DBW gave me the wedding reception of my dreams! Firstly, thank you to Julie and Scott for being so accommodating during COVID times. We had to reschedule our wedding from July 2020 to May 2021 because of the pandemic and my dad passing from Sta...ge 4 lung cancer it just allowed me to be in a better place mentally to actual be able to enjoy my day.
If you want a beautiful venue and to do very little work to make it even more beautiful, pick DBW. Pay for the upgraded package for their decor rental and you''ll spend an hour picking out pinterest worthy items that have been proven to look good with their set up, and they even do all the work on the big day to stage the items for you. I literally just had to show up and give Julie the seating chart. That was the extent of my decorating. That's it. And it was GORGEOUS. We got so many compliments on the venue! Also, to double up on how little effort I had to really put in planning this reception, DBW's welcome package has a list of all their "preferred" vendors (which is mostly just vendors that have been there before and had a positive experience) and they were all high quality professionals. I went with everyone off their list except for flowers/hair/makeup and have no complaints!
We definitely lucked out and had a beautiful day weather wise, which is great because DBW is a big property with a lot of space for guests to mingle outside. Part of the decor package is yard games, so we had cornhole, hammerschlagen, yard golf, various tables/chairs to sit and gather at, a smores bar/fire pit and if you ask nicely and Scott is in town, they'll even do a tractor ride (that you can take booze on!). They also have various horses and dogs (in pens) that are very friendly that guests can interact with. And they are very well behaved. My reception was very casual and whenever the guests that were interested in the dogs came up for pets, there was no jumping or anything.
We didn't have a very hot day, but we still had the AC on. There's two AC units, but there's one that's directly on the dance floor and you better believe I incorporated dancing in front of it as a move because it was industrial strength and worked so well. The barn doors had to be closed to both keep the noise from the DJ as well as the cool air in but it was not a factor at all.
Honestly if you work with contracts regularly DBW isn't really any different. Make sure you read over it/know about the early end time (1030pm roughly, but they want everyone out by 1100pm), the special event insurance, the special insurance if you don't go with their suggested DJ (we went with their recommendation, ZeroGravity/Jeff and he was great, also already has the insurance), the closing of the barn doors while music is on, what alcohol is included in the buyback plan (also just a heads up if you do open bar and you hit your limit that you prepaid for, you can keep a card open and they'll check in with you every $500 to see if you still want to keep it open. Wasn't an issue for us but definitely is considerate since booze adds up fast and some people don't realize once they've been drinking), and things like that. The contract makes it seem like they are sticklers but honestly Julie and Scott were a blast. They even worked super hard to make sure that I had enough space for a Big Buck Hunter game for my reception as well as any other things I had questions or suggestions on. Seriously, they were so easy to work with, cannot recommend DBW enough!