The Barn at Five Lakes Resort

So this isn't exactly about a stay but about the wedding planning I attempted to do with Fair Hills. Back in November 2019 when I began looking at venues, it seemed that I struck gold when I found sister resorts Five Lakes and Fair Hills. They were affordable, in the right location, and SUPER accomodating! My coordinator, Rebecca, was the absolute best and I was thrilled. The contract was signed and plans were underway. Then about two months ago, I received an email from Rebecca telling me that she was moving on and there would be a new coordinator taking her place. From there, things started going downhill. The new coordinator, Liz, was almost impossible to get ahold of and when I finally did, she seemed to have no clue going on. With increasing frustration, I turned to the Five Lakes liaison, Marlette, who seemed to know more about our plans. It initially seemed just like your usual bumpy transition between personnel until I received an email from Marlette stating that it would easier for the resort if I moved my ceremony to a different site. I immediately scheduled a time to go view the other ceremony sites and realized right away that none of them were comparable to the site that I had already chosen (and paid for!) I let Liz and Marlette know that I would still like to stay at that location. About a week later I received an email stating that Marlette had gone ahead and rented out my ceremony site to a different party. I immediately reached out, sure that there was just some sort of confusion but they confirmed that they had done exactly that. If I still wanted to get married at the resort I would not be able to do it in the location that I had reserved and paid for. When I brought up the contract, they claimed they had never received it. (I have a copy) After much ado, and involving my mother in law (bless her heart) the resort, while they would not admit fault or that they broke contract, agreed to refund our deposit. Mind you- this all took place about a MONTH AND A HALF before my wedding. Due to COVID-19 this is an already stressful time to plan a wedding. I thankfully was able to find a venue to fill my needs and am expecting have a beautiful day despite these hurdles. That being said, I wouldn't want another bride or groom to experience this sort of stress, hence this post. Best of luck to all you and happy planning!

Had a blast at our rehearsal dinner at The Barn at Five Lakes! Amazing location on a private lake, delicious food, and all our friends and family were able to dance the night away in a beautiful space. Highly recommend!!

Our son and wife had their reception at The Barn at Five Lakes resort this summer and it was the best and easiest experience we could have ever asked for. Marlette and her team were so thorough and accommodating in guiding us thru this amazing experience. The venue, food, service and accommodations exceeded our expectations. I highly recommend the venue for any bride and groom, it will make your occasion a memorable and beautiful experience.

The Barn provided a very awesome weekend of memories for our family. We enjoyed Marlette and Lisa a lot. They were extremely helpful, courteous and patient with all of us.

Our wedding at Fair Hills was one of the best weekend of our lives. We were able to have all our friends and family all stay in one magical location. There was no anxiety for transportation, wondering about timing or concern about getting home safety at night. Just a stroll back to the cabin after dancing the night away!

This venue is absolutely incredible and very accommodating. It is beautiful and very well cared for and immaculately maintained. The availability of having cabins to stay in on site was very beneficial and provided great accommodations versus driving. The venue also has many things that are included in the price that help to save on overall costs - some drapery, on site flowers, games, etc. Speaking of costs, this barn was very well priced compared to other venues and was honestly the best and most convenient layout of any of the others we looked at, and on the lower end of cost. Without a doubt best bang for buck. The food options were all great and their steaks are cooked to perfection on site by Lisa. Lisa was beyond amazing and was willing to step-in and help out when things didn't go as planned. Only thing that kept it from a 5-star was some issues with being forwarded to multiple people back and forth to get questions answered and things coordinated, some delayed/missed email responses and some lack of coordination/communication in events of the big day. Overall, it is an amazing, beautiful and spacious place to have a wedding!

The Barn At Five Lakes is a gorgeous venue! And their staff are awesome! As a fellow wedding vendor I appreciate working with venues like Barn at Five Lakes. Highly recommend!

The Barn at Five Lakes Resort is nestled in rural Minnesota along the shores of Lake Five. Beauty is everywhere, no matter what season you choose to visit. As a vendor, I find the entire staff to be friendly, honest, helpful, and supportive. They work hard to bring your vision to life. The Barn itself is well kept as are the grounds. They take great pride in that. I can, and do, confidently recommend them!

Five Lakes Resort is an absolutely beautiful venue; Marlette and Lisa always go above and beyond to make sure every wedding weekends goes off with out a hitch and the Bride and Groom leave with beautiful memories of their wedding day. It is such a pleasure to work with people like this!

Could not say enough wonderful things about the Barn at Five Lakes. From the staff, venue, accommodations, views, etc. it was all fabulous! Marlette is such a great asset to have when planning the day. She has so much experience and advise and is also willing to work with you to help your vision come to life. We took advantage of staying in the cabins with friends and family and it make the entire weekend so much fun! It was great to make it a weekend celebration rather than one day. The barn itself is GORGEOUS! We hear so many wonderful things from our guests about it. Worth the out of town drive from the cities.

The barn was the perfect place to host our special day! I'll start out by saying we came to them with only three months to plan a wedding, THREE MONTHS! That's all we wanted and the five lakes resort crew catered to that desire of ours! They have a breath-taking venue and were professional and courteous every time we met up with them. I would highly recommend this vendor, and I can honestly tell you that you're in good hand with them!

We could not have been happier with our wedding here. The combination of perfect weather and the beautiful setting made our special day one we will never forget. We received so many compliments on our wedding from our guests. In addition, everyone at the resort was wonderful to work with and the food was outstanding. Highly recommend!

My husband and I got married at Five Lakes Resort October 6th, 2018. We honestly cannot say enough great things about the staff and the venue. We met Marlette in September 2017 when we booked the venue and she was one of the many reasons that made our experience EXCEPTIONAL. She always made herself available and so knowledgeable. Marlette was such a wonderful resource during the wedding planning process and the day of. Also, the barn is beyond beautiful. When I walked up to the loft area where dinner is served, I knew it was our place to get married. The wood details are so warm and cozy feeling. Also the lower loft offered great social space prior to dinner. There was honestly a lot of options on how to plan your day and display things, which I also loved. It really allows brides to be creative and make it their own. Also the food was excellent, we had stuffed chicken and prime rib of pork! Thank you Five Lakes Resort for making our day everything we could have hoped for! We couldn’t have done it without all of you!

To say that The Barn at Five Lakes is amazing would be an understatement. To say that Marlette, Lisa, and the B5L staff are incredible would be the understatement of the century! We planned our destination wedding from the Twin Cities. We had family from all over the United States and internationally - as far away as Australia - join us for the weekend. Our guests are still talking about our wedding and how fantastic the venue, food, staff, and location were. Specifically, Marlette is a rock star. She goes above and beyond to fine tune a wedding that is unique and truly yours. She supported our vision and helped us find options to make our ceremony flow. She took special care in helping us plan out the cultural aspects of our wedding, too. We had a late September wedding and ended up with brisk, early November weather (Minnesota, am I right?) and Marlette helped us re-design our ceremony for inside the Hayloft - it actually ended up working out better than our original plan! Special shout out to Lisa for helping arrange the space to not only make it beautiful but the best flow possible. Another shout out to Chef Ryan for preparing a special Afghan dessert, firni, for our dessert table. He did a wonderful job and our guests LOVED it. The Hayloft/Barn itself is so warm, rustic, and inviting and it made for a stunning setting for our ceremony, dinner, dance, and photos. There is so much character between the ceilings, the lights, and how open they are to let you decorate from there. On top of that, we were able to spend the weekend lakeside with the colors changing. If you haven't spent a September/October weekend in Northern Minnesota, make sure to do it soon. It's as if you're in a painting. To the Barn at Five Lakes, THANK YOU for making our wedding day so incredibly special. We had a good feeling when we visited the first time and they sure delivered!

Our wedding at The Barn was an absolute fairy tale of a day. We had specific dreams about what we wanted our wedding to entail and it involved a whole lot of moving pieces, including progressing through each of their gorgeous spots around the venue, as well as major movement around sound and tech needs in these different locations as the night progressed. They not only listened open-heartedly and with their own excitement about our big day but they also made it so that all of these dreams around our weekend could come true in a way that truly spoke to our own authentic love story. This is one of the most beautiful places on the planet and they just know how to throw a really wonderful wedding weekend. Thanks for all your work in pulling off our big day. We'll never ever forget it.

Planning a wedding in MN from NYC was not easy, but everyone at Five Lakes made it so much easier. They were so attentive to my needs and really grasped my vision! Food was great, staff was great, and the Resort is simply stunning. All of our East Coast friends were in awe of the Minnesota experience. Highly recommend!

Gorgeous venue that our guests and family could not stop talking about! Our whole family, bridal party, and many close friends were able to stay at the resort all weekend - making this truly feel like a destination wedding. We got married lakeside, had the cocktail hour on the lawn, and reception in the hayloft. Each area is beautiful and well cared for. Marlette is wonderful to work with, she is professional and responsive, and so kind. This venue truly allows you to personalize your wedding day! I would recommend to anyone!

The Barn at Five Lakes was magical. We chose the weekend package, which includes access to the barn on Friday and Sunday. We were able to decorate the barn on Friday so that the Saturday wedding was stress free. (HIGHLY recommend the Big Pelican at the sister resort Fair Hills Resort for the groom's dinner!) The Venue: I mean, it is a stunning white barn on the most picturesque private lake. The grounds are immaculate and the photo opportunities are endless. (GET CABIN 8 & 8A - so fun!) The Staff: Lisa and Marlette were SO accommodating. They worked hard to make sure that it was a special experience for the wedding party and our guests. Marlette was our coordinator and she went above and beyond what we could have ever expected. I was not a huge fan of the "big white wedding", and she worked hard to protect our interest in the day (reigning in my very enthusiastic family and bridal party). It was very obvious to us from day 1 that she was not trying to sell the most expensive wedding ever, but that she just wanted to give us the best experience possible. She was cognizant of our budget and went out of her way to make sure that we got exactly what we wanted (BEST cheese spread ever!). She is kind, caring, connected, and organized. I could not have asked for a better coordinator at the venue. She wasn't there just to oversee. Lisa is one of the owners and is a women of many talents. She did maintenance, helped put up the tent, mowed a path for this picky bride to take pictures, slung kegs like it was nothing. Seriously - this women can do it all. We loved Amanda (huge help with the groom's dinner at Fair Hills) and Ross the bartender. Even the cleaning staff were phenomenal. Everyone we talked to or worked with was so kind and so professional. The Food: One of my biggest concerns was food. It is catered in-house (from Fair Hills). It was amazing. The steak (grilled by Lisa on-site) was the best. The chicken was great (not the dry stuff we are all used to at weddings). Everything was hot, served beautifully plated, and reasonably priced. We talked to some of the tables served last and their food was still hot and delicious. I am not sure how they do it, but they do it well. Alcohol was very reasonable too. Their specialty kegs were comparable to what you would pay at a liquor store and their corkage fee (we brought our own wine in) was the lowest we found. Overall experience: 10/10. Everything was perfect. We spent the best weekend ever swimming, fishing, and playing in the private lake and on the beach. The wedding went off smoothly and without any stress. The guests loved it and we felt like we won the lottery. The venue was perfect, the staff were amazing, the food and beverages were phenomenal. We could not have asked for a better experience. I cannot recommend this venue enough.

The Barn at Five Lakes Resort is the perfect spot for a wedding! Everyone we worked with was very accommodating and made sure we had everything the way we wanted for our entire wedding day. We live 3 1/2 hours away from the resort so planning a destination wedding can definitely cause some stress but everyone at Five Lakes was so great about staying in contact with us for the entire planning process and making sure every detail was covered! We definitely recommend having your wedding at The Barn at Five Lakes Resort. It is a beautiful location and is great for indoor and outdoor weddings! All of our guests raved about the venue and thought it was a great place to get married.

Everything was perfect and beautiful!

I cannot say enough good things about how amazing our experience was with the staff and the venue at the Barn at Five Lakes Resort. Even though the weather was not the most cooperative the staff worked so hard and our weekend was even more magical then dreamed of! We even have talked how we will for sure come back to enjoy a weekend or anniversary here! Thank you Barn at Five Lakes!

The venue was beautiful! The staff was very good with helping make our day go smoothly, food was absolutely delicious! Highly recommend!

Everything about my daughter's wedding at Five Lakes was unbelievably wonderful! Planning it long distance over the course of a year was a breeze and a pleasure, under Marlette's guidance. Over the course of the wedding weekend itself we and our guests were treated like royalty. Our friends loved the experience of staying in the cabins and enjoying all of the Five Lakes amenities. My daughter and I were able to enjoy her wedding day to the fullest knowing that we were in good hands with all of the Five Lakes staff. A class act from start to finish!