I found Elliston Vineyards via the Knot.com when searching for venues. My husband and I toured about 6 or so venues - Elliston was #5 and we actually had 7 tours scheduled, but aft...er touring we couldn't get our minds after how quaint and beautiful the property was, so we cancelled our last tour and booked Elliston immediately. In addition to how nice the property is, the staff is great as well. Our package (which was actually on the less expensive side compared to the other venues we checked out) was very stress free and also accommodating. They have an in-house caterer which you're required to use (which we were a little skeptical about at first, but they offer a complimentary menu tasting and that eased our worries instantly. The food is fantastic and there's a wide range of dishes to choose from including pastas, salads, asian, mexican, etc) and beverage packages are quite nice as well. Unfortunately, only beer and wine may be served (no hard alcohol) but their wine and champagne is actually really good and they are generous with their pours. I can't comment on their beer, as my husband and I are not fans in general and we haven't spoken to anyone else about how they liked it. They had a pretty good list of preferred vendors, but what I really liked was that, other than the caterer, they didn't require us to use any of their vendors. The last piece within the package that I'm super happy about was that a day-of coordinator was included with no extra cost.
We didn't meet our day-of coordinator until about a month before our wedding. However, we interacted a lot with the other coordinators who were equally as friendly and helpful. The staff was always very responsive via email and would get back to me within 24 hours always. All of them are very knowledgeable in the industry and easily answered any and/all questions I had instantly.
We went to a total of 2 menu tastings - the first is complimentary which was awesome, the second was a small extra price per person, but definitely worth it. The 2nd tasting, we brought my family along and they too instantly fell in love with the vineyard! One thing that really struck me was as soon as my husband and I walked in, one of the coordinators I'd previously spoken with instantly recognized us by name out of memory! And when we were about to leave, another said "see you again in August!" without even having to look at her papers. Their effort to personalize was incredible.
I must say, the day of could not have gone more smoothly. While it did help that all of my vendors were on time and cooperative, Danielle had everything on lock. She was the perfect amount of involved without feeling overbearing or stressing me out. She took charge when needed and made decisions that I'm really happy about (ie we had extra flowers and center piece bottles so she asked me if she could use those to add extra color/decoration to other parts of the terrace room and patio. Originally it wasn't my vision but I said it was no problem, and the result was so beautiful!). Because of Danielle I felt absolutely no stress at all. If any of the staff from Elliston is reading this, from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for making our day run so perfectly.
Truly, I'm impressed with this venue - both the beauty of it as well as the staff employed. Thanks Elliston for making our day so memorable!