Gatherings On The Green — Attraction in Clayton

Gatherings on the Green is without a doubt a beautiful venue with many like-able features. However, the staff is NOT military friendly. Our original wedding date was booked in October 2018 and scheduled to take place 27 July, 2019. In February 2019, I was notified that I would be deploying for a year to a location in the Middle East and I had to report by July 2019, leaving us to make the decision to cancel our wedding. I am grateful for Kim for being accommodating at this time. She allowed us to change our wedding to a new date in 2020, when I would no longer be deployed. Our new wedding date was 10 October, 2020.

Months go by and I was notified that I would be moving from this deployed location to England in July 2020. During all of this, the COVID pandemic happened, and the military was placed in a stop movement which essentially means that all military members and family members are to remain in their current place until the stop movement is lifted. In May, my now husband and I discussed our situation and decided to reach out to the owner to notify them of our situation, and we requested a refund, as we were,and currently still are in an unknown, uncertain situation. International travel for military members is limited to emergencies only. With that said, I am unable to take personal time off, to fly international, so that we can continue with our planned wedding date of 10 October.

We notified Kim the very first week in June via email and phone, and it took 2 weeks for her to respond to our email. Due to our situation, we were asking to cancel and requested a refund of our Save the Date fee. After waiting, we finally received an email saying that this would not be refunded. In the contract it does say non refundable, however considering our situation, we were hoping the owner would be understanding. We were working with other vendors and not a single vendor had an issue refunding us and were completely understanding of our situation.

I’m extremely disappointed in the lack of understanding and support of our situation as it truly is out of our control. If you are military, I would reconsider choosing this...

I was very hesitant about this venue because of its size and the ability to hold over 200 guests in the reception hall. However, everyone was very comfortable and everything ended up being perfect. The rain from Hurricane Gordon hit our wedding so it rained for two days straight at the venue and we weren’t able to hold our ceremony outside. We were able to arrange the tables and chairs so that we were able to have the ceremony and reception inside and it ended up working out great.

Kim and her husband were very helpful and easy to work with through the entire process from the day of booking until the few hours prior to our wedding. I read a review about the owners hovering at a wedding but that was definitely not the case because they left way before the wedding kicked off and we had the venue 100% to ourselves. They were able to give us ideas about how to set everything up and were very compassionate, especially since it was raining on our wedding day. They were willing to help us with anything and everything to make sure the day, while not going according to plan, went as well as it could have. And it ended up being great. The location of the bar, the location of the head table, the caterers... everything! It was awesome.

I would recommend this venue to anyone that is looking for a nice rustic location that is secluded and very very nice.

The only thing that could improve is the area where the guys hang out prior to the wedding. It is in the barn with no AC, but if you’re comfortable with being a few doors away from the bride just hang out where the caterer sets up. That is the only thing I can think of that is remotely a negative aspect of this location. Everything...

The only reason I would give this place any stars is because it's absolutely beautiful and comes with a lot of great things . HOWEVER, don't let these ladies fool you. They made this day way more stressful than any bride should ever have to deal with. They try to make it seem as if the bride is the top priority and that they want to keep the bride happy. At first they were very nice people. We went to look at the venue (several of us) they had told us that as long as nobody rented the venue the night before the wedding we could have it (at no cost) to set up. Only a few weeks before the wedding they decided to add a cost to the night before which was very unexpected and cost $500 and also said they would still have to bring brides in and out to show them the venue. After telling them we were very unhappy at first again they acted to be very nice and offer the $500 back, but continued to change their mind several times to the point we were rushing around to find a different venue because they acted like we were going to lose the venue. Eventually we worked it out, they had us sign a different contract, that HAD NOTHING ABOUT ANY OF THE $500, SAID NOTHING ABOUT FRIDAY, SAID NOTHING ABOUT SATURDAY OR THEM BEING THERE. the ladies said they would be in and out and ended up being at the venue the ENTIRE TIME. Paying 2800 and not having the venue to yourself is a bit ridiculous. They were very rude, and I would not recommend this place. It is beautiful but if you don't want a stressful day for your special day don't book this place. There are plenty of places that are better or the same with better and more open owners, that tell you things up front and don't hide...