Our Wedding Venue: The Stewart Barn

For most of our big-ticket planning items for the wedding, Tim and I already had an idea of what we wanted. This was very helpful considering we only had an eight month timeline. The venue we had in mind was the Stewart barn at 400 Stewart Line outside of Cavan. Tim had been to two weddings there already - his cousin's in 2010, and Evan and Kristy's in 2012. After having been to Allie and Eric's gorgeous barn wedding in summer 2012, I was completely behind the barn wedding idea. 

The main doors leading into the reception area.

The owners Susan and Dave were glad to meet with us and had big plans for improvements to the barn before our chosen wedding date of August 24th. We were also reassured by the fact that their own daughter's wedding was happening there on August 17th - I doubt there is any bigger motivation to get things done than that. They talked about new landscaping, replacing more of the flooring, adding a bridal suite under the existing loft, adding a bathroom inside for the bridal party and older, less mobile guests, new chairs, adding a commercial fridge, and redoing the lighting. Tim and I were really excited - until they told us that the rental cost for 2013 was $3,800. Maybe if we hadn't come in with any expectations, that wouldn't have been so shocking. But we knew that in 2010 they had charged $1,200 and in 2012 it was $2,000 - $3,800 was a HUGE jump from there! I was really glad to have Allie as a resource then, because I contacted her to ask what her barn rental had been at South Pond Farms in Pontypool. Notably, the venues were very different. South Pond is a wedding venue. It was built to hold functions of this type. The Stewart barn, while they had made a lot of improvements in the past few years and obviously had more planned, was still just a well-dressed farmer's barn. However, after crying to my mom and mother-in-law, we decided to bite the bullet and just book.

The ceremony area beside the barn. 

A number of features sold us. We liked that the ceremony and reception and photos could all be done on location. We loved that they offer a cleared field just down from the barn where our guests could camp for free. We were excited about the bonfire pit. It was also really important to us to be able to do our own food and drinks. The improvements that they were planning to make before our wedding also helped sway us. 

The head table and some guests already checking out the seating arrangements.

Out of those ideas, Dave and Susan actually managed to complete quite a few projects. The floor of the barn was completely redone - you don't have to be worried about gaps. It's not completely even or anything and I caught my dress on splinters a few times, but it is after all a barn. The bridal suite was really lovely. Full walls of silvered mirrors, antique dressing tables, a queen-sized brass bed that we actually stayed in after the wedding, and a beautiful nursing area for people with young children. The floors in the main area were my favourite - old extremely wide refinished barn boards. The washroom attached to the bridal suite was also really helpful. I have no idea how I could have gone to the outhouses in my wedding dress. They completely redid all the lighting, which is now absolutely GORGEOUS. The fixture over the head table was an old farming yoke with spherical crystal lights and then there was another birdcage fixture full of lights over the centre of the barn. They completed a ton of new landscaping as well that looks beautiful. They repainted all of the plywood chairs they had white to use for the ceremony and bought much nicer reception chairs and off-white chair covers for inside. They also added a bunch of furniture to the loft area and entranceway of the barn - couches, chairs, an old sideboard, end tables. I think the only thing they didn't accomplish was putting in a commercial fridge. But after they painted the two existing fridges with chalkboard paint, I didn't even care. They looked great.

People mingling under the romantic lights!

We were so pleased with how the barn and grounds turned out, especially once we had set up all of our tables and decorated inside. My problem - although I don't think this would have swayed me from booking here, to be clear - was more with Dave and Susan's planning and timing. Two weeks before the wedding we went for a final site tour, only to find out that they had purchased a ton of new tables and didn't let us know. We had already rented a pile of tables and had to redo part of the rental. They now have rectangular tables with chairs to seat 150. We were told we could have the barn on the Wednesday before the wedding to start getting things decorated and set up. When we got there, the barn was still set up from the prior wedding and there was still stuff from that wedding everywhere. We had to take down a big portion of their stuff, including tables and chairs, before we could start setting up for ours. They hadn't even cleaned it up by Thursday evening. They had sent chair covers out for washing and we didn't get the full number until Friday afternoon because they had also miscalculated how many they had set aside for us. 

Overlooking the hills of Cavan behind the ceremony area.

Most annoyingly, we were told we could stay in the bridal suite at the barn and that we didn't need to have everything cleaned up and people off the site until the Sunday afternoon. At 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of the barn doors being opened and furniture moved around. When I went out (thinking it was probably a drunken guest looking for something), it was Susan. I was not polite about asking her what she was doing, only to be told that she had someone coming to view the barn at 9:00 a.m. and she had thought we would have left it much cleaner. I am still so not impressed by this. She said that she had told Tim that they were planning on showing it, but they had originally told Tim it was being shown at 1:00. Then they got an offer to go out on a boat with friends, so they moved the viewing up to 9:00 a.m. Of course the barn isn't going to be cleaned up by then! We had 140 guests, some of whom partied with us until 7:30 a.m.! If you're going to show the venue the same weekend you have a wedding, show it the morning of the wedding, or after your current guests have vacated the premises. We wound up cleaning the barn at that point because I was so unimpressed there was no way I could have gone back to sleep anyways. And while they were giving the tour, they took the prospective clients into the bridal suite - which had my underwear still on the floor and our stuff everywhere, and then had a good half hour conversation with them in there, so I couldn't go in and get any of my stuff!! 

Ugh. Deep breaths. Enough ranting. We really had an amazing day and LOVED the venue. But I could have done with a little more professionalism and sensitivity from the owners on our day.

Another interior shot to make myself feel better. It was so gorgeous!