Prairie Moon Winery & Vineyards

Beautiful Spaces for your Beautiful Day

Holds ceremonies and receptions

Holly Nissen

OWNER

Typically responds within 24h

We are a family-owned and operated winery in Ames, IA. From the start, we have focused on producing regional wines with character. Along with our ever-changing selection of wines, we have a large banquet hall that has the ability to host events from weddings to corporate meetings. Prairie Moon can accommodate functions in both indoor and outdoor facilities. We have hosted outdoor functions with live music and food for up to 500 people. We also have a full banquet facility available for rent. This facility seats up to 250 guests and has a commercial kitchen. Prairie Moon is a beautiful location for an outdoor wedding ceremony as well as an indoor reception. Prairie Moon Winery strives to provide a high-quality, memorable experience, one guest at a time! Prairie Moon Winery offers an awesome space for weddings and events that’s just dreamy. The venue has a banquet hall with breathtaking vineyard views, perfect for indoor and outdoor ceremonies for up to 250 guests. There’s also a suite for both the bride and groom and a North Patio to soak in those stunning vineyard vibrations. Plus, they have a fully loaded commercial kitchen ready to whip up some delicious meals that match the celebration. At Prairie Moon, they’re all about making your wedding day feel like a dream come true. They’ve got customizable wedding packages that cover everything from the rehearsal dinner to a fabulous honeymoon send-off. Their all-inclusive deal has got you covered. It has a custom floor plan, a table setup for up to 250 guests, a cool bar area with wine glasses, a dance floor, chic table linens, and even beer corkage. Prairie Moon has also introduced meads, hard apple ciders, and wine on tap, making their tasting room a must-visit for an unforgettable sip. Be sure to check out the gallery for an exclusive 360° Virtual Tour!

26+ years in business

Speaks English

Medium team (11-20 members)

Amenities + details

Amenities

Ceremony Area

Dressing Room

Handicap Accessible

Indoor Event Space

Liability Insurance

Outdoor Event Space

Reception Area

Wireless Internet

Ceremony Types

Civil Union

Commitment Ceremony

Elopement

Interfaith Ceremony

Non-Religious Ceremony

Religious Ceremony

Second Wedding

Vow Renewal Ceremony

Settings

Ballroom

Trees

Vineyard & Winery

Venue Service Offerings

Bar & Drinks

Food & Catering

Rentals & Equipment

Service Staff

Any questions?

Meet the team

Holly Nissen
Owner
With a love for art and wine, my husband, Steve, and I planted the first grapes 17 years ago and opened Prairie Moon 12 years ago. Over the years, we found our place as a Tasting Room, place for community and event venue for all sorts of gatherings. Our Tasting Room is open year-round, we host live music during the summer, and we host events for other businesses and the community year round in our banquet hall and outdoor space. We love getting to know our community members, and we certainly can't wait to meet you!
Kacie Mandernach
Venue Coordinator
Kacie oversees weddings and special events from start to finish. With a passion for creating seamless, memorable experiences, she ensures every detail comes together perfectly.

4.7

out of 5.0

24 reviews

Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help you make those big decisions with ease.

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Cassie P

Highlighted review.

12/27/2025

It was an absolute dream to have our wedding at Prairie Moon Winery. A few things that stood out as exceptional were the staff, the space, and how easy the entire experience felt f...

rom start to finish. Kacie was incredible to work with. She made planning feel calm and simple, responded quickly every time, and was knowledgeable and honest throughout the process. She helped us with every detail and handled every request, even the unusual ones. She made everything seamless, and I would recommend her in a heartbeat. The venue itself is gorgeous inside and out. Our guests loved being able to move between the reception space, the lawn, and the vineyard. It created such an effortless flow and a beautiful atmosphere for everyone. The decor pieces provided by the venue saved us time and money, and there were endless spots for incredible photos. Prairie Moon was flexible with everything we asked for and made the entire day feel easy. We had an amazing experience and would choose this venue again without hesitation.

Jake V

10/12/2025

I truly can’t say enough positive things about Prairie Moon Winery! We had the absolute best staff working our wedding and Kacie was wonderful to work with. She was super helpful a...

nd responsive. Hands down the best vendor we worked with! Everyone at Prairie Moon made sure our social day went smoothly. The staff was wonderful and upbeat the entire time. Not to mention the winery it’s self is beyond beautiful. 10/10 recommend this stunningly gorgeous venue for your wedding. It didn’t disappoint us at all. We loved every bit of it! Thank you all at Prairie Moon Winery. ❤️

Any questions?

Simon R

6/11/2025

It was an absolute dream to have our wedding reception at Prairie Moon! A couple of things that really stood out as excellent were Kacie, the event manager, the space itself, and t...

he overall flexibility of everything. About Kacie - if you want to work with someone who will make your life while planning an event as easy as possible, pick Kacie and Prairie Moon. She usually responded to my communications with her within an hour but a day at the latest. She is clearly very knowledgeable and is upfront about everything having to do with the details. She made a lot of out of the ordinary requests from us happen and she was absolutely a dream to work with. I would absolutely recommend her. About the space - it is absolutely gorgeous both inside and out. One thing we loved was that our guest could mingle inside the reception space but also outside on the lawn and near the vineyard, which was great for our guests. Additionally, the venue provided a lot of decor aspects that saved us a lot of money. There were also a lot of great spots for pictures. About the flexibility - overall they worked with everything we requested and needed throughout. We had a great experience. Overall, I would absolutely recommend Prairie Moon. If there was one thing that could have been different about our day, it would be that during our event, staff for Prairie Moon were setting up for another wedding the next day. I believe they had a staffing issue leading to this, but it was disappointing. However, it did not hugely take away from our day and I still loved our experience.

Matt U

7/07/2023

This venue is amazing and so beautiful. The staff was extremely helpful and pleasant to work with

Laura M

11/09/2022

Prairie Moon is gorgeous and versatile. I loved the bridal suite and bar set up especially. Amazing outdoor views for photos. Point taken off because of the frequent staff turnover...

. We struggled to maintain good contact with staff for planning and got some mixed messages about what we can and can't do. Wine tasting for family members was a big one. We had parents and a friend travel in to help us decide on what wine to serve and the new coordinator told us that we would have to pay for the additional people to taste even when the previous staff member said it was free. It was embarrassing and awkward for me who invited everyone. Coordinator also didn't do much on the day of and I had to go up to bar to ask bartenders when to dim lights, when to serve champagne, etc.

Sarah B

3/21/2020

Beautiful venue, great wine, and helpful staff

Emily B

11/26/2017

Janet was fabulous! She kept everything going smoothly and as the bride she kept me calm and assured me throughout the day! The venue was absolutely gorgeous and the wine was so ta...

sty! I wish the day would have never ended!

Taylor S

8/24/2017

Prairie Moon Winery did an awesome job working with us for our wedding. They set up all the tables for us, and worked with us to make our vision for the day come true. They stepped...

in the day of to take care of the details and were a blast to work with throughout the reception. Thanks so much!

Nicole H

6/07/2017

Prairie Moon was wonderful to work with! I planned my wedding from another state & Janet was always extremely great at reassuring me things were going to be perfect. She let us pi...

ck out wines the day before the wedding & sent us all of the paperwork since we couldn't stop by. The venue is beautiful & being able to use the inside & outside spaces was great for my guests. There were no issues with the catering(Hickory Park), live band, or other vendors! It's def not their first wedding :)

Alyssa S

6/15/2016

Very pleased with Janet's patience and guidance! She went above and beyond the call of duty. Excellent service and the venue is gorgeous :)

Natalie H

1/22/2016

Janet was extremely helpful in planning for, setting up, and tearing down my wedding reception at Prairie Moon Winery. Prairie Moon was the perfect, rustic setting for my wedding ...

and the wine is amazing!

April D

11/04/2015

Janet Nissen is fantastic to work with; she is very easy to talk to and has great information for setting up your event. Prairie Moon does not dictate which vendors you use and giv...

es you a 10% discount on your wine selected for your event. Their wine selection is great and they have a new brew house on the grounds, Aluvial brewing. The winery has a beautiful rustic charm with a grain bin gazebo, exposed wooden beams, dried grapevines, twinkle lights and local art work. We had our wedding ceremony and reception at this lovely venue.

Sarah M

9/02/2015

Janet is the Winery's wedding coordinator. She is absolutely wonderful to work with and very helpful when preparing for your wedding at the winery. There is an inside and outside ...

location making a variety of options for the preferences of a variety of guests. My wedding was on July 11th and the vines were very full and beautiful!! I would highly suggest this location for anyone!

Rachel E

5/28/2015

I got married at Prairie Moon on 5/1 and I know that I absolutely made the right choice. Janet was great to work with, she assured me plenty of times "All I need is 10mins and I'll...

make it happen." and she did it in 5. She's fantastic! She was available through my entire rehearsal and ceremony and most of the reception and when she left, she made sure to introduce me to her staff that would be taking over for the rest of the night. I appreciate all of her hard work on making my wedding day the best! I highly recommend this venue.

Candice B

3/31/2015

I just got married at Prairie Moon this past weekend and it was wonderful! The coordinator for this venue was so helpful! She was always there checking in on me, moving around tabl...

es, helping guests, helping our caterer! Very cheerful and kind! The Wine was wonderful as well! I would recommend this place to ANYONE! You will love it! We had more compliments from people loving the venue and what's around it!

Lexi O

10/20/2014

Prairie Moon served as the perfect back drop for our special day!

Cathleen a

8/26/2014

Amazing venue!! everyone was so nice and accommodating.

Brittany M

8/13/2014

Words cannot describe how happy I am that we went with Prairie Moon Winery for our wedding vendor. Janet is the event coordinator at the winery and she was SO MUCH help. She was ...

always emailing me keeping in touch about our wedding plans and answered any questions that I asked. The winery had a couple different places you can have your ceremony outdoors and a beautiful inside area for the reception. We had so many compliments on how beautiful our wedding was and we hardly had to decorate. Our wedding day was perfect at Prairie Moon!

Sarah B

7/19/2013

I absolutely adore the interior of Prairie Moon. The rustic look compliments everything I wanted in my dream wedding. The weekend of our Saturday reception, no one had booked the v...

enue on Friday so the staff at Prairie Moon allowed us to come in Friday to decorate. This was a huge help and eliminated a ton of stress for us (normally people have to decorate the day of their event). I cannot thank them enough for this. On the negative side, I felt like we were misled during our meetings with the event coordinator, Janet. We asked them multiple times for an estimate on wine/beer/sangria calculations for a party of 175. She very confidently told us that 1 keg would be more than enough and that we would end up wasting a lot if we got anymore. After deciding to go with her suggestion (she does this for a living, right?!), we were told that the bartender would keep us updated throughout the night on the status of the drinks (were we getting low on anything?) so that we could send a runner to pick up more bottles from the nearest grocery store if necessary. The reception, which was scheduled to last until 11pm ran out of beer shortly after 9 without being notified by any of their staff. In fact just 15 minutes earlier my parents had asked how we were doing and they were told there was over half a keg left. This forced us to purchase more of their wine to keep the alcohol flowing. Compared to the other venues I had looked it (ISU alumni Center, ISU Memorial Union, etc) this venue was one of the more expensive and I felt like there were a lot of additional costs that seemed silly. They charged for the use of their dance floor (even though they told us that REMOVING it was more work than leaving it in place - shouldn't they only charge if the dance floor has to get taken away then?). In addition there were fees for bringing in beer.

Erin U

6/17/2013

coordinator was great and talked with all our vendors, even though it rained on our wedding day everyone who worked there worked very hard to make everything just as nice, set up w...

as easy, everyone complimented us on how beautiful the place was

Dana K

2/12/2012

Prairie Moon Winery was picture-perfect for our wedding. The backdrop of the vines for our ceremony was gorgeous. Their reception area was large enough to accommodate 300 people, a...

plus since most wineries in the area couldn't hold more than 150. The price was reasonable, especially for how beautiful of a setting it is. Make sure you book early, because they fill up quickly! The coordinator, Janet, was very helpful in answering our many questions, and we were given a ten percent discount on the wine. A big plus was that they had no contract with a caterer, so we could still have a great place without breaking the bank on food cost. They also have a great sangria. I think one of the wines was mixed up for our batch because it didn't taste as good as I remembered from trying it before the wedding day, so if you go with the sangria have them double-check the sangria before it gets served. Overall however, the place was fabulous and we would recommend it to anyone.

Rebekah S

11/15/2011

The staff is very nice and accomidating. We had a about 200 guests and they were very comfortable. They really enjoyed the free wine tasting until 6pm. Even though there were no gr...

apes on the vines, the outdoor spaces was still awesome and made for some great pictures!

Chelsea W

7/17/2011

This is the most picture-esk setting. However, it's $2,600 for a Saturday wedding (not including an fees for kegs, a bartender (s), a dance floor, etc. This just includes the space...

and chairs. They don't work with you to provide set-up help - you put up all chairs, tables, decorations, etc. You also take down everything - minus the chairs. It adds a lot of unneeded stress to make sure everything is perfect on your wedding day. We loved our wedding, but took two days to recover from all the work going into it and after.

Nicole T

10/02/2010

I knew I wanted to get married at a winery but had never heard of Prairie Moon. I was totally satisfied with our decision! Both the outdoor and indoor spaces were beautiful and f...

unctional! Plus the wine was great! Our guests drank what we had estimated we would need, plus an extra case of wine and two kegs of beer by 10:30! It was great!!

Service area & Contact info

3801 W 190th Street, Ames, IA

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(515) 232-2747

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Prairie Moon Winery & Vineyards

Holly Nissen

Owner

Typically responds within 24h

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Prairie Moon Winery & Vineyards

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