Overall, our guests were happy with this venue! My husband and I had a great time, and our photos are amazing. The ladies' room is beautiful, and the guys loved the gentlemen's are...a. The chandelier in the barn really added a lot and made it not feel like the typical Tennessee barn wedding venue. The barn did not feel crowded, and there was plenty of room to include a band, dance floor, and a photo booth with our 190 guest count.
I would probably give this venue more of a 3.5 rating, and here is why:
1) We had a very poor experience with communication. For example, in a crazy confusion of the A/V package, we were told by a venue representative that they actually didn't know what the A/V package included. Additionally, there were many other instances in which we were confused, such as being told differently than what our contract said pertaining to when forms were due, sent a 90 day payment reminder from a venue representative two months before our wedding (sparking fear that a) our 90 day payment was never received and that b) they had the wrong date on file), just to name a few. Our point of contact changed a few months after our initial booking, which could explain some of the confusion.
2) Fortunately we did not rack up any fees, but contract language includes many ways to get fined (comparatively speaking, much more than other venues). Luckily, we had an awesome planner familiar with the venue's policies, Sweetwater Events, but we couldn't escape the feeling that we were walking on eggshells. A huge thing to know about this venue is the trash situation: they do not have a trash receptacle on site, therefore you can have your caterer take all trash off site to their personal business trash receptacle (which we had to pay an additional $400 for ours to stay at the venue from the end of dinner time to the end of the reception time), work out your own way of doing the trash removal with a lot of headache and likely additional expense, or if any bagged trash is left on site, it is charged an amount per bag resulting in an additional fee.
3) The venue itself is BEAUTIFUL, which is the whole reason we chose it. About two hours before my ceremony, it POURED rain unexpectedly. Then, the sun came out and the paved walk to the bridge immediately dried up, thanks to the power of the hot sun (it was in the 90s that day). I am not sure how this issue could best be tackled, but a construction flaw in the back veranda and the island is a significantly uneven surface, which means that if it rains a decent amount within, I'd say, 12-24 hours of your wedding, it will likely affect your use of the outdoor space. The back veranda had to be squeegeed off in parts, as there were sporadic huge puddles on the concrete ground as rain flooded parts of the veranda. The island had a similar issue; understandably, the aisle (center of the island) was super worn down. Unfortunately for us, though most parts of the island had mostly dried up enough to walk on (in those two hours of baking sun), there were still puddles inches deep in the aisle, resulting in us not being able to use it. Again, I am no construction expert, but I do feel this issue could be improved (and my wedding day would have been much easier if it was never an issue to begin with). This factor made it seem like such a gamble to choose a venue based on the strong hope of an outdoor wedding.
Hopefully this is helpful information, as I appreciated many reviews during my wedding planning!