Castle Hill Cider Reviews

I am so glad I chose Castle Hill as my wedding venue. The staff was so nice and accommodating. Josephine, Jenni, Rob, and Taylor are excellent to work with!

Winter Wedding DREAMS! Our daughter & SIL were married in Jan 2022, venue Stunning, Laura was Amazing to work, you would have thought it was her wedding! She cares about every detail and treats her couples like family! The day was beautiful, the night was breathtaking and the snow, added a special touch! I cannot imagine the wedding anywhere else ! Laura, thank you for all YOU DID!! Photographer: Sarah Houston McGuckin (Gorgeous)

Getting married at castle hill was such a dream! The grounds and barn are absolutely stunning! All of the staff were so nice, accommodating, and flexible! And not to mention the cider is delicious!

We are so pleased with our wedding celebration at Castle Hill! The venue is hard to beat, especially with the built-in rain plan, which we ended up using for our ceremony. I received so many compliments from guests about how beautiful the venue was and how intimate the ceremony was in the upstairs loft. At first I was slightly upset to have to move the ceremony inside due to rain but it ended up being really unique and special. You really can’t beat the view/backdrop from the open barn door upstairs in the loft. Laura and her team were a delight to work with. We had to reschedule our 2020 date two times and Laura was quick to respond and reserve our new date(s). The bridal suite was perfect for our large bridal party (11 bridesmaids + 9 groomsmen) to hang out in before the ceremony. All of our pictures on the lawn of Castle Hill turned out absolutely stunning. Thank you again for helping all of our dreams come true after 2.5 years of planning!

Castle Hill was a dream destination for our wedding. Our family and friends could not get enough of the scenery, and we were lucky to have perfect fall weather! The new floors, bistro lighting and outdoor bar are amazing new additions to the wedding package. Laura Blair was so helpful with all of our event planning, I am so glad we got to work with her. Castle Hill was very flexible, open minded and amenable to all our wedding planning visions. The cider was a big hit-- especially the signature cocktails. We can't wait to return in the future to sip cider and reminisce over our wedding day!

Castle Hill was a fabulous venue for our wedding. We had to Reschedule our March wedding and Laura helped us immediately find a new date that would work. The scenery was beautiful and the day ended up great! Couldn’t ask for a better location!

Words can't even come close to describing how magical this venue is. It truly felt like we were entering an enchanted forest the night of our wedding. The staff there is incredible (as is the cider!) Another huge perk was the size -- we were able to comfortably fit our very large number of guests, with enough room to dance the night away!

Laura was wonderful to work with. Very accommodating, quick to respond, adaptable (we faced hurricane Florence) and the wedding reception was flawless and beautiful. Lovely setting and perfect for September.

GET MARRIED HERE! If you want a wedding in a beautiful barn with help from the best event planner ever who will make sure you are beyond happy with every little thing then this is your place. Evelyn Keyes makes sure Castle Hill Cider looks perfect including the moment you turn on the road to every last inch of the barn. It is truly the best experience I had had and know from other friends who have gotten married elsewhere that it is stressful and very tough. Not here! Beautiful, very planned out, throughout with the day of schedules, and just absolutely stunning from every angle. HIGHLY recommend!

My husband and I got married at Castle Hill past June, and honestly we couldn't have dreamed up a more beautiful setting. Set against the Blue Mountains, and on a gorgeous estate, Castle Hill beauty comes from its elegant architecture and the natural beauty of its estate, which creates a unique atmosphere. Our guests couldn't stop raving at how gorgeous it was! And with Virginia weather, it was so handy to have both air conditioning and a gorgeous loft (came in handy on our wedding day!) that is just has gorgeous as the outside setting.

But what makes the venue are the people. Since we first stumbled upon Castle Hill during a cider tasting tour, we were wowed by the staff who were so warm and friendly. We loved working with the event coordinator, Evelyn, who really went above and beyond in making our day special. Case in point: our Bernese Mountain Dog, who was our "ring bear", was terribly upset by the thunder and lightening storm that broke out during our reception. Evelyn and the staff hung out with the pup too keep him calm, and allowed us to continue to enjoy the night. There were many instances where they went above and beyond - this is just one of them! I would totally recommend working with them.

There are an overwhelming abundance of venues in Charlottesville to choose from but after lots of research we went with Castle Hill Cider because it offered us the most diversity when planning our wedding. It is a beautiful white barn surrounded by flawless countryside with a blank slate for the inside - giving the bride & groom the chance to make their reception their own. We got to choose everything down to the tables, chairs, lighting, dance floor, decor etc. We loved that we had so many options compared to other venues where you are required to use their planner, caterer, tables, chairs etc. There are a few different ceremony sites to choose from too (including a great rain plan in the loft of the barn) but the most special is under the Linden trees where we said our vows :) While having so many decisions to make was overwhelming it really allowed us to make our day unique. When it came to our big day we knew we had chosen all of the things that made it really feel like us down to every detail.

Evelyn, the event coordinator at Castle Hill, went above and beyond to help us plan our day. She helps not just with the venue tasks but also with planning lunch for the girls while they are getting ready (in the awesome bridal loft with a private deck/patio area) and she personally arranged and lit lanterns to illuminate the outside of the barn for after cocktail hour. She is quick to respond to emails and overall a pleasure to work with.

We are so pleased we chose Castle Hill for our ceremony & reception venue and it will be so fun to keep going back there years from now to enjoy the scenery and cider!

Evelyn was very easy to work with. The venue is gorgeous. I couldn't have asked for a better day!

Castle Hill Cider in Keswick, VA is, without a doubt, the most wonderful, full service, wedding and reception venue in the state of Viriginia, possibly on the entire eastern seaboard. The setting is absolutely stunning and the drive from Charlottesville, VA up Gordonsville Road to Castle Hill Cider put all of our guests in the perfect wedding mind set, relexed and ready to celebrate..

This awesome venue is surrounded by beautiful mountains, valleys, orchards, lots of green grass and huge huge trees. Castle Hill Cider is set on a farm that is far away from any type of signage, advertising or noise, and it is only a ten mile drive from the beautiful city of Charlottesville, VA. The setting is quiet and peaceful, perfect for a wedding celebration.

The venue is virtually brand new and looks new and fresh. It has a state of the art HVAC system recently installed, which kept all the guests and wedding party members very cool and comfortable. The upstairs wedding chapel is perfect for all your guests and creates a setting right out of a bridal magazine. There is also a beautiful outside wedding venue lined with a grove of beautiful old trees, and an awesome setting for the arrival of the bride in her chariot of choice for all the guests to see..The reception was held just downstairs below the chapel in the grand ball room, so there is no need for guests to drive after arriving at Castle Hill Cider. By the way, there is plenty of parking near the venue. There are simply no hassles in using Castle Hill Cider.

The wonderful staff at Castle Hill Cider is always available to assist you in any way you may need. They worked very well with our wedding planner and the entire event could not have been more satisfying.

This is a can't miss wedding venue and we will be forever grateful to Evelyn and Trevor at Castle Hill Cider for making this the perfect wedding experience.

Castle Hill Cider was a perfect selection for my recent wedding! Many of our 200 wedding guests enamored with the site and had described it to be the most beautiful wedding they had attended. I think we were asked by every person how we found the place. It was a perfect fit for our dream wedding. We enjoyed the area and we even brought our dog for our final walk through. We loved that it was dog friendly and we had the option of including our little puppy in our day. The pictures that have come in have been absolutely beautiful.

Thank you Castle Hill for all your help!

Megan

When I thought about my wedding, I knew I wanted to do it in a barn. I live in California, my parents live in Virginia, and my husband's family lives in Seattle - so we had a lot of options for where we might have our wedding, and we looked EVERYwhere. From the moment I pulled through the gate at Castle Hill, I knew I was going to be married there. It is absolutely stunning - from the grounds, to the tasting room, to the barn itself - and working with Evelyn made the entire experience a breeze. She is beyond friendly, extremely helpful, professional, and a pleasure to work with. Our wedding day was pure magic, and our guests can't stop talking about our venue. Thank you Castle Hill and Thank you Evelyn. We look forward to dropping in at Castle Hill whenever we are in town - and refilling our supply of delicious cider!!

If you are looking for a beautiful venue for a wedding, look no further! Castle Hill Cider is absolutely stunning. We recently held our daughter's wedding here and everyone was blown away by the beauty of it. Their on site wedding coordinator Evelyn was so nice and accommodating and we really enjoyed working with her and our own planner to make the wedding memorable for my daughter. I cannot say enough about how wonderful and amazing it was to have my daughter's wedding at Castle Hill Cider. They are first rate from start to finish and I couldn't have been more pleased.

This is an absolutely beautiful spot for an outdoor wedding. Many of our 200 wedding guests thought it was the most beautiful wedding they have attended. They all wanted to know how we were lucky enough to have found Castle Hill. One of the wedding planners we contacted online, recommended it. The barn is big enough for guests and we did hire a separate vendor to really decorate and decorate they did! Since we were from out -of- town, we asked the folks at Castle Hill to recommend vendors needed for food and all. Everyone they recommended did a great job of fulfilling our needs. We used many vendors and were pleased with their work. It is not an inexpensive venue, nor were the venders inexpensive, but if you want a beautiful once in a lifetime wedding, this venue came through. We were so happy we chose Castle Hill! We were worried about not having any air-conditioning in the barn for the reception. We rented through one of our vendors huge fans and they helped. However, we were very lucky that on the evening of our wedding the air had cooled down due to a brief shower before the ceremony which made the weather very comfortable. The ceremony was held outside in the beautiful Linden Grove and then we enjoyed cocktails and appetizers on the outside terrace area off of the tasting room. A really beautiful area for cocktails. Later we all were ushered inside for the dinner.

i had my wedding reception outdoors on the historic Castle Hill Cider property in the spring of 2012. it was the most beautiful event i have ever been to. the grounds were perfectly maintained and they were so detailed and accommodating. they went out of their way to make sure we were happy with our event and no stone was left unturned....spraying for ticks and mosquitos so we wouldn't have to worry about bugs, mowing the grass to our liking, meeting us for numerous on-site visits, tastings, etc. i was blown away by how incredible it all was....and on the most picturesque backdrop i could have imagined. not to mention how wonderful john and evelyn were to work with. i'm happy to now call them both friends. a truly fabulous experience! xo

My husband and I got married here this past April and had a fantastic experience! The staff at Castle Hill were accommodating, friendly and helpful from the moment we booked th facility to our wedding. I could not recommend this venue enough!

Would like to comment on 6/18/2011. It is my understanding that the Castle Hill Coodinator working on June 18, 2011 is no longer with Castle Hill therefore that comment should be scratched!

Venue was so beautiful, I highly recommend this to everyone. The barn is huge and can fit many guests. Truly a treasure in the Charlottesville area!

this was the most spectacular setting for our daughters wedding. evelyn keyes did an amazing job helping us through the process of holding the wedding there.

We had the most perfect wedding day at Castle Hill. Laura was amazing and so helpful - she communicated well and helped us coordinate timing/details of the day with a lot of flexibility. It was colder/windier than expected for our wedding in May but it wasn't even remotely an issue to move our cocktail hour inside. If it had rained, there is also an amazing indoor option of the loft upstairs. Truly, the venue sells itself!

Castle Hill Cider was the first venue my husband and I visited and we immediately knew it was the place for us. We dreamed about saying our vows in the Linden Grove for months and it was even more beautiful than we imagined. We also loved the cider barn for the reception with its floor-to-ceiling windows, bistro lights, and stage. They've made some great investments in the space since we originally booked it such as refinishing the floors, including the outdoor bar in the package, and making additions to the bridal suite and groom's room. One of the reasons we picked the venue was that it feels more private and laidback than others in the area. There's so much you can do with the space and it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves even when we were getting ready on site during business hours. Castle Hill Cider will always have a special place in our heart and we look forward to visiting and toasting cider for future anniversaries!

Having gone to college at UVA, my now-husband and I were familiar with Charlottesville wedding venues. However, when we visited Castle Hill Cider, we knew that was the place for our reception. We ended up working with Laura Blair, who was easy to communicate with. She also has experience in event//wedding planning, so we felt confident knowing that she would be our main point of contact for our wedding day at Castle Hill. We were lucky enough to have our cocktail hour outside so our guests could enjoy the breathtaking views. As well, the barn was air-conditioned which made it comfortable for a summer wedding. The barn itself is fairly bare, but it allows you to decorate to your liking. As well, they have a big stage that was perfect for our band. We used much of the cider as part of our signature cocktails, which our guests raved about! Overall we had a wonderful experience with Castle Hill Cider!

This venue is to die for, and it was our dream location. We absolutely loved getting married here, and we loved being able to make it our own. The only negative: for the price, there should at least be some ceremony chairs or other rentals thrown in.. we had to order absolutely everything, which made things a little more difficult. Beyond that, this place was an absolute dream and is the perfect place for a large wedding in Charlottesville.

Castle Hill Cider was amazing. Our planner Evelyn did a wonderful job getting everything together. I am such a control freak which can be good helping others with their weddings but different when dealing with my own. So it was such a blessing and definitely worth having Evelyn by my side. She kept my head on straight and she could see the whole picture even before I did. Everyone was wonderful at Castle Hill from the beginning and we stayed pretty true to our budget-which was important. However, I do suggest (if you're moving out of country-I moved to Canada) to give Castle Hill Cider a heads up on address and when you will be coming back. We had a delay in our deposit but it all worked out in the end. All in all a great experience.

Such a beautiful spot for a wedding. The grounds were exceptionally maintained. The event planners are easy to reach and work with. Our day was perfect in every way, highly recommend Castle Hill!

We loved getting married at Castle Hill Cider! The venue is absolutely gorgeous. The barn is classy and simple, and it is located on beautifully maintained grounds. Castle Hill Cider made it easy to have our ceremony and reception at the same venue, which we wanted for our guests. There are plenty of on-site options for the ceremony location, and we chose the "Linden Grove," which is in the yard beside the barn with mature trees. Two things that especially sold us on this venue are 1) it has AC inside, which was necessary for our June wedding, and 2) it has a solid rain plan for the ceremony, which is in the loft of the barn. Other bonuses are that there is plenty of parking for guests, and there is a nice bridal suite for getting ready. The suite is full of light, and it has comfortable furniture and a private bathroom. One hidden advantage to this site that we did not realize when booking is that most local wedding vendors are familiar with Castle Hill Cider. They know where to setup, and they have ideas for flowers, lights, etc. This is helpful!

When booking this site, know that there are many "extra" costs on top of the venue rental fee. For instance, you pay an additional fee to use the yard for your ceremony, which doesn't really make sense since it seems to simply be part of Castle Hill Cider. Same deal for using the large bar next to the parking lot. You also need to pay for bistro lights (even though every wedding seems to hang them, they are not part of the establishment) and a bathroom trailer (there are only two toilets in the barn, which is not enough for medium- to large- sized weddings). Tables, chairs, linens, dishes, glasses, etc. all need to be rented too. Evelyn is the point person for weddings at Castle Hill Cider. She is very kind, although a bit forgetful with her communication. It helps to stay organized and also use a day-of wedding coordinator!

We are happy that we were married at Castle Hill Cider and would recommend it to others!

The most beautiful place to get married!! One of the only places that allowed us to bring our horse and dogs. It was a dream come true=-)

Our guests have not stopped talking for months about how beautiful the venue was for our wedding reception. Some of my favorite memories from our wedding day: 1. arriving at Castle Hill during cocktail hour and seeing all the kids playing soccer and frisbee on the lawn in front of the barn. 2. seeing balloons drop onto the dance floor from the loft above. 3. watching fireworks with our guests over the lake behind the barn. Evelyn and the event coordinators were a joy to work with, friendly, generous and helpful, recommending and coordinating with our vendors, meeting with us multiple times to make sure all the details were ironed out, and always putting us at ease. Hands down this is the best venue in the Charlottesville area (and trust me, we checked them all out!) Our guests loved the cider toast as well.

The first time my now-husband and I drove up the long drive to Castle Hill Cider when we moved to Keswick, Virginia and realized it was almost in our backyard, was the first time I said "We're going to get married here." Though we weren't even engaged at the time, we had just bought our first house together and knew marriage was probably the next big step we'd take in our relationship. Castle Hill's rolling hills, stunning mountain views, and white fence-lined fields was just the picture perfect place to have a dream wedding in the central Virginia area.

Fast forward to our engagement almost exactly one year later, I knew the first place I wanted to tour was Castle Hill. My then-fiancé and I went to the already familiar place we spent much of our time, to meet Laura Blair, the director of events to show us around. There was a very newly married bride and groom picking up their belongings from their wedding the night before when we arrived and I just knew that would be us one day. After touring the venue, we both knew that it wouldn't even be worth it to tour any other venues. This was the venue for us.

Fast forward again to a beautiful early fall day in September, the weather was absolutely PERFECT for an outdoor wedding at this stunning venue (which our guests could not stop raving about). Though, oddly enough I wasn't the slightest bit concerned about the weather. One of the best selling points to Castle Hill as a wedding venue is that they have this gorgeous loft above the barn that was our rain plan for the ceremony. Since the weather was perfect, we ended up using the loft for our first look and it just couldn't have been more perfect. We were able to use their outdoor wet bar for our cocktail hour before we danced the night away inside the main hall of the barn. Another selling point for me was just the attractiveness of the venue itself; we didn't want any fancy decorations and just wanted to stick with a simple and elegant theme. It was so easy to do this at Castle Hill because the barn is beautiful just the way it is, with the lights strung up inside and out, not many decorations were needed to make our night as perfect as we wanted it.

I honestly can't believe how everything came together so perfectly and know that Castle Hill was 100% the right choice for our wedding venue. Laura was awesome and was there the whole night to make sure things ran smoothly and we were following our plan and contract. I honestly cannot say enough great things about this venue and Laura and would definitely recommend them for anyone looking to have a classic wedding at a stunning venue.

Castle Hill Cider was the perfect venue for our wedding. The barn is simple and beautiful, climate controlled, and the grounds are lovely - green and rolling hills as far as the eye can see with a beautiful pond in eye-sight of the barn. The barn is a raw space so you can decorate it however you’d like, and in case of inclement weather the ceremony can be moved to the loft. Unlike other barn venues we looked at, the barn has central AC which is must in the summer. The staff at Castle Hill were extremely cooperative and willing to work with our vendors to accommodate just about everything we wanted without nickel-and-diming us along the way. And most importantly, the cider was delicious! We can’t wait to come back to Castle Hill Cider and reminisce about our gorgeous wedding for years to come.

This venue was absolutely beautiful!!!! I strongly feel that my words cannot do justice to explain just how magical/spiritual both my ceremony and reception were. We had a later wedding, 6pm; however, due to my mom accidentally bringing my skirt, we actually got started more around 6:20; needless to say, no big deal! Anyways, it was great to hear the subtle music of the cicada's as we were saying our vows under the beautiful trees in the Linden Grove. Our cocktail hour was held on the patio at the front of the barn and lounge with yard games provided by Castle Hill. This was a lovely addition to the festivities of cocktail hour. The reception was held within the barn. Prior to booking Castle Hill, I already had a wedding planner; however, Evelyn Keyes, the event planner at Castle was too a fabulous resource to have during the planning of this special event. When I first went to view the venue, I really appreciated how genuine she was upon meeting my fiancee and I. She was not "fake" in trying to sell us her venue. My husband and I are both doggie lovers and it was fun to have the owners and Evelyn's dogs out and about, accompanying us on our tour. Whenever I had a question or concern, despite Evelyn not being my planner she would always get back to me in a timely fashion; which I very much appreciated. Not only Evelyn, but also the owners of the venue were flexible and understanding with various situations that arose either unexpectedly or last minute. Monte and I look forward to visiting Cider yearly as we spend anniversary weekends at Keswick Hall. I am forever thankful for the generosity, kindness, understanding, and exceptional service that Castle Hill Cider delivered on the happiest day of my life.

XOXO
Amanda ; )

My husband and I recently had the wedding of our dreams at Castle Hill. This venue is absolutely gorgeous. We were so lucky to have perfect weather on our wedding day. Our guests were in awe by the sheer beauty of the venue. The grounds are so meticulously kept. The barn is so spacious and full of light. It is definitely a blank slate, but you don't need to over decorate it. It is the perfect venue for a large Indian wedding. They just recently added tables and chairs to their inventory, which is helpful, since they were not included before. Compared to other venues in the area with barns, Castle Hill was the most flexible with requests. Anything we asked to do, they were so accommodating. There are other venues in the area that have so restrictions, that it almost feels like you are being told how to have your wedding, while spending a fortune.
I hope that in the future, more bathrooms will be added to the venue, as well as a proper kitchen/prep/storage area extension. There are only two, single person use bathrooms on the main floor of the barn, and a mobile bathroom needed to be rented to help accommodate the number of guests. It proved to be quite the inconvenience for my guests to have to leave the barn to use the bathroom in the mobile trailer, as well as an unnecessary cost for me. Same goes for the kitchen area. It was just an unnecessary cost to rent a tent for our caterer. I also think that they should invest in their own bistro string lighting for the barn. It seems that every wedding at Castle Hill has the string lights in some form or another, and it would just be logical to install their own instead of different vendors hanging their own lights each time.

Castle Hill is a dream venue. Our wedding there was so beautiful and perfect. I recommend Castle Hill to anyone wanting to get married in the Charlottesville area, especially if you are having a large wedding. You will not find a more gorgeous venue, accommodating venue.

Castle Hill was a beautiful venue and Evelyn was willing to work with us to get us a perfect day for our wedding. The staff at the venue was accommodating and friendly. The only thing I wish had been better was the responsiveness to my inquiries.

GORGEOUS VENUE! It was great to have the ceremony and the reception in the same location. We had 150 guests at our wedding, but the venue works great for larger groups as well. You must be able to think creatively in order to truly make use of the space (it is a blank slate). The only downfall to the venue is that they have minimal kitchen equipment (you will need to rent a stove) and the cost of rentals will add up quickly.

Castle Hill Cider is stunningly gorgeous and we were so happy to have our wedding there. The ceremony location in the Linden Grove was one of my favorite parts, and our cocktail hour overlooking the pond was beautiful as well. While you do need to bring everything in to this venue, that does allow a great amount of flexibility and control over your vendors and all the details. Their cider is great too! Evelyn the manager was very accommodating to our special requests. Great rain plan space, if you should need it.

Castle Hill is an absolutely beautiful venue! Our guests raved about the property and we were so thrilled with how things turned out. The one thing to keep in mind with Castle Hill is that very little is included for the price you pay and you will end up having to add on lots of little frustrating costs. Bathroom trailers, lighting, chairs if you need chairs for reception and ceremony, extra tables for cocktail or desert, etc. If you are comfortable with that though, I would say Castle Hill is an amazing venue and we were really glad we used it in the the end! They have great summer AC and an amazing back up rain plan. You really can't beat the property and the barn!

I worked with Wendy and then Evelyn. Evelyn was my contact for the last 9 months before my wedding, so I primarily emailed with her. Evelyn was very organized, responsive and helpful in planning the wedding from DC. We generally had a good experience prior to our wedding and on the day of. [The only negative thing pre-wedding was that we were pressured to buy and use their cider, which our contract did not suggest or require because it was not available when we contracted the venue. We did not buy or use because we did not like, but didn't like getting asked about it several times.]

The wedding was fabulous. This is a wonderful venue that you can do a lot with. It did rain on our wedding day, so we moved the ceremony to the loft and it was just wonderful. We are so happy we had it there, really, the ceremony was better in the loft than outside -- so beautiful, intimate, and gorgeous in the pictures! [Although Terrance had to hide in the catering tent while I went across the catwalk to the office just before the wedding, so there are some kinks to be worked out with the loft ceremony.]

Sadly, after the wedding was not a good experience. The venue was required to return our deposit 48 hours after the event. When we hadn't heard anything or received a check in over 2 weeks from our wedding date, we emailed. They then responded that there had been almost $400 in grass damage and $200 for a burn on a table. Although it had rained, their pictures of the "grass damage" where almost identical to the pictures I had of the SAME GRASS on two other visits to the property (one of which was a few hours before a different wedding). The $200 on the table damage is likely from a different wedding. I sincerely regret that I did not photograph the space before and after the wedding. Sadly, I could not prove that the "damage" was not done on a different date -- although there was never any object that could have burned the table anywhere near any of the tables. At the end of the day, they agreed to just take $300 from us. We just didn't want to fight it any more, so we let it go. We never heard what the $300 was taken for of the alleged claims. At the end of the day, The pre-wedding and wedding experience was wonderful, just expect them to take $300-$600 of your deposit for no good reason.

I feel in love with Castle Hill the moment I pulled up to the venue. I am so glad we got married there but the planning process was a bit frustrating at times. The wedding coordinator was difficult to get in touch with and was more interested in telling us what we wanted to hear rather than the truth. I was told the construction of the outdoor tasting room would be done in May so you can imagine my shock when it came to be July and there was still construction going on. After contacting Castle Hill about my huge disappointment, they did not really seem to care or offer any sort of condolences. I would not change my venue but I would recommend using a high quality wedding planner and cater to make up for the lack of support from Castle Hill.

Let me start off with the fact that this venue is absolutely gorgeous and that my wedding was as perfect as I could have asked for. While it was a lot of work starting with a "blank slate" (the venue has no tables, chairs, etc. - all must be rented from a partner vendor), I loved being able to get creative and make our wedding unique. Our ceremony and reception were magical and our guests raved about the venue. They also have yummy cider!

However, working with the venue's event manager, Evelyn, was difficult. She did not respond to emails very quickly and often needed to be reminded. She really made no attempt to reach out to us during the entire planning process - luckily we had a rockstar wedding planner who made sure everything was all set. The morning of the wedding, we had a rather unpleasant situation involving us being locked out of the building and set us back about 45 minutes. The issue was resolved, but Evelyn did not apologize and kept blaming "management" for the problem. She did not offer any sort of reimbursement or incentive for our inconvenience - the best she could do was suggest we "email management with our concerns". Last time I checked, the event manager is the client's liaison to management, and it is their job to make sure everything runs smoothly. I am sure the venue owner does not want his own employees bad-mouthing him!

Bottom line: Would recommend Castle Hill...if you a) are prepared to work with extra vendors to make sure you have all that you need, and b) if you have a wedding planner who has worked with this venue before...OR if they get a new event manager!

The events coordinator (who we also had as our wedding planner) was very unprofessional. I was a pretty easy-going bride-to-be, but she made the wedding planning process agonizing by making us feel terrible about our budget, not responding in a timely manner (or at all) to my questions, and being rude to the vendors we chose that she didn't quite agree with. On several occasions (even at rehearsal), people came to me and spoke of how rude she was to them; I shouldn't have had to apologize for the behavior of my wedding planner the day before my wedding. Because of her, I couldn't wait for my wedding to be over. Side note: She also got drunk at our wedding. The venue itself was gorgeous, but if I were to do it all over again, I would've chosen somewhere else.

Castle Hill's beauty speaks for itself. The venue and the location are simply beautiful and we loved our reception. However, as a bride, I found it extremely frustrating and disappointing to work with the staff of Cider Hill. Communication was very slow to both me and my event planner, and things were consistently disorganized or lost. The week of the wedding, we found out via social media, that there was construction at the venue that we were never notified of. Also, during our wedding weekend, we were confronted by a bride during our rehearsal (at the time given to us by the venue), because her ceremony was about to begin. Unfortunately, no representative of the venue was present as they were supposed to be. We found this to be our hardest vendor and added unneeded stress during our engagement and wedding weekend. Although the venue is beautiful, these factors would have been helpful to know during our planning.

Here's the thing about Castle Hill: it's stunning. Absolutely, one hundred percent gorgeous. If you want a venue that will provide the most beautiful setting for pictures, it's perfect. I fell in love with the location, scenery, and converted barn the second I stepped on site. It has a very high price tag for a venue, but I decided to rearrange my budget in order to hold my wedding there just because of its beauty.

It really does pain me to rate the venue as so low because it is absolutely gorgeous and really does have a great event space. But here is why my ratings for it are so low: the event coordination is absolutely atrocious.

I worked with two event coordinators at Castle Hill. The first, Wendy, came off as extremely abrasive, haughty, and rude, but for some reason she took a liking to my mother (who was essentially my own wedding coordinator). Although Wendy’s personality was lacking, she was very responsive to e-mails and seemed to be pretty well organized. She worked with us while we went back and forth about the contract before we placed any deposit on the venue for my wedding date. The contract we were initially provided was for construction workers and NOT for events. The whole thing was rewritten by my own mother (who works with government contracts as a career), but given the extremely high price tag to rent the space, this amount of work on our part was ridiculous.

After signing, time went on and as we were getting closer to my wedding date, we began working with the second event coordinator, Evelyn, who came in to replace Wendy. My first communication with Evelyn showed that she had no clue who I was or that I even had a signed and paid contract for my wedding. That was the first red flag. After a minimal amount of effort I'm sure, she eventually realized that I actually had a contract with them and stopped sending me information about their wedding packages (which I was already more than familiar with…I had a signed contract fir a year already!).

A similar pattern of unprofessionalism and total lack of communication skills continued over the months leading up to my wedding day. She often took a WEEK OR MORE to respond to an e-mail, and when we did get any sort of response, it appeared as though she never even read the message to begin with. Responses were usually disconnected or totally irrelevant to what we had e-mailed her about. Trying to get in contact with her on the phone was impossible as well as she never answered and always had a full mailbox, so no voicemails could be left. She would make her own decisions for us (like taking it upon herself to set up a ridiculously expensive lunch to be catered for my bridal party the day of my wedding when all we asked for her was a quote before any decision was made) and would interrupt or talk over people when we met with her in-person. Overall, this woman came off as completely incompetent with a total lack of professionalism or any sense of common courtesy.

By no means do I want people to think that they shouldn’t book a wedding here, as the event space really is spectacular and the site is beautiful. However, plan to get little or no assistance from the staff there. A professional event coordinator is all the site really needs, especially one that displays any sort of experience in the field.