Wickham Park — Attraction in Manchester

There are so many positive things to say about my experience with Wickham Park, it is hard to decide where to start.

Venue: The venue is beautiful. When planning your outdoor wedding the cost of the bathroom, the tent, the water and kitchen needs, the rental of chairs and tables and ceremony benches will add up quickly. At Wickham, that is all included! In addition to all that, the grounds are absolutely beautiful. No matter where you take a photo, there will always be a wonderful backdrop. Even on our overcast day, the city was barely visible through the fog, but the colors were amazing. And you have access to all the gardens, so our first look photos and any family photos we wanted outside of our venue space was available at no extra charge. You can't go wrong with this all in one setting. I am sure the guests enjoyed driving to one place and staying put for all the events of the big day. It was also easier for our shuttle to only have one pickup and drop off location.

Communication: Diana is just my favorite. She is an amazingly sweet person with a great sense of humor. She is personable and really wants to help you create the best day for you. She always responded quickly and with great detail. She organized the best day of coordinators and rangers and made sure your day would run smoothly. She really helped to make you feel ready and prepared for your day.

Day of: Our coordinator day was Amy. She was so friendly and efficient. She was there to make sure we were hydrated and had everything we needed. She went above and beyond to make sure our day was set up just how we wanted it. I am sure she did a bunch more to make our day run smoothly that I did not see, but everything ran smoothly so I trust she was communicating with vendors as needed. She also was our time keeper, so she would keep us on schedule and gather us from our photoshoot when the next activity was about to start. I couldn't ask for a better day of coordinator.

My only negative is that the AC broke just before the ceremony. I get hot really easily and this was not ideal. However, it was out of everyone's control in the moment and we still had a great day in a beautiful space with our favorite people. Despite the malfunctioning AC I would certainly return to this venue for another large event.

Word to the budgeter: Although the venue may be in your budget, review the preferred vendors prior to signing with Wickham. I found them to be pricey and not a food truck option, but was able to make A Villa Louisa work within our budget.

Fun Fact: You can't fly a drone over a state park. However if it is licensed and approved by the ranger you may be able to for your event. So don't be afraid to ask for details if you plan on having drone footage.

Bonus info: This space is also very flat, so our several handicapped guests were able to navigate the ground relatively easily. One was in a wheelchair and was able to access all spaces for all parts of the day.

Another note: There is no bridal suite at the upper cabin venue, but there is one at the lower garden venue. We were in the cabin and just created a sign for the larger bathroom and made it our suite during the wedding, but didn't get ready there. The other bathroom we used as a handicap bathroom and the other guests had access to a bathroom outside of the cabin.

Overall, Wickham park added to my day in a positive way and I would highly recommend them for any corporate events and most...

I would not recommend having your wedding here. We worked with Sarah for almost three years on planning for our big day. She reassured us every time we spoke that everything would be great. The day of, our attendant who was now different than Sarah did not show up. On top of this, she assigned us one person after having told us it would be herself and someone else there that day. We even cancelled our day of coordinator because Sarah point blank told us that they do all of the things the day of coordinator does (except set up decorations) so we thought we could save money. Sarah replaced Pamela who gave us so much wrong information. To the point where Sarah spoke poorly of her. Which is surprising since she did not act any better than her on the day of. We had no notification that she did not show up. In fact Sarah claimed that she didn’t know until 2:45 that the attendant wasn’t coming. Our vendors started showing up at 1. There was no one to direct them. Doors weren’t unlocked for them to get in. No one was there to tell them where to go. There was no one to keep our timeline, to Help make sure we knew how to set up with the rain which we hadn’t planned for. The poor gentlemen they sent last minute to help did what he could but had not been a part of any planning so I’m not sure how he was supposed to help. I had to run around on my wedding day making sure everything g was going the way it should’ve (which it didn’t). Sarah is the event coordinator and did not come to be there for her staff who did not show. We had no support. Myself and my family did everything. It was one of the most stressful days of my Life. One I wish I could forget or at-least redo. After the wedding we heard nothing from sarah. No follow up or apologies. In fact, when we finally contacted her she acted as if nothing happened. She thought telling us that the girl who didn’t show was fired would somehow make every thing better. She said “well what didn’t go right?” She had the audacity to act like we didn’t have conversations that we had multiple times. Charged us for chairs that we spoke about not wanting multiples times. Her whole demeanor changed after the wedding day. I reached out to herself and the park wedding director via email and did not hear back from them. I am still beyond hurt and I sad about how this day turned out and how careless Sarah could be about such a special (expensive) day for a couple and their...

A nice day disrupted by a rude employee. We visited the park for the first time on the evening of August 3 and parked in a spot we didn’t realize wasn’t allowed. A middle-aged man with blonde/red hair came over and began screaming at us to move the car or we were being towed. I calmly explained that my husband was already walking over to move it, but he continued to yell aggressively — right at us in the middle of the playground area, surrounded by children.

I asked him multiple times to settle down, reminding him that the car was being moved as we spoke. Instead of deescalating, he insulted my parenting and what kind of “example I am for my kids” as if that had some connection to parking a car somewhere they didn’t like ..? which was completely out of line and unprovoked. I stayed calm throughout the interaction, but there was absolutely no reason for his behavior to escalate the way it did. It genuinely was not as serious as he was acting, moving a car is very simple no reason to yell and continue to yell at me after it’s actively being moved.

We were cooperative, and already resolving the situation — there’s no excuse for being publicly berated like that. The park is beautiful but that employee was...