About this vendor
Located at 331 Water Street, in the heart of Riverwalk Landing, sits the Freight Shed—Yorktown's premiere waterfront venue. Built in 1935 by the National Park Service after a tropical storm destroyed much of the waterfront, the original building was used as a terminal for Baltimore steamships until 1952. Then, it was remodeled and served as a post office.
The current facility, extensively renovated in 2005 in conjunction with the opening of Riverwalk Landing, is approximately 1,950 square feet with a large brick plaza on the riverside of the building. It has hosted many functions including weddings, reunions, parties, banquets, concerts, and business meetings and lectures.
The gorgeous views of the York River, coupled with stunning sunsets, provide breathtaking backdrops for the photographer on your big day!
The Freight Shed can accommodate seated ceremonies and receptions of up to 130 people. Beautiful glass, arched doors open up to Riverwalk Plaza, which offers an additional tented area that can be used for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and dancing. The tent is included in your venue rental Apr-Oct, with additional rental options available outside that time frame.
Amenities + details
Covered Outdoors Space
Handicap Accessible
Indoor Event Space
Outdoor Event Space
Reception Area
Wireless Internet
Dressing Room
Liability Insurance
On-Site Accommodations
Settings
- Beach
- Waterfront
- Historic Venue
- Tented
Awards and Affiliations
2013 'Best of Weddings'
Best of Weddings
The Knot independently assesses vendors for this award—it’s never self-reported. We base it on firsthand experiences from real couples and guests, and they must have a 4.5-star average across 7+ reviews in the qualifying year.
Reviews
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4.4
out of 5.012 reviews
This place holds itself out to be a wedding venue but it is far from it. Don't let the affordable price fool you. You truly get what you pay for. The venue was left absolutely disg...
usting from the wedding the night before ours. This is apparently a common occurrence where the freight shed fails to clean after back to back weddings. The kitchen had flies and leftovers from the wedding the night prior and the tent area was sticky and had spills everywhere.
They will book weddings the same day as festivals and fail to inform the couple that a festival is taking place the same day (even though they know when all the festivals are happening in advance as indicated on a festival vendor application I recently found). They will say we should have known a festival could take place. However they do not update their event calendars until the year of the event. Which makes planning in advance difficult.
This venue does not operate under wedding industry standards even though they hold themselves out to. The freight shed staff is very defensive when issues are brought up to them.
For example, the county popped up a construction site next to our ceremony space.
They were very defensive when we asked why this was not brought to our attention earlier. Had our wedding planner not visited the site, we would've never known about it. When we inquired, the staff immediately became defensive. Again, things happen that the venue can't control, but failure to timely communicate these issues is very concerning.
Run far. far away from this place!
LOVE this gorgeous space! So easy to put your own spin on this. We had a fantastic time here.
The Freight Shed is a quaint venue for a DIY bride. My husband and I have professional event planning experience, which we definitely needed to pull this wedding off without a coo...
rdinator. Shed staff was easy to work with, our emails and phone calls were answered promptly and clearly; however, we had zero in-person interactions. We provided a floor plan two weeks prior to our reception and the furniture was placed for us. The Shed rules are fairly stringent and your access to the building is restricted, meaning you will be setting up centerpieces the morning of your wedding if you do not hire someone to do that. There is also an annoying lack of trash receptacles, which was a nuisance during the clean up. Note that because of the limited furniture availability at the Shed (which cannot be moved outside into the tented area), we had to rent a lot of equipment to transform the space into what we wanted, including cocktail tables, a DJ table, up-lighting, bar, etc. (which had to all be removed from the premise by 11 pm). We utilized all available outdoor chairs provided by the Shed and paid the county separately to have our ceremony on the lawn (the Shed will not set up the lawn chairs for you). Through our caterer we rented all of our linens, tableware, and glassware. We also applied for a liquor license from the state. Despite all of the additional costs we accrued, this was still more cost efficient than other country club packages in the area. It took a village to pull the wedding off, but we were delighted with the results as we were able to handpick every detail.
This was a great wedding reception venue! It is indoors so you don't have to worry about weather, but has 3 huge glass doors on the back that look out onto the water so you still h...
ave the open feel. During the summer, a tent is available to use out back. We used this for the buffet and dancing - it was perfect! 2 issues I had: we couldn't take the Freight Shed's 8x3 ft tables outside so we had to rent some (but you can take the chairs out there so it doesn't make sense) and you had to pay for the extra time to set up even if the venue is available all day (I think they are changing this for 2018 though). Overall, it was a great choice. Perfect atmosphere and great location on the water!
Thank you to the wonderful people at the Freight Shed for being flexible and easy to work with through our entire planning process--especially on the day of, when we had to switch ...
to our rain plan at the last minute. Though I was shielded from this personally, apparently the rain caused flooding in the space that was quickly take care of and I never even knew it had happened! Beautiful venue, amazing view of the York River, beautiful place to say our vows and dance the night away.
The Freight Shed is gorgeous! They set-up the tables and furniture exactly as I requested. And the venue was super affordable!
This venue was amazing! The building size can be decieving. It looks small but we had plenty of room for 120 guests and a dance floor!
The location is beautiful. It's a great place to have a DIY wedding and you can't beat the price.
We booked the freight shed about a month prior to our reception. The entire process was easy and I'd highly recommend the facility!
I loved having my wedding and ceremony at the Yorktown Freight Shed. It was a decent price to be right next to the beach. Sherman, the manager there, is terrific and very quick to ...
respond to any questions you have.
Beautiful location! Indoor and outdoor venue. The staff at the Freight Shed was wonderful. Communication was great, they set the hall up exactly as requested and they worked wel...
l with the rental company.
We had our wedding reception at the Freight Shed, and it was perfect. A very cozy yet elegant space, perfect for small to medium sized parties. The location of historic Yorktown ma...
kes the whole surrounding area very picturesque -- landscaped really beautifully. It was a really great value as well -- absolutely a bargain by wedding standards these days (we rented it for 11 hours and paid about $700 for it -- obviously this varies depending on the day of the week and other factors, but still a great deal). It was by far the most economical space we looked at for our reception, and depending on the time of year, the tent they provide is free of charge. The coordinator was a pleasure to work with as well -- very responsive to calls and emails and very accomodating and flexible. Would definitely recommend!
Contact
331 Water St, Yorktown, VA
Yorktown Freight Shed