The Founders Inn and Spa Reviews

From the moment we arrived for a tour, to the moment we walked down the aisle, we were treated with such respect and the highest level of professionalism.

The staff made our small ceremony an experience we will NEVER forget. Around every corner was a helping hand and smiling face ready to support where necessary.

Our family and friends have yet to stop commenting on the amazing cuisine and great customer service in the Swan Terrace, and of course, the beautiful garden venue.

Nice experience , everything was beautiful what a beautiful wedding venue !

Myself and Mosquito Cove team member MC Shelia T visited Founder's Inn for a site survey before a Vow Renewal Event scheduled for the 26th of November 2020. The Founder's Inn staff was so charming, informative, helpful and cheerful that we decided to stay overnight. Dinner was great and the buffet the next day was wonderful. When we returned for the ceremony and celebration, our three-man team decided to stay over again. We loved the friendly and extremely helpful attitude of the entire staff. I loved working and staying at Founder's Inn!

The Founders Inn took a lot of the stress off our plate by offering the venue space for both ceremony and reception, include catering as well as the cake and off accommodations. It is an absolutely beautiful venue and we couldn’t be happier with our choice!

Absolutely, love the venue and the service. So much so that we booked our wedding here!

The Founder's Inn and Spa was the dream location for our intimate wedding. Before we agreed to book the Founder's Inn we were blown away by the grounds and the beauty of the ceremony location and Fireplace Lobby. From start to finish the staff at the Founder's Inn. Even during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, they were flexible, gracious and responsive. When we started planning the wedding under normal circumstances, every detail was taken care of and anticipated. Their all-inclusive made our wedding planning so much easier than we had imagined. We highly recommend them.

I just got married on Jan 4th and Founders was our "home base" for the entire wedding weekend...and it was PERFECT. I had a great wedding coordinator at Founders named Christine and she was extremely professional and easy to work with. Almost half of our 80 guests stayed at the hotel for the 'wedding weekend' and the rooms were beautiful and the staff was wonderful. (My bridal party and I also used the Flowering Almond Spa services and they were excellent!) The holiday decorations made the hotel even more stunning and the Swan Terrace restaurant was the perfect place for our "small-ish" reception. And the food was SO GOOD (especially the crab stuffed sole - wow). Founders also provided a wonderful bridal dressing room (where a lot of my out of town family and friends hung out on the wedding morning!) and brought in a tray of appetizers and champagne for us after the ceremony. At least 20 of us gathered for brunch on Sunday morning back in Swan Terrace - and it was again fun, with great food and excellent staff! I will always have a very fond place in my heart for Founders and see us definitely returning there for anniversaries! I would highly, highly recommend having your wedding and/or reception at Founders!! Jennifer T., Fredericksburg, VA

I had the most beautiful wedding over the weekend. The venue was absolutely gorgeous! They had their lights in the bushes for Christmas time which created the perfect background for pictures as well as a beautiful scenery outside the swan terrace windows which Is where I had my reception. The food was AMAZING! Serving staff were so nice and made sure we had everything we wanted. The night of our wedding we got a complimentary wedding night hotel room which had a fireplace going and snacks and champaign waiting for us. I loved how this venue included the catering. This made things easier for me when planning since I was planning alone while my husband was deployed. For the price, you get an amazing wedding. So glad I chose this place!

From the moment we walked on the grounds of Founders Inn, we were blown away by the hospitality of the staff. Every inch of the grounds is a beautiful location for a wedding and reception. The venue had a range of packages to fit exactly what we were looking for! It was amazing and much less stressful planning a wedding at the Founders Inn because they provided nearly everything we needed: venues for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception (with included rain backup locations that were equally beautiful) food, alcohol, cake, tables, chairs, linens, and more! Brittany Duarte was so friendly and knowledgeable from our first tour and beyond. She was also quick with communication and always answered all our questions thoroughly. When we got closer to our wedding, we met Emily Anuszek who worked closely with us for all the small details. Emily was also an excellent communicator and so professional. She collaborated with us and each of our vendors to make our wedding day perfect! We couldn’t have picked a better venue and we are forever thankful to the entire staff of the Founders Inn for such a memorable wedding day.

When looking for a venue my husband and I wanted a place that wouldn’t break the bank however had the expensive look we wanted. That’s exactly what the founders in gave us. The staff was very professional and were timely in responding to all questions and concerns we had. Not to mention the food was absolutely AMAZING! Our guests were raving about the food for days later. If we were to do it all again would definitely pick the founders inn without a doubt. Highly recommend!

The Founders Inn was definitely the perfect venue for my wedding. From booking to planning to the wedding itself, the staff was professional and helpful each step of the way. Brittany and Chloe were both fantastic to work with, and always responsive to any questions I had. The wedding turned out amazing and I’m so glad I chose the Founders Inn! I would highly recommend it to anyone for any event!

The founders Inn was the best place to have a wedding or any event. The staff from the beginning to the end was above excellent. They are professional with warm hospitality, they are very accommodating and just good people! The place is gorgeous and has a warm feeling. All members of the staff Brittany, Chloe, and the staff who worked during my wedding were attentive, friendly and just good people. I will recommend them to anyone, thank you all so much for making my wedding day one of the best days of my life!

If you are looking for the best place to host your event in Virginia Beach with a modern yet historic vibe, you found it! I am a professional DJ and I work a few wedding events here every year as well as birthday parties and military events and already have some lined up for next year. Before this year is over, I wanted to take the time and share with all review readers how grateful I am for the opportunity to be able to collaborate with such a great venue and the talented team that makes magic happen every time I am there. They communicate well with vendors, everything is always clean and looks amazing, and the layout options are awesome. I enjoy the uplighting that compliments your decor. The food is always on point. They surely go above and beyond for their clients to have the best time ever. Go see for yourself, book your event here!

Chris “DJ Karizma” August | DJ Karizma Entertainment LLC | www.karizma.bz

I had the immense pleasure of working with Brittany and Casey for all of my wedding-day plans, and I have to say, they completely knew what they were doing. From (literally) last-minute additions to the guest list, to booking more rooms than expected, to having the perfect setup for the big day, I could not have imagined a more knowledgeable or professional staff. They thought of the things I'd never even begin to think about, and took care of them before I thought to worry. The venue itself was gorgeous -- we had a small wedding, so it was held in the fireplace room just outside the lobby. It was completely transformed when I walked down the aisle, and the outdoor cocktail reception was perfectly staged. The reception and dinner were phenomenal, and everything went better than I could have ever hoped. If I could give the venue and its amazing staff a 10/10, I absolutely would.

The Founders Inn and Spa was the perfect location for our wedding! We wanted our wedding to be somewhere meaningful to us, obviously beautiful, and somewhere that made it easy to conduct all aspects of the wedding - ceremony, cocktail hour, reception, and especially lodging for our guests. The Founders Inn and Spa made all of that possible.

While the venue was certainly a beautiful location, the best part of having our wedding at the Founders Inn and Spa was the team that we worked with. We worked primarily with Casey Burnett and she was an absolute joy to work with. Her professionalism, organization, and attention to detail are some of her strongest traits and we were so fortunate to have been able to work with her. Throughout the entire process, Casey worked quickly and efficiently to answer any and every question we had. She was meticulous in her tracking, thoughtful in her delivery, and exhibited genuine care in ensuring that our wedding day went smoothly. We could not be happier to have had our wedding at the Founders Inn and Spa and could not have been more lucky to have worked with Casey - thank you for everything!

Ann Smith has been amazing throughout the whole booking process. My groom to be lives out of state due to being in the Navy. Ann went out of her way to not only allow me to facetime during the initial tour of the property, but made sure we could book a time for a tour of the property and include him in all of the planning when he was home.

So helpful, the wedding was one of the best I've ever been to!

Andy and I were married on Friday, August 12. We also combined our family reunion during the week leading up to the wedding. We had our rehearsal dinner in the Hunt Room. We ABSOLUTELY LOVED working with Ann and Lydia throughout our wedding planning process. Lydia was actually getting married only a week after our wedding and she still seemed so focused on us and made us a priority. Even through all our changes, the big day was truly perfect. When Andy and I first walked through property at the Founders Inn and saw the English gardens, we just knew this was where we had to get married. The food was amazing and the space was exactly right for what we wanted and needed for our guests. There is not a better wedding venue in Virginia Beach.

We held our wedding at Founders Inn in July 2016. The grounds are gorgeous, the staff was amazing, and the services offered are top notch. Our big day was absolutely amazing. We had an indoor wedding in their beautiful atrium. The staff were on top of everything. The food was amazing, our cake was beautifully decorated, and the reception/ceremony site were clean and inviting.

We had a minor experience with our reception hall temperature not staying cool but they went above and beyond to find a solution to this. We have no hard feelings over this because certain things are beyond their control.

Our hotel accommodations for the evening made us feel like royalty. Gorgeous room and amazing service. They were on top of everything. We felt welcomed and appreciated from the very beginning.

We cannot thank Founders Inn and their staff enough as they made our biggest day amazing.

We loved having our wedding at the Founders Inn! I planned our wedding while going through nursing school, so the stress was incredible. And, of course, during the most important planning period (1 month out) my husband was underway, which is a fancy Navy word for out at sea. However, Ann and Brittany were both so understanding and accommodating about everything. We booked about 1 year in advance. The most important advice I can give is to book your venue at least 10 months prior to when you wish to get married, especially if you want to have it at Founders! The place is so incredible and books up very fast. Not a lot of brides get to say this, but I honestly felt like our wedding went perfectly! There is nothing I would have wanted to do differently or change about it. I think the key to having this feeling is to just let everyone do the jobs that you hired them to do and sit back and enjoy your big day! They are PROS at Founders and you can rest assured that they will handle every crisis without you ever knowing it even happened! :-)

It doesn't get any better we had to reschedule and they were very accommodating! The venue was amazing and they were very attentive to us even just the two of us and the rooms and food were amazing!

Haven't even had my wedding yet but I'm very impressed with the friendliness of the staff planning it. They have taken a lot of the stress away. I even got my officiant from them!

Very beautiful as a venue. I recommend.

My husband and I could not have picked a more elegant, and beautiful venue for our wedding on May 17, 2015. Everything was just beautiful. The staff was awesome and caring. We had a negative experience with a Williamsburg venue and the staff that worked with us were angels. We first worked with Emily Anderson, she made sure everything was comfortable for us from our transition with a negative experience in Williamsburg. Brittany Duarte, came thru and was on-point and even gave us a wonderful suggestions we used for our wedding day . She made sure that we had food alternatives for our family who were vegetarians and was just very caring towards us. On the day of the wedding Brittany Bagel made sure I was