The Wellshire Event Center

TL;DR the Sarah and the Wellshire team are incredible.   The Wellshire was absolutely amazing to work with and they made our wedding go so smoothly.   We planned our wedding from London, UK and we were able to lean on Sarah throughout the planning process and she's very organized in google drive. Her recommended vendor list was a really nice jumping off point and her other documents were super helpful.   The rehearsal the day before went really well and was great to have a walk through of exactly what to do. My mom (who organised all table decorations) was worried about having enough time to set up the day of and was very stressed about getting it done. Sarah and her team did a lot of the heavy lifting based on my mom's reference photos and my mom was able to spend most of her time in the bridal suite with me and was able to enjoy her morning stress free (can't thank you enough for that Sarah!).   On the day of, Sarah and her team helped everything stay on track by setting up décor, informing our guests of where to be, helping with the photographer, and answering soo many questions. The food was also very good (slightly undercooked veggies but otherwise amazing) We got so many compliments on the venue - many of our guests have lived in the area and had no idea it was here. The character of the building was what made us choose it. Our wedding day was perfect. Nothing went wrong, everything was on track, and everything was very well done. Thanks Sarah!

TLDNR: Excellent venue with two caveats: Try the booze ahead of time and get your own wedding planner. We did our ceremony at Cheesman pavilion, and then our reception at the Wellshire. **Alcohol:** They have an extensive wine distribution list, but the Wellshire won’t send you a full menu, so you have to source your own wines. Once you tell them the wine you like, they will tell you the pricing. The house wines are low quality and expensive. Kim Crawford Chardonnay for $36 is outrageous. My whole family are big wine drinkers and so it was important to us to have good wine. This concern was compounded by the fact that the wedding coordinator did not communicate about the alcohol deadline until about 4 weeks out. At that point, there was almost no time left. I was put in touch with their beverage manager, Todd, on 4/20/23 and our wedding was on 5/13/23. By 5/4/23 he said he was unable to source additional wines. While this was reasonable, I would have expected to be notified and reminded about this deadline starting in December (at our tasting) about what we would need to do in order to get different wines. No one had mentioned a deadline previously. We ended up buying probably $100-$150 of wine to see which wines we actually liked in order to make a good selection with the food. Be aware that you will definitely want to do this, unless you want to drink their house wines (Woodbridge). You can go to the golf club any day to try the different wines, which my fiancé and I did. With the exception of the Woodbridge Cabernet Sauvignon. the wines are about as drinkable as airplane wine. In retrospect, going to the golf club and drinking the wine as soon as you book the venue is the way to go. That way, you know exactly what you’re getting. Fortunately, Chris, the owner, was able to help us source our own alcohol despite the short notice and we were very relieved. In the end, we ordered Josh Pinot Grigio ($36/bottle), 2021 Josh Legacy Red Blend ($36/bottle), and the 2021 Bread and Butter Chardonnay ($44/bottle) and we got a much better wine for roughly the same price. Chris went above and beyond to make sure we got the wine we wanted. To me, the mark of a good business is how quickly they can rectify mistakes, and they certainly did that. **Wedding Planner** I would also recommend getting your own wedding planner. I did that five months before my wedding (shout out to Rachael Marie Weddings) and that was a godsend. While the wedding planner at the Wellshire is excellent on the day-of, I was very happy that I had Rachael the whole day, and she definitely had plenty to do. She even helped thinking about where the most strategic places to put the DJ was, which definitely helped with the flow between the two rooms. Since the Wellshire is doing multiple back to back weddings weekly, they simply don’t have the time to fully plan your wedding, regardless of what is advertised. However, despite these caveats, I would definitely use the Wellshire again for our wedding. The venue was done up to the nines, it looked fabulous. Food came out hot, drinks were flowing, and it was a great party. I was a little worried that it would be weird to have two wedding planners, but their wedding coordinator, Sarah, worked seamlessly with my wedding coordinator on the day of. Overall, I was very happy with our reception and would recommend the Wellshire.