Mount Fair Vineyard

h. The property speaks for itself; mountain views, rolling horse fields, greenhouse and gardens. Most Charlottesville venues have very limited rental hours, but Mount Fair offers full weekends. It was incredibly special to stay on the property with friends and family all weekend, and it made our wedding weekend feel so relaxed and intimate. Elaine, the venue coordinator, was an absolute delight and made the entire process so easy. She was enthusiastic and helpful despite my (many) questions, and tried to say "yes!" as often as possible. This allowed us to be more creative with our event layout, resulting in a wedding that felt very personal and unique. We could not have asked for a more seamless experience or a more beautiful venue -- our heartfelt thanks to Elaine and the team at Mount Fair.

better. Elaine, the venue’s coordinator, was the most helpful and enthusiastic individual we could have asked to work with. We cannot say enough great things about her as she really did play an instrumental role in the entire wedding planning process for us. Elaine, along with the rest of the team whom we had the pleasure to meet - Carmen, Mike, and John - were all outstandingly kind and helpful in every interaction. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! MFV’s selling point - in our opinion - was being able to use their gardens as the most epic aisleway for our ceremony. We had 124 guests and could have fit more, I believe that ceremony site holds up to ~150 (and if you have more, there are other possible ceremony locations). We also used this location as a site for cocktail hour and set up lawn games in the grass near the greenhouse which were a huge hit. We had so many guests tell us that this was the most beautiful wedding venue they had ever been to! The venue rental is for the entirety of the weekend, which was immensely helpful. This allowed us to have vendors come in early and begin setting up prior to the day of the wedding. The venue rental also comes with tons of amenities. There is a 2 bedroom house centrally located on the property which we used to host our rehearsal dinner, sleeping space for myself (the bride) and a few friends, served as a spot for the bridal party to get ready the day of the wedding, and was a great spot to organize photos immediately after the wedding ceremony. The groomsmen got ready in the winery building down the road, and the Via Lane cottage was the perfect secluded location to take photos prior to the wedding ceremony and for us to spend our first night as a married couple. We were also able to use the garden shed as a spot to DIY our floral arrangements and bouquets. The only thing I would advise future couples to be mindful of is that there is a lack of cell service at the venue (although there is decent wifi). Being an outdoor venue, you’ll need to book some extra vendors that you might not with an indoor venue (tent and restroom trailer), and we additionally chartered a shuttle since the nearest hotels are in Charlottesville. However, that extra work is 10000% worth the payout of having the most stunning wedding venue you could dream of. If we could do this all over again a million times, we would pick Mount Fair in a heartbeat, no questions asked, every single time. There are so many different photo backdrops throughout the venue, which means that we have a ton of diversity in our wedding photos, and we didn’t have to spend a fortune on decor or florals to have gorgeous photos because the venue had it all built in! There is something magic in the foothills of the surrounding mountains and we are so fortunate to be able to carry some of that into our marriage :’)

Fair Vineyard was, first off, the most endearing, engaging, kind, enthusiastic and supportive point of contact in Elaine that we could have imagined (scratch that, better than anyone we could have imagined). She was on top of every aspect of the process, and just a true pleasure to work with. Secondly, the owner, John, took us on our tour himself. He was kind, humble, easy-going and good natured. So much so that, after we decided the same day of our tour on booking the venue, he drove back to the venue to meet us with two bottles of wine, two jars of homemade honey from their apiary and two hardcover coffee table books about Mount Fair as a thank you. Remember, this is just the beginning of our booking process. When we had our wedding walk through and the wedding weekend itself, we were introduced to Mike, the property manager, who was a phenomenal onsite contact to have throughout the weekend. Mike was engaged, helpful and, in true Mount Fair fashion, on top of every aspect of preparing the property for the wedding. The morning of my wedding, I got to spend some time with Mike and he showed me around the property. That’s a guy you’d want to have a beer with for sure. On top of all of this, when we booked the venue, we got it for the ENTIRE weekend. This meant setup could begin much earlier and it allowed the entire planning process onsite to be so much less stressful. No other weddings to be worried about. No other people to be worried about. An important point to call out about Mount Fair Vineyard is the simplified logistical experience that their property empowers. The property is huge. There’s a main house for the bride’s family to stay along with a small cottage on the other side of the property for the married couple the night of (or any other use). They have both an indoor and outdoor riding arena that can be transformed for any ideas you may have, a beautiful garden with a mini-greenhouse in the middle (we used this for cocktail hour and it was a HUGE hit), a log-cabin-style winery (which we used for our rehearsal dinner), and endless fields of beautiful grass overlooking the mountains that can be used for parking, tent setup, ceremony locations, etc. It’s an almost overwhelming amount of space that essentially serves as a blank, beautiful canvas on which to build your dream wedding. And I can’t stress enough how convenient it is to have a wedding venue where the entire bridal party can all get ready onsite (with the bride far away from the groom if you want), where the ceremony can take place, where attendees can walk 1min to the cocktail hour and then another 30 seconds to the reception, and where busses can easily drop off and park onsite, out of site. I hit the character limit for this review so I had to cut a lot out. Read the full review on Google or WeddingWire, but I truly cannot express how incredible this venue is. They foster a culture of love, nature and beauty here. And you can tell they’re in it for the right reasons. There’s endless space, expansive mountain views, beautiful nighttime skies with no light pollution to corrupt your view of the stars. You just feel at peace here. I can definitively say that my wife and I will be returning to stay (when there aren’t weddings of course) just to try and re-live it again 😊