Fonthill Castle Reviews

Fonthill Castle is a scenic and majestic location for a wedding. The farm-to-table food by Jeffrey A. Miller takes the event to another level.

My partner and I were supposed to get married in October 2020 at the Fonthill Castle. The closer it came, the more we felt we needed to move the date. It was such a hard decision to make... there's so much work involved in planning a wedding and we already had so much money put into it. We were so worried that we would not be able to move our reception date at Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle , but our event organizer, Anthia was so sweet and Jeffrey A. Miller Catering was so flexible. We were able to roll the event right over to October 2021 and it was one less thing to worry about, so we were able to focus on how to do it right! I am so grateful!

I was able to attend a wedding at this location and all I have to say is wonderful things! The venue alone is stunning and a perfect location for a romantic, beautiful wedding. The staff was absolutely wonderful, I have food allergies and my server had to switch out. my meal because the sauce was not something I had and he had no problem doing so and was so kind and immediately brought me a new dish. Definitely a hidden gem & I would recommend this location with 5 stars!

Getting married in a pandemic was stressful enough let alone when we had to completely change venues three months in advance. We knew of this castle from a school tour that I had taken in high school and when our other venue was not able to accommodate us Fonthill was on our list. I loved it then just like I love it now. Anthia and Fonthill worked with us to give us the best day we could have asked for. The venue is beautiful, they allow you and your guests to tour the first floor of the the castle during the cocktail hour. There are three beautiful places on the grounds that you can choose to hold the ceremony and an amazing tent to hold your reception.

The only draw back is that the ceremony areas are on uneven ground which can make it difficult with walkers or wheelchairs. Anthia made sure to ask us if we had any family members with limitations to make sure they were able to get to the ceremony, cocktail hour, reception, and restrooms as needed.

Anthia and all staff took care of so much and definitely contributed to making my day that much better. This venue was the best thing that happened to our wedding. If you are looking for an amazing historical site with amazing staff and amazing food and drinks. You should hold your wedding here!

1. You must use their caterer (JAM) and we had a few issues with them. For example, my parents did the tasting for us and only got to try one of the three entrees we were serving. Also, the guests said the brisket was amazing but the fish was dry. (Also, after giving me four or five menus- I chose the cheapest one- not on purpose! I spent well over $45k on this wedding. We didn't care about price.) But they tried to upsell me by saying the brisket and corvina wasn't good "and seemed like a backyard wedding"! They were talking bad about their own menu.. I don't even know what to say about that... brisket is my favorite food and I genuinely don't care what anyone thinks. It's on your menu????
2. I had very little communication with my venue contact until 3 days before the wedding. Imagine planning a wedding across the country, during a global pandemic and it takes you 18 days to get a response to questions and then half are ignored- or sometimes you just get no response- ever! I am not even a needy bride... they were very basic questions. "Can you please send my linen options?" (Venue manager had said she would send the info and never did so that's why I was even asking in the first place lol!)
3. I paid my florist for a $3,600 floral chandelier - the centerpiece for my entire wedding- and then months later the venue manager who approved it months earlier (after a long discussion about insurance and who can hang things in the tent) said she didn't know where it would go.....??? "I just don't know where you'd put it" - excuse me? My wedding is in three weeks? Why wouldn't you mention that to me when we had a long discussion about even getting it approved? Made no sense.
4. This is a gorgeous place that is poorly run. We received private bank account information for another bride in a form that was supposed to come to us empty obviously (another example of poor management). My wedding was beautiful but I could not, in good conscience, recommend them to a friend or stranger.
5. Day of the wedding was beautiful and pretty well run! Although at the rehearsal the "assistant" didn't know who I was or where I was getting married. I didn't like that at all. I feel like you could at least read our file the day before the wedding. I know there are many weddings but if I was in her position, I'd always know who was next up in line... We had rain and the venue was flexible but my fiance and I were sitting upstairs in the carriage room for 20 minutes at one point waiting for someone to tell us where to go and we still have no idea why. After losing 45 minutes due to our wedding starting late due to the random rain (not the venues fault!) that meant we had a 4 hour wedding total. So it made a big difference.
6. They added a tent that I hadn't planned for and so I had nothing to decorate it with...................... the day before our wedding due to expected rain the night before our wedding. When I was like what the heck is THAT? I was told they would contact us that night to try and get it taken down and no one ever contacted us and it was there during my wedding next to the normal tent. They also added fake greenery rings to the ceiling and they are a sunbleached green from sitting in the sun. I HATED them and they were not there when we did our walk through of the venue originally- I just happened to see them in photos. Then I was told they are permanent and cannot be removed.

It was an overall bad experience besides the day of the wedding. I will not be changing my review so please do not reach out to me. There is no refund or apology that can fix the amount of stress this venue caused me in the last year leading up to our wedding. I am not a high maintenance bride. I am easy going. So if you aren't easy going, I cannot even imagine choosing this venue. Very sorry that I had to leave a bad review, I don't like to do that. But I will not let other brides deal with what I did.

Gorgeous venue & the food from JAM Catering was delicious. Everything else? A disaster. I cannot stress this enough you need to hire your own planning team. They are not organized enough to plan your day. We should have known we were in for issues when Anthia (JAM rep) was 1 hr. late to our 1st venue appt b/c she took a walk-in off the street 5 min before our appt. We were, however, sold on the gorgeous venue, the ability to have cocktail hour in the castle itself, & get married with the castle in the background. I also have been MOH in 3 JAM-catered weddings (different venues) & they were seamless so we thought we were in good hands. We paid the deposit nearly immediately. They did not contact us at all until we would reach out to them for the next year & a half. They never were on time with anything including invoices.
Like other reviewers said, they changed the tent 3 separate times without telling us. We would visit the venue from time to time & find that the tent had add-ons that weren't there at signing. We would learn a week before our wedding that we were no longer able to use the 1st floor of the castle for a cocktail hour even though that is what is specified in our written contract & sold to us in March 2021. Our wedding coordinator tried her best but we were so close to the wedding day we had to fold on their new stipulations, which again, they didn't notify us of this change until a week before the wedding.
We were supposed to have a planning meeting with JAM to discuss final details but they never reached out to us. Just like they never reached out to us to pick our menu (beware, menu pricing is completely different than their base packages, we paid $20 over package cost & when we asked about it? Anthia would just send us an email with prices typed out, no actual JAM official document), we had to request a meeting ourselves because it was July 2022 & we hadn't heard a word about it. When our wedding coor. reached out to JAM 2 wks prior to the wedding we discovered they had absolutely not kept a record of anything we requested, chosen, or scheduled. Anything from us being in their Social media program (which they accused us of not doing correctly even though we followed their instructions) to the silverware we chose to things as serious as our ceremony start time and us buying out the tours at Fonthill to get access to the castle earlier. We had to fight them to go back to a plan that we thought was settled 6 mnths prior. I was in tears the week leading up w/ all of the drama they caused us due to their own disorganization, these are only a few examples--Forgetting to charge us for things & not remembering their own emailed communications. I am so thankful for our coordinator b/c without her it would have been an absolute mess. Wedding day, Fonthill continued to host tours during the hours we bought out ($400+ wasted). They ended our reception 15 min early, started our ceremony late & promised us they would give us that time to only end us early. They wouldn't let our vendors in to decorate when they told us what time they should come. We don't know why we paid $4k to Fonthill for no usage of the actual buildings except the bridal suite. These are only a few examples. Our other vendors saved our wedding day and I just could not in good conscience allow another bride to experience what we did. And what is a shame is that it is totally the planning staff at Fonthill, other JAM venues were lovely for my friends.