Berkeley Plantation

This venue is gorgeous and almost everything we were looking for. We wanted an outdoor ceremony & reception in a beautiful, Virginian! setting within reach of Richmond. We also wanted a place with a backup indoor option, which Berkeley has for under 100 people but it's not ideal (a building that used to house a restaurant, it smells a little like it's been closed up too long and isn't beautiful). We had searched high and low, and this was the only place we found that met what we were looking for. At first the price seemed quite reasonable - just over $3,000 for the afternoon's event. But, once you start delving into the rental fees for everything we needed (Berkeley literally provides nothing - not even garbage cans - but their grounds and parking lot), it got expensive fast (however, this is relative - we were looking to spend under $12,000 total which I know is on the lower side of wedding bills). Their wedding coordinator was pleasant to work with and the day of was beautiful - our photographer was very happy with our venue choice! As were our guests. We had our ceremony up by the house, at the gazebo and next to the big magnolia trees, which was very picturesque. Then we had our guests go down to the big lawn area closer to the river where the tent was set up. The kids were able to run around (and still be reasonably far from the river's edge) and adults could walk around a little. Everyone seemed pretty happy and we got a lot of compliments on our venue choice. Warnings: The dressing room for the bridal party, if you choose to use that, is above the gift shop. It does not have real curtains - just valances - so visitors sitting outside the gift shop below or people walking up to take part in your wedding can see right in the room. Not ideal for trying to change into your dresses! The only curtained area in the entire getting ready area is the bathroom, and that curtain is one of those sheer curtains with (decorative) holes in it - very easy to see through. I found that to be agitating since I hadn't even thought of that as being a problem beforehand. Also be aware, as I mentioned before - they literally provide absolutely nothing but their grounds. The other thing I would recommend - unless you want random visitors to the plantation wandering around the grounds during your event, I would start your ceremony at 5:oo pm. We did that and it worked well for us. By the time the ceremony was starting, all the visitors were leaving. Having it this late also made parking for us much easier (since we had under 75 guests, they were able to park in front of the house in the big horseshoe loop). Really a stunning location though all in all.