The Venues
540 S. St. Clair Street, Toledo, OH
About This Vendor
Gather In The Heart of Toledo
The Venues is a wedding venue located in Toledo, OH. This once downtown warehouse turned venue effortlessly mixes rich history with an industrial chic style. You’ll find brick walls, exposed ductwork, and a wooden accent wall that gives this space ample personality. An incredible venue to add your own decorating style to complete your wedding day vision. Our venue space includes parking for all of your guests, an outdoor patio space, bar and reception rooms that can accommodate weddings up to 300 people. We recently added an on site Bridal lounge that features a salon and short stay apartment. Come spend the weekend with us for your special day!
Amenities + Details
Ceremony Area
Dressing Room
Handicap Accessible
Indoor Event Space
Liability Insurance
On-Site Accommodations
Reception Area
Wireless Internet
Covered Outdoors Space
Outdoor Event Space
Ceremony Types
Civil Union, Commitment Ceremony, Elopement, Interfaith Ceremony, Non-Religious Ceremony, Religious Ceremony, Second Wedding , Vow Renewal Ceremony
Guest Capacity
Up to 300
Settings
Historic Venue, Industrial & Warehouse
Venue Service Offerings
Rentals & Equipment
Pricing for The Venues
Curious to learn more?
The Venues Reviews
4.3 out of 5.0
13 reviews
5 Star
77%
4 Star
0%
3 Star
8%
2 Star
8%
1 Star
7%
We had our wedding ceremony and reception at The Venues and it couldn't have gone any better! Julie was fabulous to work with and was very responsive throughout the whole planning process. She promptly responded to all of our emails and phone c...
alls. The venue space itself was beautiful. If you are looking for a nontraditional/industrial space, The Venues is the perfect place for that. My husband and I were able to decorate exactly how we wanted. We loved that we were able to bring in our own caterer and also buy and pick out our own alcohol. The Venues has you use Premier Pour bartending, and we cannot say enough good things about our bartenders. They were wonderful to work with and handled all guest situations beautifully! We wouldn't change anything about our wedding day!
Response from the Vendor on 06/17/2022
Thank you for your kind review! It was a pleasure working with you through your planning process. We wish you nothing but the best.
My husband and I cannot say enough amazing things about our recent wedding at The Venues! The building is gorgeous and full of history. We loved the industrial and artsy vibe! We are still receiving many compliments from our guest about how bea...
utiful our wedding was. The staff at The Venues were incredibly helpful throughout the planning process and their communication is very timely! The Venues is the perfect space for a wedding!
Response from the Vendor on 02/25/2022
Thank you for your kind review. We are happy to hear your time at The Venues was great. It was a pleasure to be apart of your day. Thank you and Best of luck to you!
We used The Venues for our wedding ceremony and reception on 1/1/22. This space is absolutely gorgeous and unique!! The layout is perfect for a large party and there is plenty of parking available. They have experience with a lot of local vend...
ors and the staff was great to work with, especially since we planned the event from out of state. The first walk through we had was via Facetime, and even through the phone we knew it was the perfect place to host our wedding. There were a few changes over time with our point of contact (to be expected with Covid) but despite those changes, everything was still executed perfectly. We were able to source all of the rentals through their sister company, Great Lakes Rentals which made things even more convenient. If you are looking for a space in Northwest Ohio that is a little different (not a ballroom or barn) The Venues is the perfect place to bring your vision for your wedding day to life!
Response from the Vendor on 01/12/2022
Thank you for your Kind review. It was a pleasure working with you and we are happy to hear you enjoyed your time here at The Venues. We strive to make all our bride and grooms day the best. Best of luck to you!
Any questions?
My husband and I had our wedding reception here last month and I cannot recommend the Venues enough. The reception was absolutely perfect. The staff was great to work with. Throughout the process everyone at the Venues was very responsive. Bein...
g able to rent things directly from the Venues was extremely helpful. The space is incredible. We loved the exposed brick and industrial feel. If you use this for you wedding, make sure to see the space in the back to take photos. The spot made for some really unique photos. The space is a blank canvas that you can turn into your style very easily. The bar space is huge and great for guests who want to mingle and chat rather than dance or sit at their tables. One thing to be aware of is that you need to bring in all your own vendors the day of. We loved this because we were able to make everything our own; however, you need to get everything out by 11:30 pm the night of the event. I HIGHLY recommend hiring a wedding coordinator if you have your wedding here. We hired April of Your Perfect Day LLC (she is amazing) and with her help we were easily able to get out by 11:30 without our families having to un-decorate. Highly recommend the Venues if you are looking for a unique wedding space you can make your own!
Response from the Vendor on 11/20/2021
Thank you for your kind review. It was nice working with you and we were happy to help you through every step and make your day perfect. Here at The Venues we strive to make the bride and grooms day the best. Best of luck to you and your new h...
usband.
We just had our wedding last Saturday at The Venues and it was wonderful! The aesthetic was exactly what I was envisioning. After years of planning and the day finally gets here, it was everything I imagined. We had a count of 115-120 and it fi...
lled the space nicely. You’re initial walk thru can be intimidating because there is SO much space, but once everything is set up tables chairs bistro tables catering tables it fills up so beautifully.
There was one hiccup I noticed with my experience with The Venues. It seemed as if each time I needed to meet with their coordinator or email I was speaking with someone different. Over the two years, I spoke with 5 different people in charge of the wedding info aspect.
With that being said, there was not one mistake made or one email that went missed. Everything was recorded properly and nothing was forgotten.
So even though that was my only negative comment, I still give The Venues 5stars. I received so many compliments, everyone loved the industrial vibes The Venues has to offer!
Response from the Vendor on 10/04/2021
Thank you for your kind review. It was a pleasure working with you and we were happy to deliver everything you envisioned. Here at The Venues we strive to make every bride and grooms day the best. Best of luck to you and your new husband.
I fell in love with this venue, however after many failed attempts at getting a response through email, I had to just call directly to speak to someone about setting up a time to come see it, after seeing it I loved it even more, I know the sit...
e list it as affordable, and maybe it is to some but I certainly was not expecting the price, if you are on a budget and worried about these uncertain times beware, they require a $4000 down payment that is non refundable, again with times being so uncertain that was a large amount of money for us to take the chance on, the price was far more than we expected, especially for a Friday off season wedding. A lot of our catering companies we contacted needed a full kitchen, they do not have that, they also require you to use their bartenders which is an extra $1400, not including alcohol, once it was all said and done we were looking at close to 12k just for the venue and their basic package of chairs and table settings. I think it’s a beautiful venue, if you’re comfortable with a $4000 non refundable deposit (more than any other venue we contacted) $1400 bartender service you have to use on top of all of the other cost, than go for it, it just wasn’t the right fit for us. These are extremely difficult times and maybe I’m wrong it just seemed very expensive for just a venue and bartenders. Had I known of all of these cost upfront I probably wouldn’t of even bothered and maybe this will help someone else who is on a budget such as we are. The venue we ended up booking included food, alcohol, tables, place settings, set up, clean up, covered chairs, center pieces and much more for the exact same price if not less.
The staff was wonderful to work with especially with the COVID situation. The rooms are spacious and kept neat and clean!
The Venues was AMAZING, they went above and beyond for Spencer, and I’s big day! We had a different venue booked for September, and as COVID-19 started to ramp up, and had no apparent end. We decided since all of our contracts with the various ...
vendors were written before COVID-19 (and had no verbiage about if the world was to stop from a global pandemic) that our best bet was to cancel as soon as possible and try to get back as much of our money we invested into our September wedding. Luckily we canceled before we started losing our deposits on a lot of the vendors. Like most of us, we had canceled so much this year, canceling our wedding was one of the most heartbreaking things we had to do. So we decided that wed throw a two-parter wedding.
~ Part ONE ~ we would have a smaller ceremony with our close friends and family (so we could still get married this year and at least have something amazing out of all of this).
~ Part Two ~ Throw an even bigger reception with a vowel renewal ceremony before those who couldn’t make it this year.
Fast forward to after our wedding and,
“Part One” was even better than what we think our wedding in September would’ve been. Working with Angie @ The Venues, we were able to design our wedding from start to finish (in four weeks). This not only helped with the cost, but overall, everything turned out perfect, and we didn’t have to settle on what the boring options other places had to offer. The building itself is laid out just perfectly. The interior is an excellent blend of modern and rustic feeling to bring some character and class to whatever event you throw. Suppose you are looking for a completely customizable, dream wedding. This is the place to go. It might seem like a little more work upfront, but it is all worth it.
But don’t worry, between the teams at The Venues, and Great Lake Rentals will make it as easy as possible for you. We planned our wedding (with help from our lovely moms and wedding party) from 5 hours away from Toledo, in less than four weeks there at The Venues. And there is not a thing I would’ve changed about our ceremony/social hour we hosted there.
The Venues was a perfect venue for our daughter’s wedding. I cannot say enough good things about it. From the staff to the building/parking lot itself, it was a wonderful place to hold a wedding. Angie and Kate were amazing to work with. If ...
anything was needed, they were quick to resolve the issue. Many of the guests commented on the beautiful venue, and myself and my husband could not agree more.
We attended a wonderful reception here last night for our family. You make the space special for your event. Easy to find, adequate parking and a great space for the 240 people that attended.
HORRIBLE OWNER PLEASE READ !!!!
When I first got engaged I reached out to GLEC and inquired about a possible wedding date of October 2020. We decided not to wait that long and push the date up to April 25, 2020. My fiancé and I booked our wed...
ding with GLEC (the venues) back in late March early April. We had several email conversation clearly stating our wedding date of 4/25/20, a contract signed by my Fiancé that was sent to Great Lakes via email , AND paid our $1500 deposit. We got a call Friday 8/16/19 that they had made a mistake and had us down for the October date , rather than the April date and double booked our day. After they admitted it was their mistake, and the other people had paid their deposit AFTER us my fiancé and I had 2 options , move our date, or get a refund. Already having all of our big vendors booked we were left speechless how this could happen and how WE were the ones getting screwed out of our date. My fiancé ended up driving to speak with the owner Tim, in which Tim was very unapologetic, and offered NOTHING to help fix their unthinkable mistake other than for us to chance our date , as if shuffling around all of our other vendors to a different date would be an easy task less than a year away from our wedding date. We ended up getting a refund, and washed our hand clean of GLEC, which is extremely upsetting because this was our dream venue. I left a Facebook and google review and shared my story with several people this past weekend. Tim ended up contacting us Monday with some major damage control saying he put a down payment on the Toledo train station for our original 4/25/20 wedding date. Where was this offer or sympathy on Friday we wondered.???? We ultimately decided we wanted no help from Tim and told him to take his deposit back and to never contact us again. For a venue that is upcoming to the wedding industry they did an absolutely terrible job correcting their huge mistake not to mention we shouldn’t have even had to change our date in the first place considering the facts. Long story short, I will never recommend any of their services to anyone and hope whoever reads this will take our experience into consideration when deciding on where to have their wedding. Obviously a contract and accepted deposit isn’t enough to ensure a wedding date.
Response from the Vendor on 08/23/2019
The following is a response I posted on Facebook:
“...I recognize your frustration and devastation and though not comparable, I do want you to know that I am personally upset about the situation. There was a failure of communication and multipl...
e opportunities to recognize the disconnect. Some of the opportunities were ours and we missed them. I take responsibility and am sorry for that. I am making changes to assure that this never happens again.
Tim Farthing”
Again, I can only imagine the emotions Emily and her fiancé have been through. I am not here to defend or deny that an issue occurred. It boils down to a failure to communicate and though both parties had multiple opportunities to see the disconnect, as I have discussed with the team at The Venues, the responsibility for clear communication is ultimately ours. We have made several immediate changes to prevent this from happening in the future. If anyone has questions about changes we have made to our process, my cell phone number is (419) Two70-3057. I would be happy to tell you about these changes.
I would like to address a couple of items by answering the question in the review. The idea that I, or any members of the team are unapologetic, or do not care, is simply not the case. As soon as our team realized the problem, we notified the bride, and I was notified of the situation immediately thereafter. Giving the obvious gravity of the situation we immediately went to work looking for solutions for the bride and groom. At the time the groom came into the store we had already begun looking for possible locations and were in the process of reaching out to nearby facilities regarding the date. This all occurred on a Friday which I believe contributed to the representatives of the other locations not being available to discuss date availability. When the groom arrived, he was clear that he would not consider a date change which I certainly understand. At that time the only options I was able to offer was a change of date at our venue or an immediate refund. Other options were not discussed because I did not have confirmation of an alternative location and the idea of putting another couple through the same pain was simply not an alternative. I refunded his deposit at his request, on the spot. Only when we received returned calls on Monday, and I placed a deposit to secure the date did I have the option to present. I did so immediately and was told by the groom they did not want any further assistance from us, which I accept. I have chosen to keep the date and location reserved until I am assured the bride and groom have found a remedy and have no interest in using the location at which point, I will cancel.
I am personally sorry this occurred and take responsibility for our communication failure. ”Damage control” is simply not a factor in this situation. I secured the date and made the offer in private and only acknowledge it because the bride’s question and the suggestion that we only did it to prevent negative reviews. Feedback of any type is welcome at Great Lakes Rental and The Venues alike. Again, if anyone has questions, concerns, or comments I have posted my phone number (texts welcomed).
Tim Farthing
Owner
The owner Matt and assistant Joe were absolutely amazing. They were very kind and they were always willing to accommodate us in any way that they could. They were always willing to answer questions, and they were willing to be flexible for the...
day of the wedding. The space itself worked perfectly for a wedding of 250 people providing a bar area and banquet area. They also provided on sight parking for the event. We greatly appreciated everything that they did for us, and we HIGHLY recommend them.
Matt and the entire staff were amazing to work and made our ceremony perfect in every way!!! Great space and even better people to work with
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