Pilot Mountain Vineyards & Winery

Mark and Kari are just wonderful to work with. We appreciate all the help and guidance they gave on my daughters wedding!

My husband and I got married here 4/27! We had an amazing experience and a gorgeous wedding. Not a single thing went wrong!!. The property is beautiful. The value is great ! It was very stress free. Some of the negative reviews made us nervous leading up to our wedding, but we did not experience any of the issues mentioned in reviews. When you book here, know that Kari will take good care of you and make sure everything goes right. Some people may find her to be somewhat micromanaging but you really need that on your wedding day. Weddings are complicated and things will change so you have to be flexible and know it will be beautiful regardless, especially when Kari is taking care of you.

We had our wedding here on October 14th, 2023 and it was absolutely beautiful! Their venue is spectacular and provides beautiful mountain views without driving all the way to western NC. We met with Kari twice before the wedding and used her as our Day of Coordinator, which was perfect as she has lots of experience with how wedding days flow at her venue. I didn't get bombarded with questions throughout the day as the bride because Kari and my mom/MIL were addressing them as they came up. We chose their Chardonnay Package, which included Kari as the Day of Coordinator, her husband as DJ, and an overnight stay after the wedding. We are so happy we chose this package because it was very convenient to not have to arrange transportation back to a hotel or AirBnB off the property. Additionally, it was nice to have someone familiar with their sound system working as the DJ. The only downside is the system did cut out a few times, causing some interruptions in the dance music, but they worked diligently to get it back up and running. I loved the chairs and long tables they had at the reception site, as it allowed us to have a Head Table and helped our guests to mingle with one another rather than trying to speak over a large round table. We also had a greenery background with a light up sign that had our last name on it that Kari worked with us on to find the right place to hang it. Our guests took pictures with a Polaroid camera in front of it as our "guest book". We are so happy we did this as it was sentimental getting to look back on these pictures after the honeymoon and see how much fun our friends and families had. Their wine was also exceptional! Everyone drank more of it than we expected, even with the option to have beer or seltzer. They even offered a specialty wine drink that was warm. Overall, we would still choose to have our wedding here again if we had to do it all over again and couldn't recommend Kari and Mark enough for all of their hard work!

The venue has a beautiful view, especially at sunset. That is the positive. We worked with Kari and Mark for a little over a year on our wedding, multiple in- person meetings and a shared google doc , for wedding planning, which itself sounded like a good idea. Ultimately we were highly disappointed in the professionalism and unkept promises afforded to us regarding our day. Virtually all of our vendors reported they would not return to this venue due to the lack of professionalism they received from the owners at this venue. Kari would “edit” our shared google doc without conversation ahead of time. She kept changing our exit time, the time of ceremony as well as other details without alerting us as to what the change was and why. We highly suggest you check this daily as little details matter. She changed our ENTIRE wedding package without communication including booking an entire wedding on our rehearsal day forcing us to find a different location for that. WE had to find that out on our own. She also changed our wine selections, again, no communication. The Airbnb for your Wedding night stay is their primary residence. This is never actually disclosed. Kari and Mark will be staying in the same home as you and your new Husband/Wife the night of your wedding, in the bedroom RIGHT above your bridal suite. You will be sharing your wedding evening with the owners of the venue. Just wanting to make that clear for anyone wanting to book a stay at this establishment. Kari was rude to our vendors, our photographer stated “Kari was telling me how to do my job.” Our DJ said he would never return there because she was rude to his wife who was running the photo booth (which was amazing, by the way, even though Kari tried to talk us out of one multiple times saying “nobody ever uses them”) We have an entire album from the DJ of our guests enjoying the photo booth. As we cleaned up to our belongings after the reception was over Kari was rushing around demanding us to pack up. We still had another full hour available to us. Finally, Kari ruined our final dance. We had opted for a final dance together alone in the reception hall . Half way through the song, Kari ran into the reception hall, interrupted our last dance to tell us that we had to go, the sparklers were running out demanding we do it THEN. There was an ENTIRE box of sparklers leftover (still in my garage) which could have been used or she could have waited for us to finish our dance to light them. Kari made our guests move further apart and ruined the shot our photographer has done multiple times over the years. We were promised s’mores at the firepit at the patio (per our spreadsheet), she refused to light the propane because she only had a half a tank. I would expect her to be more prepared. We say all of this to inform the next couple. Do not agree to an all inclusive wedding package with Pilot Mountain Vineyard and Weddings. You will regret it. You need a professional coordinator for your wedding day, a real DJ, not a spotify list, a caterer with experience and cake by a cake artist. If you do not, you will sell yourself short, you will have many more regrets than we did. ~Pete and Leanne