Indiana State Museum Reviews

Melissa was our coordinator at the museum, and she was incredible to work with. She handled everything for the rehearsal and day-of and made everything flow so smoothly. Additionally, the venue itself was stunning. I would recommend the State Museum and Melissa to anyone!

Excellent place to hold a wedding ceremony! They were SO HELPFUL! They really work hard to make sure everything is in place and flowing smoothly. I can't thank them enough for being so flexible during the pandemic. They made sure everything was safe, clean and efficient.

The museum was a wonderful place to have my daughter's wedding. The view and the ballroom was elegant and grand. I will always remember that wonderful day.

The Indiana State Museum provides an incredible space for a reception, and my husband and I could not be more thrilled with the way our reception went! The space itself is beautiful and does not need much work, but the event planning stuff, catering staff (Kahns), and all others involved in the setup, execution, and tear down of the event were incredible. All individuals we worked with were incredibly helpful and nice and truly made our day special. We also took advantage of the museum for pictures before the ceremony, and all the volunteers and staff at the museum during the day were exceptional when we were walking around taking pictures! Highly recommend this space to anyone thinking about having a wedding or reception downtown Indianapolis!

Absolutely Wonderful! Erica was amazing, always on top of things. The evening was beautiful the venue was amazing! I would recommend the State Museum to EVERYONE!

My wedding at the Indiana State Museum was absolutely amazing. The entire staff was friendly and courteous, and Erica was absolutely amazing. Everything was beatuiful, on time, and went smoothly.

My husband and I could not be any happier with our wedding at the Indiana State Museum. We had both our ceremony and reception here. The entire planning process was so smooth, and the day of our wedding went without any problems and was an absolutely perfect day for us. Erica and Katie were fantastic to work with. They made the planning and day of stress free, and were extremely accommodating for all of our requests we had. When selecting a venue, we wanted something that was a fun venue and had people there that would help us through all of the planning process and make the day of the wedding run smooth. We got all of that with the Indiana State Museum. I would highly recommend this venue!

I cannot possibly put into words how amazing our wedding was because of Erica and Katie! They were incredibly professional and always on top of everything. I am a huge control freak but I was able to relax and enjoy my wedding day because I knew all of the details were in their more than capable hands. We were even delayed by 20 minutes because of my hair appointment and Erica and Katie made sure we made up the time so that everything was seamless and smooth. All of the other staff was also very kind and professional. All of the servers and bartenders had huge genuine smiles on their faces all day and made sure everyone had a great time. They even put a ribbon in our wedding colors around the cork from our champagne bottle as a beautiful keepsake. Needless to say the location itself is gorgeous and our pictures look amazing. If I had to do it all over again I would DEFINITELY go with the ISM again. THANK YOU!!!!

Most outstanding venue! Everyone was so helpful and the view was amazing. All of our guests loved the location. The whole day went off without a hitch. I would highly recommend the ISM!

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. Erica was fantastic to work with!

Susan, Kara and John at the Indiana State Museum and AVI catering were wonderful to work with. They always tried to accomadate my ideas and were very responsive.
The venue is unique and modern (we chose the cafe) and great for an intimate wedding. Our ceremony and reception were wonderful thanks to their efforts. They helped my family and friends with set up and switched things around last minute so that our ceremony could be outside!
Our guests kept telling us how great the service and the food were which is exactly what we wanted to hear! We cannot thank them enough - great venue, great service!

Anne was amazing! The set-up was wonderful and the location was beautiful. My favorite part was the catering staff setting up a private bar and appetizers for the wedding party before the reception started so we could get something to eat. Anne also was a great help during the entire planning process.

I cannot say enough good things about the Indiana State Museum. I highly recommend this venue if you are looking for excellent service and a beautiful ceremony and/or reception site.

Everyone at the Indiana State Museum was wonderful to work with! It is a unique reception venue and would highly recommend it!

We had our wedding and reception at the Indiana State Museum, and it was fantastic! Erica helped us throughout the planning process to make sure everything was the way we wanted, and coordinated the rehearsal the evening before the wedding. The ISM also took care of all of the set up which made things much more laid back for us the day of the wedding. From the ceremony on the overlook bridge, to the cocktail hour on the canal, to the reception itself, everything was coordinated perfectly. And Kahn's, the State Museum's exclusive caterer, was absolutely fantastic as well! I have nothing but good things to say about our experience with the Indiana State Museum, and highly recommend it!

We already loved the Indiana State Museum, so having it for our wedding venue was a no-brainer!
We worked with both Melissa and Erica and both were wonderful and helpful throughout the process. They were super quick to respond to my many questions while planning.
They have a few different places within the museum that you can use for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception, as well as many cool photo ops! They require you use Kahn's catering (super nice but expensive, hence the 4/5 stars on flexibility), but everyone clearly knows what they're doing and has worked together before - the process went so smoothly throughout the evening.
You can take care of your guest parking which we appreciated; there was plenty of parking in the White River parking garage.
A year-long membership is included, which is maybe our favorite part as it is such a great museum and we go there regularly already.
If it's in your budget - we highly recommend! (Especially if you love a good museum!)

The Indiana State Museum was the perfect site for our ceremony and reception, they were receptive to all of our changes and were willing to work with us. It was a beautiful site and everything went above and beyond our expectations.

I loved having my wedding at the Indiana State Museum. The location was cool, different, and fun. The staff I worked with was very friendly and kind. Responsiveness was huge for me, and the wedding planner at the museum was really great at getting in contact with me and staying in contact with me during the planning process.

Susan with the Indiana State Museum is fantastic. She really wants you to have the wedding reception you desire. They were able to let our vendors get in a littler earlier than normal so we could set up for an earlier cocktail hour. Susan really tries to make sure you have everything you want and is absolutely great the day of the event.

The Indiana State Museum was a beautiful venue to get married and have a reception in. The staff was excellent with their service and everything was executed according to the plan we finalized prior to the ceremony. Since it is a museum the hours of rental are a little limited as were hours for rehearsal, but all worth it.

The museum is beautiful, and the actual event went off great, but everything leading up to it was one headache after another. Erica is very nice, but it would take almost a week to get ahold of her 90% of the time, which just doesn't work when you're planning an event like this.

Additionally, the State Museum has 1 exclusive caterer you have to use, so there's no choice in the matter. 5 months before our event, they CHANGED their exclusive caterer. The event turned out well, but we had specifically picked this venue because we did NOT want the caterer they changed us to. Once the switch was made, we were stuck with it. The changeover could have been mitigated by Erica, but all we got was a notification of the change, not an apology or any sense that they were sorry for our inconvenience. The biggest issue with the new caterer was price, which preliminarily looked to be ~$4000 more than budgeted. Again, this eventually got fixed, but I was unable to reach Erica for an entire week after the change, so I spent that time worrying how we were either going to have to change venues last minute, or cut items from our event!

Like I said, Erica is nice, and once you get her on the phone, she's relatively helpful and accommodating, but not being able to reach your vendor and event coordinator for a week at a time, especially when your caterer, menu, and budget are being changed without your consent, was just too much headache.

The day-of staff were great and the venue was beautiful, but I am SO happy the planning is over.

I waited approximately 9 months before leaving a review because I wanted to make sure that it wasnt based on emotions. To be honest I thought that the wedding was really handled poorly handled. They fired our wedding planner the night before our wedding which threw off entire wedding and reception. Items were misplaced/lost, promises weren't kept, and there was no financial reimbursement. I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND GETTING MARRIED HERE. You only get married once, (hopefully) so please choose a more professional company.

If anyone has any questions about this please feel free to email me at jroc@uisalumni.org