Hartwood Acres Mansion Reviews
Reviews
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![Andy]()
Andy Sent on 09/13/2023Perfect Day!
We had our wedding ceremony under the grand pavilion. It was such an incredibly beautiful day! Ellen was a superstar and went above and beyond. Our coordinator was MIA the day of the rehearsal and Ellen stepped in to take charge and direct everyone. She saved us and made sure every little detail was executed the way we wanted it to be.
Our keyboard player was plugged into the sound system and it sounded great! We also used the microphone they provided when reading our own vows and everyone could hear us loud and clear.
I highly recommend having your ceremony here and working with Ellen. It went perfectly. -
![Health]()
Health Sent on 06/28/2022Highly recommended!
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! -
Kelly Sent on 01/06/2020
Perfecto!!
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!!) -
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![Natalie]()
Natalie Sent on 08/18/2019Hartwood is seriously the best
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!)
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![Amanda]()
Amanda Sent on 06/26/2019Amazing venue and staff
Everyone we worked with was so nice! I couldn't recommend them as a venue for a wedding more! -
Chrissy Sent on 06/21/2019
Beautiful!!
The venue was beautiful, despite the rain. We were reluctant to use the tent, but it was much prettier than I anticipated. The girls were all very helpful and too the stress off of me! -
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Shayne Sent on 10/16/2019
a beautiful wedding!
We couldn’t have imagined a better venue for our wedding. We received numerous compliments from our guests about Hartwood and it’s impeccable grounds. Sarah and Shaunden were always available to answer any questions and to make any changes we requested. They both put me at ease. Molly was on-site the day of our wedding and she truly knocked it out of the park. She was wonderful and anticipated all of our needs before we even had to ask. We were able to bring in all of our vendors which allowed us to make our day exactly how we wanted it. It was truly a fairytale wedding! -
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![Nick]()
Nick Sent on 06/25/2019A perfect outdoor Wedding
We decided to get married at Hartwood Acres pretty early on, and throughout the process everyone there were incredibly helpful to get things together for our day just the way we wanted it.
The coordinators Sarah and Samantha were wonderful to work with, and seemed just as excited about our wedding as we were!
For anyone looking for a magical outdoor wedding venue, I would recommend Hartwood Acres without doubt! -
![Leanna]()
Leanna Sent on 08/11/2023The Most Romantic Venue
Hartwood Acres Mansion was the perfect venue for our intimate, garden-party-style wedding day! It is a beautiful backdrop, is easy transitions from the ceremony to cocktail hour and reception, has responsive and helpful venue staff, and reasonably priced. We and our guests had the most enjoyable time! -
![Dennis]()
Dennis Sent on 10/07/2024Beautiful Venue - But nothing is provided, and NOT WEATHER PREPARED
We got married at the Hartwood Acres Mansion and Pavilion on May 25. My husband grew up 5 minutes away from the venue, so this is a special place for us. The venue itself is a beautiful location surrounded by the mansion and pine trees.
Before getting into day of: This venue offers nothing except tables and standard chairs. Do not be fooled by the video they have online, none of that is available unless you find vendors. We thought it would be nice and cheaper to pick ourselves, but it def was a logistical nightmare, so know what you are getting in to. What you pay does not reflect what you get, as you will see below.
However, we had a number of issues with our wedding at this venue. Firstly, the wedding coordinator on site in the morning was rude to my husband and other members of the family during set up and prior to the ceremony.
Due to this being an outdoor venue in Pittsburgh, there is a rain plan and a shine plan and Hartwood makes you choose which plan to proceed with 3 days prior to the wedding and there is no flexibility in changing the plan. The weather forecast 3 days ahead said no rain so we proceeded with the shine plan, but due to the ever changing weather in Pittsburgh we were hit with a huge thunderstorm 30 minutes before the start of our ceremony. Many of our decorations were ruined due to the rain and we eventually had to relocate our ceremony to under the pavilion. In addition, to the damage to our decor, the power at the venue went out during the storm and was not able to be restored the entire night leaving us without access to the sound system and lights under the pavilion. If it were not for our musician who brought his own bluetooth speaker, we would not have had any music for the ceremony or reception. The Hartwood staff were helpful to go out and purchase spotlights for when it began to get dark and bring in extra staff, but we still had to cut the reception short when the bluetooth speaker ran out of battery and no one could see in the bathrooms anymore since it was so dark and unsafe. I understand that weather is unpredictable and this was a really bad storm, but they seemed unprepared for rain despite being in Pittsburgh where this happens often and I think they should have a generator on hand in case something like this were to happen again. All we received from them was a card after the event, I just wish they had apologized for the circumstances or offered to compensate for damaged goods/inability to utilize the space fully. -
![Allie]()
Allie Sent on 08/08/2020Very Difficult
We planned our wedding during Covid, so that obviously made things a lot more difficult. We were so much looking forward to having our reception at Hartwood Acres, but had an extremely difficult time getting any information about restrictions at the venue, only to find out through our caterer what restrictions would be put in place. Thankfully we got a full refund but I was very disappointed with how little communication we received as we were trying to plan our wedding.
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