, who expertly kept everything on track and helped make the day perfect. I'd say the venue is ideal for a small to medium sized event, we had ~40 people and it was great. Aside from events, it is still a very cool place to stay if you’re in the Shadyside area for a night or two.

My wedding on August 5th, 2023 was amazing! My husband and I couldn't have asked for better service or experience. Wedding planning was definitely stressful, but the Mansions staff did an exceptional job with everything. Marissa, Zach, and Gabby were great to work with and made everything run smoothly. Zach, one of the day of wedding coordinators, was phenomenal and an absolute pleasure to work with. He setup all our décor, made sure the vendors were present, and kept everyone and everything on schedule. Zach catered to everything we needed, even on our wedding day. The food at Mansions was amazing and all our wedding guests raved about the hors d'oevres and dinner entrees. The chef did a wonderful job with providing everything we wanted. We also had a late night pizza snack. The Mansions hotel and property itself was breathtaking and the Presidential Suite was a perfect accommodation for the bride and groom. My husband and I are so happy to have booked our wedding at Mansions on Fifth in Shadyside and don't regret a single thing about it.

I had my wedding here in November 2018 and I cannot recommend it enough. Literally everything was perfect and stress free. The venue is a beautiful boutique hotel bought out by the Priory a few years ago. Marissa is the event coordinator and she was so fantastic. She answered every question I had, no matter how silly. She takes care of all the day of coordination including set up and take down. At the end of the night you are only responsible for gifts which I cannot stress enough how great that was. She was super flexible with all the last minute changes we had, especially due to weather since it was pretty cold. The food was incredibly delicious. The building is breathtaking so you don't even have to decorate that much. And perhaps the best part are the 13 guest rooms and you and the bridal party can stay in that night to keep the party going.
The off season package we had was very affordable and they were very clear with their pricing.
In summary, our guests said it was the most fun they have had at a wedding a long time, the venue was beautiful, and it was a great experience as much as wedding planning can be. You can't go wrong with booking here.

We recently had our wedding reception at Mansions on Fifth and it was perfect! This beautiful boutique hotel is truly a hidden gem. The decor and architecture made for gorgeous wedding pictures. The staff was phenomenal: Marissa, Mary Ann, and Zach made sure the evening went smoothly and they were so kind and helpful throughout the entire planning process. The food was fantastic: our vegan friends even had a special streudel made for them and they said it was the best vegan food they ever had! Lisa the bartender served up some creative cocktails and even made me a mocktail because I was on Benadryl. Our guests were so impressed that many plan to return to the hotel and so do we. Thank you so much to everyone at Mansions on Fifth for giving us the most beautiful reception. ❤️

Beautiful venue, amazing food, super accommodating. Responsiveness to emails/phone calls was not awesome, but not terrible.

First I just wanted to say that the Mansion is beautiful. Our day was great and mostly went off without a hitch.

But it honestly felt like organized chaos. As if it was one of the first weddings they ever did, which I know is far from the truth.

First, the Mansion does not have one main dining room, which is fine. We had 71 guests split between the dining room and parlor. We had it split 39 in one room and 32 in the other. For the 32 we decided on 4 round tables of 8. And the 39 we were going to have 2 long tables, one of 19 and one of 20. I checked multiple times that that was possible comfortably. If it wasn't I assured the event coordinator, Alissa, it was ok and I would redo the long tables as rounds. I checked this over email and it is noted on the final contract. It was also obviously noted when I sent in the final count of food, which noted each guest that would be at each table.
Instead, they set up the 4 rounds for 10 guests and the long tables for 18. The long tables of 18 were also a squeeze instead of the comfortable 10 on each side I was assured.
I learned later that when my bridesmaids went to bat for me about it, they were treated somewhat rudely. They were told that there was room for the unseated guests in the other room at the rounds.
It's not the point that there was room for them. It was the point that I, the bride, was assured over multiple emails (which I still have) that the set up I wanted was possible. And it wasn't.

When I brought in decorations I had everything neatly organized. For our cookie table I had crystal and glass platters for them to set up which were wrapped and organized in one big plastic tote. Nothing else was in that tote when I brought it in. Sunday morning I came out to some of them just randomly shoved back in the tote haphazardly. A plastic container my aunt brought cookies in was shoved in there as well. The heavy glass platters below and on top of it had twisted it to be unusable.
Other things of ours were just thrown on the table or also haphazardly thrown in a box, no organization or respect. If I would have known that, I would have done it myself the night of my wedding.
Before leaving Sunday morning, I realized my votives were missing. I was assured they would be looked for. They were found and I was informed and was told to just come in and let the front staff know who I was and why I was there. When I came in to pick them up a few days later, the front staff knew nothing about it. They looked for them and were about to call the manager when they were finally found in the hall closet.

Part of the agreement at the Mansion is that you have to have all 13 rooms booked or pay for any empty rooms. Obviously we agreed to that. The biggest suite is included the night of for the bride and groom. We booked 6 suites for our bridal party as gifts and the rest were booked by family and friends.
We had a small rehearsal the night before our wedding. My now husband and I, his best man and his wife, and my matron of honor and her family all stay from Friday night to Sunday. Again, it had been noted by email and I was assured it was taken care of. But when they went to check in that night the front desk worker seemed confused. Like it had not been communicated
Also, some of the rooms were double charged. When checking in, the Mansion took card information from whoever was occupying the room as a "just incase" for damages. They ended up charging some of my bridal party for their rooms then also charging my husband and I for them as well. It has since been fixed, but shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. I had emailed the manager that these rooms were to be put on our credit card and I was told that it had been noted.
When having your wedding there, no one outside of your party can book a room in the main Mansion. There is a neighboring house, the Amberson house, that they own as well that has 9 additional rooms as well. I learned the hard way that other people can book rooms in that house. When I was about to go down the aisle, people were trying to enter the Mansion to get information at the front desk. I wasn't irritated at the fact that they had other guests staying in the neighboring house. I was irritated that they obviously weren't told that a wedding was being hosted and learned by seeing me about to enter in my wedding dress.

The building is over 100 years old, so understandably it's not perfect.
Our presidential suite was huge and amazing. Although on multiple walls there are patches that are painted over with a different color. As if the paint had scratches and they just picked whatever color they could find. There is a vent over the bed that is so loud it sounds like it is thunderstorming outside. It also blows out dust that collects on the curtain next to it.
Another room on the third floor, the floor is so crooked that my guests staying in it felt like they were physically sliding towards the foot of the bed.

After all was said and done, my brother in law realized his watch was missing. He assumed it fell out of his bag when leaving and called the Mansion to ask if they could look for it. He initially called them about 3-4 days after the wedding. They called him back almost 2 weeks later to say they had found it. He even confirmed the brand and look of the watch and what room they were in to make sure it was his. The woman on the phone confirmed they would hold the watch until someone could pick it up and confirmed that my brother in law, my sister or I could pick it up.
I volunteered to pick it up because the Mansion is on the way to work. When I finally could pick it up the Mansion was closed off for filming. Filming finished and I was able to pick it up. I explained the situation to the person at the front desk and once again, I was told they had not heard about this. He looked over the desk and in the safe with no watch to be found. I gave my name, my sister and brother-in-law’s name and described the watch again. Even showed a picture of what the watch looked like. So far it has not been found.

I also recently found out the Mansion’s event coordinator, Alissa, has her own event planning business. I found out because I was scrolling through Facebook marketplace and one of the posts had a picture of my wedding as the thumbnail. The poster was Alissa and her Facebook page led me to her business page. On her page were more photos of my wedding and others at the Mansion. I am not sure of the others, but my wedding was not coordinated by her business. It was coordinated by the Mansion.
The best, most ironic thing is that the pictures she posted of my wedding were of the parlor. The room that did not have enough seats. Maybe she should have focused on making sure the correct amount of seats were arranged instead of taking pictures for her side business.

All in all, our wedding was beautiful. We had a beautiful time and everyone complimented the space. Just be cautious, the Mansion lacks communication. Even if it is written in email form and is in your contact, the communication between the Mansion itself is NON EXISTENT.

If you have your wedding here, I recommend seeing if you can hire an outside wedding planner/coordinator.

I’ll start with the good- venue is amazing and beautiful and the food is 5 star. Literally everything else was terrible—
To get someone to respond or return a call was impossible- it took over a month to just get calls back to see the venue (should have realized then a wedding there would be a joke)… finally get it and took days to get them to send a contract to sign. On the contract they guaranteed a bridal suite and rooms. When ask they said they weren’t available they were already book. So they gave us a regular suite but didn’t tell us their was no elevator to the room so we had to lug up gowns suitcase etc through this tiny steep dangerous staircase and walk down it and up in in a wedding dress and heels. Then to setup tasting and get information about the event took many phone calls until someone would respond. Overall response time was nonexistent. Adam who manages the room was the worst to get things confirmed and booked- never called back took us over a week to get a response with price and contract then no rooms were available - no flexibility .. keep saying another wedding had all the room. Then find out no they were random people who booked the rooms. We checked in and the front desk staff was uncaring and rude to myself (the bride) and all of my guest complained about all of the check in staff. When we checked out the women was so nasty- we asked where our decoration were to pack them up and she rolled our eye and tell us to hurry it up she needed our trash gone.. our trash!! During the wedding the bartender Lisa was really rude and nasty to most of my guest - everyone came to me and complained. She wouldn’t serve people drinks unless the groom ordered them for them - aging he was the only one allowed to order them. We specially asked multiple times for the Freon signature drink an old fashion to be made with simple syrup and not a sugar cube- she refused bc she didn’t want to do it - what she said to the groom word for word. She told me the bride my signature drink she thought was gross. Then the amount of crushing and F words said behind the bar the whole evening while children were in ear shot was unbelievable and honestly unacceptable. The room were old - carpet had lots of stains- most room were not ready when guest checked in day if the wedding at 3pm bc they were cleaning other room (not for wedding guest) and the wedding started at 5pm. Several guest didn’t get in to their room till almost 4:30. Then the cherry on top the cleaning crew took my nerves cell phone and charger and broke into it and started sending porn site to people in her text messages (including her parents) when her dad saw him with the phone he tried to say he was turning it into lost and found. We called and complained to Adam and he said he would look into it and hung up on us. I would never recommend this venue to anyone bc the staff and service has ZERO customer service… zero!! Spend your money and time literally anywhere else!