Steppingstone Farm Museum Reviews

Steppingstone has been so great to work with. We actually got married there twice, once for a small ceremony during the pandemic and once for a larger celebration as we originally intended. I cannot say enough for how accommodating the staff at Steppingstone has been. They were always proactive about reaching out to us to make sure everything would go perfectly for our wedding days. I've heard nightmares about people having to choose between losing deposits or putting their families at risk. Steppingstone reached out to us and offered us backup dates early.
Since we booked them in 2019, Steppingstone changed directors and wedding coordinators twice. During that time some of the things we were originally told changed and we had to sign an updated contract. Overall, though, we are very please with how everything went. Hailey is a delight to work with!
They gave us a list of preferred vendors. Beefalo Bobs and Friendly Entertainment (DJ) were also great and knew the venue well.

I almost didn't even want to go to Steppingstone because I was so afraid it wouldn't for our budget, and I knew I was already attached to the idea, having been before for Karmafest. Everyone was so great with communication. My engagement wants so long that we did have three different people in charge of coordinating over the course of our engagement period; each woman touched base, assured us our contract would be honored, and even kept us up to date on things like no weddings surrounding us so we were free to set up the day before at a certain time.

And the venue itself ... Just breathtaking. The grounds are pretty massive, but they do provide staff members with golf carts to help those who need assistance with mobility. I got married in the courtyard behind the farmhouse and did the reception in the carriage barn. It was everything I dreamed. It's an expansive, rustic blank canvas ready for the DIY bride of all budgets, and I'm so elated I was able to have my dream wedding there.

My husband and I had our wedding at Steppingstone this past October and it was absolutely beautiful. The entire staff was great to work with throughout the planning process. They did many walk throughs with us of the barn, courtyard, and outdoor areas and responded quickly to all of our questions. I highly recommend this place both to visit and use as a wedding venue!

Amazing barn venue with beautiful scenery & grounds for a reasonable price. Friendly & helpful staff with lots of flexibility for DIY brides. This venue makes a dream wedding possible for a bride on a budget.

Steppingstone Farm Museum was the perfect outdoor/barn/rustic/DIY venue for our wedding. The grounds are set in the Susquehanna State Park and are a naturally beautiful setting, especially in spring/early summer. We rented the carriage barn for our reception/backup plan for our ceremony if the weather wasn't ideal and it was worth the extra cost. The barn provided a great, level space for dinner and dancing and was a nice way to keep our guests out of the hot sun. The staff were there to answer any questions we had and were accommodating with coming in early to set up as well as helping with some of our clean up at the end of the night. We also rented our tables and chairs from them, which made it even easier since it was all on site already with no delivery fee required. There's so much you can do with the spaces available (even without renting the barn) that you can really customize the experience. The value of the venue was also unbeatable. I priced several venues that offered the same kind of rustic/barn feel and they were thousands of dollars more expensive - so Steppingstone is incredibly budget friendly.

Our wedding at Steppingstone Museum was absolutely amazing! The staff was very friendly, quick and easy to communicate with, and super helpful. Our wedding was early June 2015. The venue is stunning, modestly priced, and very remote. Perfect for 50 or 250! We held both ceremony and reception on-site and we could not be more pleased with the outcome!

Steppingstone Farm Museum was an absolute Beautiful Venue for our wedding day. Angela is always available to answer questions or meet with you on the details of the big day! It is a DIY venue, but has a great spots for ceremony and reception. Pinterest and FB should have previous wedding posts on them to help with the creative juices.

Beautiful site, amazing history and wonderful service. I absolutely love this place...the events coordinator is so wonderful, she makes you feel like family. This is the best location for the price. You get the whole facility to use (a small farm) for at least 8 hours. You have to get your own caterer and rentals, but for the outdoor splendor and cost it's worth every cent. You also get free membership to the museum for a year!

I loved having my wedding at Steppingstone. Kelly was fantastic to work with. She let us into see the barn and grounds many times leading up to the wedding and responded to emails quickly (especially for being a part time employee)! The grounds were absolutely beautiful and I’ve had many guests tell me how perfect the setting was. I loved it!!

Steppingstone was the perfect venue for my DIY rustic wedding! We held our ceremony at the stage and our reception in the Carriage Barn. In late October, the leaves had just started changing and provided the most beautiful scenery. Our guests couldn't stop complimenting the grounds. Angela and especially Anna were very helpful, though I think it was a great decision for them to have Anna focus on the events since the museum is becoming more popular for weddings. Anna even golf carted my elderly grandmother to the different parts of the park so she didn't have to walk! The volunteers were so helpful and friendly. It's definitely a raw space, but with a little creative flair this venue is breathtaking, charming and elegant!

I didn't come across this venue in my research for our ceremony. While I was in town visiting some other sites with my FMIL, she thought I'd like to see Steppingstone. She had taken her family to events there when they were young and remembered how beautiful it was. I was in love with the place even before we went through the front gate. It is enchanting. Everywhere you look is a charming picturesque view. I had a little trouble getting some email responses and answers in the beginning, so I handed the responsibility over to my FMIL and we soon had a contract. We ended up renting out the entire site for the afternoon/evening, but only used the stage area (for the ceremony), the pavilion (for the reception) and the visitor center (to get dressed). It was great to have access to the display barn in case of inclement weather. We arrived the night before the ceremony to set up. The pavilion was perfect, as we were able to celebrate outdoors but still have protection from the July sun. Using the picnic tables fit into our rustic theme and saved us plenty of money on rented tables. We did make use of Steppingstone's rented tables for catering prep, though. They also were able to provide us with dishes, glasses, and flatware for the reception. They had some signage left over from other weddings that we were able to use. A maintenance worker/jack of all trades (Nick) was there when we set up and during our whole wedding day. He was AMAZING! He helped us with every little thing we asked. He gave the kids rides on the golf cart, and even inflated a huge slide for them which was on site for an event the next day. He helped take out trash and clean up too.
Our wedding at Steppingstone was beautiful, simple, and outdoors. It was everything we wanted. The photographer was amazed at the site and was spoiled for choice when it came to choosing where to take photos (which came out perfectly!) My family all loved the venue. It made our wedding day so incredibly special.

Steppingstone Museum was the perfect venue for our wedding! I loved that you have access to multiple areas with your rental. I was able to have my ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception in three locations (stage, courtyard, pavilion). They also have a barn you can rent for an additional fee. It was reassuring to have a rain plan just in case! This is truly a DIY venue, so be ready to do a little extra work yourself or have your caterer/rental company help out. But that also means you can make everything fit your vision, since they are very flexible! Their priority is definitely as a living museum first and a wedding venue second, so you need to have some patience when waiting for responses. But the staff are friendly and easy to work with. The grounds are absolutely beautiful, but be aware that what you see when you book may not be what you find by the time your wedding rolls around. They can make changes to the grounds as they see fit (they are a living museum after all) and do not always notify you of these changes. If you book, it may be a good idea to visit every other month or so just to see what you're working with. I got married outside in late June and had no problem with bugs. Everything was very clean and well-maintained. I'd definitely recommend Steppingstone for your venue!

This place is great! It is inexpensive, and virtually up to you how you want to plan out your ceremony and reception. They have various outdoor spaces where both can be held, and you can have as little or as many people as you want. They also have lists of vendors they have used, for chair and tent rentals, food etc. if you need some ideas. One time we were supposed to go on a tour and pay our deposit and the woman who was supposed to meet us did not show up, other then that we had no problems with them! A great site if you really want to design your own wedding!

We loved that we could rent out the entire grounds. We were married on the stage, had dinner under the pavilion, and dancing/dessert in the carriage barn.

The venue is beautiful and we couldn't have imagined getting married anywhere else.

Angela was a joy to work with during the planning process. We did run into some issues with the venue staff the day of the wedding but I would still highly recommend the location.

FYI- You may want to consider supplying additional outdoor lighting. The walkway was dark after the sun went down.

I absolutely love the venue we chose. They were very accommodating to our needs and helpful with questions. At times I felt that the staff manager wasn't very friendly, but we got done what we needed to, and I wouldn't change a thing about the location I chose. I also had the carriage barn which was absolutely beautiful, had some minor electrical issues with the power source for a moment, but it turned out great.

The site is beautiful with so many options of where to hold the ceremony and reception. The newly renovated carriage barn was the prefect spot for our BBQ reception. The venue was exactly what we were looking for. We also liked that the money you pay to rent the space is really a donation, so it goes directly towards helping out the museum. The one big thing I would note is that you might want to hire a wedding coordinator to help out. It is up to you to figure out all the little details and to ensure everything moves along smoothly on your big day. There are so many details you won't realize you need to plan for, so a wedding coordinator would really be helpful.

The Steppingstone Farm Museum is a beautiful location to have a wedding, and an incredible value.

The site itself is absolutely gorgeous. You get the whole farm, over 100 acres, and you can have your ceremony and reception where ever you choose. Our ceremony and reception were absolutely gorgeous, thanks to the beautiful scenery and beautiful farm. Like the previous reviewer said, you get free admission to the museum for a year, which is good if you want to attend any events. We were able to get on the property to measure or have meetings whenever we wanted, which was good. The only down side of the whole process was the site coordinator, Diane. She was very difficult to get a hold of, especially in the winter to spring, because she has another business. She seemed to be pretty flexible with meetings, and was able to accommodate last minute meeting requests. We also appreciated the rental suggestions. The only problem came when we accidentally ran over the time that we were supposed to have our reception and Diane flipped out and started yelling at my parents and wedding coordinator. My coordinator tried to buffer between Diane and deal with the situation, but get on Diane's wrong side, and she can be NASTY!!! The site is perfect, but the coordinator isn't...

I just got married on April 18, 2015 at Steppingstone and had an amazing day. The venue was spectacular for a rustic indoor/outdoor wedding. I only had a couple issues with the venue, the main one being trouble reaching people at Steppingstone. We played a lot of phone tag and had to track the staff down a couple of times. Also, I would suggest that if you are getting ready at the site, to bring a sign saying that there is a wedding in progress. Since it is in a state park and open to the public, we had a lot of hikers, walkers, and bikers coming through. It was a little bothersome as my bridal party and I were getting ready to have random people popping in the office to ask for directions. Other than that, they were very flexible and willing to do anything to make the day perfect for my wedding. The site is gorgeous and I can't wait to see all of our pictures from there.

The venue itself is beautiful- amazing view behind the stage, adorable courtyard, and the barn is awesome. Worked out great for the rustic theme. It’s definitely for a DIY bride, so lots of work, but you can go any direction you want. They don’t have limits on vendors which I know is a big deal for a lot of people. They do make updates all the time, but usually nothing drastic- adding signs or planting trees. My only complaint is since they are also open to the public and they put on lots of events, they could plan one on the same day as your wedding and not give you notice. The event they had on my wedding didn’t interfere at all so it ended up fine, but it was a shock to find out the day before that even though you’re renting the whole property, they can still use it too.

The venue could not have been more beautiful! People are still asking me where we found the place, and all night were commenting that it was such a beautiful, unique space for a wedding. We had our ceremony at the stage and the reception in the carriage barn - it was worth the extra money as well to not have to worry about the weather! Overall we were happy with how our special day turned out.

I agree with other comments that you will want a wedding coordinator if you choose to have your wedding here. It is hard to be in charge of all the minor details on the day of, and they can be difficult to get a hold of since they are running the museum and farm full time as well. They are a bit disorganized as well - we were *specifically* told at our pre-event meeting the week before that there was no wedding or event in the carriage barn the day after ours, and it was agreed that we could come back at 9AM to clean everything up. When we arrived at 9 they basically told us that there *was* a wedding, they thought maybe we just would have some flowers to clean up, and they had used our security deposit to pay staff to clean everything up when we left the night before, stashing all of our decorations and leftover items behind the barn instead of waiting. Had my husband and I not been still reeling from our beautiful and awesome night before, it would have been a bigger deal but at the time we didn't want to worry about it.

Overall, great value to rent the venue for the day for much less than many others, but it comes with the price of planning everything yourself, and we recommend hiring someone to be the go-between and make sure both sides understand the plan.