Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park

We loved having our wedding reception at the Conservancy! What is not to love about Happy Days Lodge? It will feel so special, especially if you love the outdoors like us. The venue is absolutely stunning. You don't need much to add to decor. It was perfect for our fall wedding. The girls who work there are great. Everyone who worked with us was calm and professional. When COVID hit, communication was very open and we were pretty shocked to see they were offering full refunds if our plans had to change. It really took the stress out of pandemic planning with their attention to detail and safety measures. We were provided with informative open houses and layout plans to adjust to guidelines. Overall, the only thing we can really negatively say revolves around price. This place isn't cheap, but we would rather have our money go to the CVNP than to a golf course or something. There are preferred caterers to hire, and they are all required to be full service (that turned out to be a nice thing though, truly). Also, we had multiple changes to plans with the bar and alcohol cost. I won't get into details, because I think this was all attributed to COVID related stress on the conservancy, though. Overall, we loved having our wedding here. We truly recommend it. It helped make our day perfect and we could not imagine having had it anywhere else.

Booking Happy Days Lodge as our venue was the first decision (and one of the best) we made in the wedding planning process. CVNP served as a beautiful back drop for our big day, and the lodge had plenty of space for our guests. The staff was accommodating through the process and on event day. Definitely check out this space. We fell in love with it!

We just had our ceremony and reception at Hines Hills. This is such a hidden gem! The location is absolutely beautiful! If you’re looking for an outdoor venue, this can’t be beat. Our wedding theme was rustic elegance and this was the perfect place to fulfill our vision! One thing we really loved about Hines was that you have the venue space on both Friday and Saturday. We had a “Family Fun Day” with all of the wedding party, children, and a lot of our wedding guests. It was nice for both sides of the family to meet and for out of town guests to get settled in before the big day. We also took advantage of everyone’s help and did a lot of our own set up that day! We were blessed and had the most perfect weather. There are buildings for a rain plan, however, it would be a tighter squeeze for anything over 100. Katie was easy to work with and very responsive to all my emails and texts! I would definitely recommend going with one of their preferred vendors who know the area, have worked at the venue before, and know the rules.

The venue for Hines Hill worked beautifully! Our guests loved the option to spread out and play lawn games or sit by the fire. All of the companies we worked with were familiar with the staff and the rules of the park which was also helpful. We did, however, stop hearing from the coordinator as the wedding became closer. Up until that point, the staff was very responsive and helpful.

We had our wedding and reception at Happy Days Lodge this past May. I could not have been happier with our choice of venue. We decided a few months prior to have our ceremony on the screened-in porch (which is absolutely gorgeous) because I did not want to worry about rain. It gave us the exact same rustic outdoorsy feel of being outside. Kayla was an absolutely pleasure to work with! She was very prompt in answering all of my questions and concerns. She was wonderful, and I highly recommend this venue to anyone that wants a rustic themed wedding!

We had a winter wedding at the Happy Days Lodge and we loved it. We love the National Parks so getting married in one was perfect for us. The space is great and the staff helpful and cool. We rented a heater for the screened in porch, had the ceremony there and then reception in the heated hall. We barely did any decorating because the place is already so beautiful!

I got married on January 6 and we held our reception at Happy Days Lodge. It was absolutely the most perfect wedding. Every detail was made possible because of how well the Lodge is run. First, Kayla is incredible. She was so flexible with me and allowed me to go into the lodge numerous times for planning purposes. She answered every question and worked with me as I changed the table set up multiple times and did things different than most brides have done there. The lodge itself is so flexible. We looked at many venues in different price categories and Happy Days was not only the most affordable, but also the most "workable." The space is a masterpiece just waiting for creativity to take its part in making it perfect. The venue allows candles which is huge! (as long as they're in glass votives.) They allow you to hang things from the ceiling (if you bring your own ladder), and actually the gorgeous stick and branch canopies we made with lights and crystals are still at the lodge for anyones use, just ask them about it! And can we talk about how its impossible to find a venue with long tables?! Well, Happy Days has them!! If you are looking to use table runners made of full and beautiful greenery this place allows that! Which is another huge bonus! We also had a fire going and it just added to the romance and ambiance. It was negative 10 degree win chill on our wedding day and the walk from the parking lot under the tunnel to the lodge wasn't an issue at all, no one complained about it. The screened in porch was marvelously heated with a propane heater that we rented, and the lodge was warm also! I would do my wedding a thousand times over the exact same way it was done, the exact same place, at the beloved Happy Days Lodge which holds such a special dear place in our hearts now!

We got married recently at Happy Days Lodge and it could not have been a more perfect venue for us! It's rustic without being *too* rustic, historical, and set within beautiful Cuyahoga Valley National Park. And we loved that we could have both the ceremony and reception at one venue. There was a change in the guest services staff leading up to our wedding, but I only have good things to say about working with the staff at Happy Days! Everything went smoothly, and they were easy to communicate with.

We got married at Hines Hill Conference Center on September 2, 2017. Katie was absolutely phenomenal to work with and made everything go so smoothly! Our guests have been raving about how beautiful it was. Even with a little rain, our guests still had fun and Katie made sure we were more than ready for a rain back up plan. I couldn't have imagined it going better and Hines Hill is really a gorgeous venue!

We had our reception at the Virginia Kendall Lodges Shelter. The speace felt cozy and intimate, which is exactly what we were looking for. It's a rustic venue that speaks for itself mostly. It is set in the park so there was plenty of room for kids to run outside or adults to take a quiet hike. We didn't want everyone to feel like they had to stay in the shelter. We only added a few decoration details that really took to a classy rustic wedding reception. The only bad thing I might say, and it is not a knock against the venue itself but really the people at the park is it is a public park so some people who were interested in what was going on would venture in not realizing it was a private party. Since it is also a locked facility and the park doesn't have the staff to come and let you see it, you kind of have to peek through windows before and have an eye and mind for space planning. It all came together beautifully for us, but admittedly I was worried with not really having been IN the space beforehand.

Our wedding was absolutely incredible at Happy Days Lodge. As another reviewer mentioned, there was a lot of turn over in staff in the months prior to the wedding, but this didn't really effect much for us. We came and saw the venue multiple times, had good response time on questions asked via email, and my mom attended several of the bridal shows they had there. Brittany Filko did a great job, she helped coordinate the vendors in the hours prior to the ceremony, and pretty much kept to herself throughout the rest of the night unless someone had question. We would absolutely recommend this venue to anyone! -Katie & Andy

Getting married at Happy Days Lodge was so beautiful! We loved the venue and it made for an awesome wedding. However, there have been a lot of staff changes there and who we originally started working with when we booked the venue, but many people changed and left throughout the process. On the day of the wedding, a few things went wrong and the team at Happy Days refused to take any responsibility for the errors. Additionally, the staff who was there the night of the wedding were not helpful and seemed very uninformed on how to control things. We are disappointed because we were very excited about the venue and getting married there, but unfortunately we did not enjoy the experience with the staff. I would not recommend this venue to people with the current staff there.

We were on a very tight budget and only looked at CVNP because we go hiking here. It was the BEST decision we made for the ENTIRE wedding. We had our wedding at Happy Days Lodge in September. The ceremony was on the screened in porch because it was a bit too muddy outside. However, this did not ruin anything. The porch may have even been better. The breeze felt like we were outside yet we were protected from the sun. It was beautiful. The main room was more than perfect. It was spacious yet not empty. Brittany is the most amazing person we dealt with for our wedding. She is very prompt at returning calls or emails and answers every question and concern. She had no problem changing plans up to the day of the event and the setup and running of the event was perfectly smooth. She helped plan where the buffet table would be, where the bar would be, the DJ, the head table, the guests, everything. And all her suggestions were amazing. I don't think we can ever say enough good things about her. She made our day excellent. The other staff were great too. As I was waiting for the ceremony to start, I had some nerves. I was alone in the room, everyone else standing outside. They talked to me, gave me some water, and assured me everything was great in the other room. And they were right. Everyone was simply wonderful. The building itself does NOT have to be or feel rustic. We went for a casual fall-themed wedding and succeeded. No one said it looked rustic - which is good because that is not what we were going for. However, you can play up the rustic if you want.

We had a spring wedding at Happy Days Lodge. It is literally the perfect rustic venue. (Not too rustic though - the temperature was very comfortable the whole time!) There are ample photo ops around the venue, including a big green field and a nice underground tunnel. Finally, the wedding coordinator (Brittany) was more than helpful during the whole process! She answered all of our questions, let us visit multiple times prior to the wedding, and was extremely pleasant. LOVED her and the venue!