Woodfire Lodge Reviews

I had heard great things about this venue; it had a very rustic feel and great food! Dona was incredibly accommodating to any request we had. The response time was a little slower than I would have liked, but even that was understandable as she has a lot on her plate at all times. The staff at the Woodfire Lodge was great about creative and innovative ideas as well. Dona was more than happy to put together a build your own taco bar at the rehearsal dinner, which went great. On the day of, I was able to enjoy myself because I knew the staff out there had everything under control.

The Woodfire Lodge was a beautiful location for my ceremony and reception. The day could not have turned out any better. Dona was in charge of EVERYTHING at Woodfire. She made sure that the whole day was perfect. From the guys trap shoot the morning of the wedding, to making sure everyone was in their place at the start of the ceremony, to serving drinks behind the bar, to setting up and taking down the tables for dinner... I could go on forever. She was extraordinary. My only issues came in the months leading up to the big day. My preferred method of communication was email, but Dona was not very prompt at responding. I can imagine she doesn't have much time for reading emails when she is running the show at Woodfire. I would suggest to anyone planning an event there to call Dona first to get answers to your questions and then follow up with an email if you wish. She was always available by phone when I called. (I think she might live there.) ;)

I cannot say enough good things about this location and the staff. I would suggest to anyone getting married or planning an event to have it at The Woodfire Lodge.

We loved this place. It was absolutely beautiful with amazing people.

This place is amazing and perfect for an outdoors themed wedding. Everything we wanted when we were looking!

Such a beautiful venue! Response time was extremely slow but one the day we were top priority! I would recommend this place to anyone looking to have a wedding!

Beautiful venue. Yummy food. Horrid customer service. Like.. Awful customer service.

While this place was absolutely beautiful and their food was great - I would be very cautious when considering choosing this venue. We had so many issues from the beginning. First - the responsiveness responsiveness was absolutely terrible and it took the coordinated over a week to respond at times, especially in the beginning....and when she did respond, she seemed annoyed with any questions that we asked. Then we had (3) separate instances where we had scheduled a time to come out and meet with the coordinator to discuss decor and try to finalize the day of details, and she either forgot, or cancelled last minute (2 of these times I had people from out of town come to be a part of it). Half way through the planning process, the wedding coordinator introduced us to her new assistant coordinator, and while the assistant was sweet, she seemed VERY uncomfortable answering questions or giving us any direction. Any details we discussed with the main coordinator were not passed onto the assistant coordinator and it made for a VERY stressful wedding day with a lot of things being wrong/missed/overlooked. During the cocktail hour on our wedding day, the bartenders were not making guests aware of the free drink options that were available to them (example - bud light and house wines were included with our bar package, but when guests went up to order bud light or a glass of wine, the bartenders were giving our guests bottled beer and non-house wines and charging them for it) - I had to make a special announcement during our welcome speech so people were aware of the complimentary options that were available to them. We were also told by the wedding coordinator that she would be checking in with us throughout the night to make sure everything was going ok and see if we needed anything - and that was not the case. We barely saw her, and the assistant coordinator was so busy running around trying to get everything else taken care of, that she didn't have time to check in with us. Again, it is a beautiful place, but it was SO unorganized and it made for a VERY stressful planning process AND wedding day for us. So disappointed.

While this place was absolutely beautiful and their food was great - I would be very cautious when considering choosing this venue. We had so many issues from the beginning. First - the responsiveness was absolutely terrible and it took the coordinated over a week to respond at times, especially in the beginning. Then we had (3) separate instances where we had scheduled a time to come out and meet with the coordinator to discuss decor and try to finalize the day of details, and she either forgot, or cancelled last minute (2 of these times I had people from out of town come to be a part of it). Half way through the planning process, the wedding coordinator introduced us to her new assistant coordinator, and while the assistant was sweet, she seemed VERY uncomfortable answering questions or giving us any direction. Any details we discussed with the main coordinator were not passed onto the assistant coordinator and it made for a VERY stressful wedding day with a lot of things being wrong/missed/overlooked. During the cocktail hour on our wedding day, the bartenders were not making guests aware of the free drink options that were available to them (example - bud light and house wines were included with our bar package, but when guests went up to order bud light or a glass of wine, the bartenders were giving our guests bottled beer and non-house wines and charging them for it) - I had to make a special announcement during our welcome speech so people were aware of the complimentary options that were available to them. We were also told by the wedding coordinator that she would be checking in with us throughout the night to make sure everything was going ok and see if we needed anything - and that was not the case. We barely saw her, and the assistant coordinator was so busy running around trying to get everything else taken care of, that she didn't have time to check in with us. Again, it is a beautiful place, but it was SO unorganized and it made for a VERY stressful planning process AND wedding day for us. So disappointed.

My husband and I had wanted to look at this venue for a possible wedding reception location. Upon arriving we were greeted by staff and were introduced to Dona, the event coordinator. After discussing the venue we had decided it was a nice fit and put down our deposit to hold our date, then the trouble started. During the year of waiting I had made several attempts to have discussions with Dona about concerns, the way a normal bride would. I tried email first after she assures me it the best way to get a hold of her. After sometimes WEEKS of waiting there is no response, so I try to contact her via phone and every time I call they ask whom is calling and after that immediately “she is in a meeting”. I understand once or twice as an excuse but it was getting excessive. This continued for the duration of the time up to the wedding. Then when she finally did return my emails she made us feel down right moronic for asking the questions we had. Now you may be thinking that the questions asked were not important or that I was a first time bride who though the sky was falling but I had previously worked in banquets and catering for 5 years, this wasn't my first rodeo. I knew exactly what went into planning an event from the venue and catering side. Through my years of experience I have seen what things may be miscommunicated throughout planning and I was trying to make our thoughts and questions clear, but it's hard to miscommunicate one-sided. As the date approached we did everything we could to work with her, including drive almost two hours from the Milwaukee area to have meetings with her. One of which, she made us wait almost an hour then pushed us through our meeting to meet with other potential couples after we had made an appointment to see her, we did not just drop by.

This was all okay, I just worked extra hard to make this difficult situation the best I could seeing as we already had a nonrefundable deposit placed at this venue. Then the day of our wedding, the day was stressful as anyone would guess but Dona, by no means, made it easier. Our ceremony was held at the venue as well, and we were assured they could provide a sound system to play our music on as long as we had it on the platform she asked for. It comes time to walk down the aisle and Dona is frantically running around, they hadn't tested the speakers before the ceremony, which one might think they would. There would be no music for my special moment, I walked down the aisle feeling awkward and embarrassed. I just bit the bullet to try and have the rest of the day be as pleasant as it could. The rest if the day was going normally but by no means was I impressed with the food and beverage service, the food was acceptable. Then the night was drawing to an end and the wedding party, parents, and myself were cleaning up with absolutely no help from the leftover staff. There is now one staff member left at the bar to make drinks for the remaining guests. As we finish organizing I am distraught to be missing all the boxes for my champagne glassware as well as my cake serving set and box. I go to the last employee, as Dona has gone long before the event was over, and asked for his help locating the items. After searching and finding the boxes, my serveware is nowhere to be found, we finally find the set, lying in a wet tub of dishware, it is RUINED! They ran the set through the dishwasher, which anyone who has been in the industry knows they are hand wash delicate only and to make it worse the directions, just in case there were any doubts, were in the box they just threw aside. It is scratched beyond imaginable. I was livid to say the least, a gift that I should treasure is now just a reminder of all the negatives caused by the facility.

We spoke with Dona the following day about the set and she assured us that they would be replaced and she was genuinely sorry that we had the ordeal we had. It took almost 3 months and several attempts to reach Dona before we could finally get this situation fixed. Too long in my opinion to just place 1 order to fix the situation her staff caused.

THIS IS NOT HOW ANY BRIDE SHOULD FEEL OR BE TAKEN CARE OF! YOU DESERVE BETTER!

My fiancé and I wanted to tour this venue. We waited 20 minutes for Dona to give us our tour and talk about possibly having our wedding there, but she never showed up. The bartender on duty tried to get ahold of her multiple times but could not get ahold of her. We never received an email or phone call saying that she wasn’t going to show up either. A different wedding planner (Mary I think) was meeting with a different couple at the time. We left after waiting for 20 minutes. I will gladly have my wedding someplace else.