Wishing Well Barn, Inc. — Attraction in Plant City

To start with the good things: my husband and I had our wedding here in March of this year. When we first got engaged, we knew we wanted something that felt more rustic and natural, so with help from my family we found Wishing Well Barn. Immediately we knew that it was the perfect place for us. It has all the charm of an old fashioned barn while still feeling refined and upscale. The “getting ready” areas for both bridesmaids and groomsmen are spacious cabins, the groomsmen’s complete with poker table. This is a nice touch as many venues tend to treat the groomsmen’s area as an afterthought. During certain seasons, they offer blueberry picking during cocktail hour. At night with the fairy lights on the roof, it feels truly magical. As such, we fell in love.

There are some personal reasons I give four stars instead of five, which are things that I felt added unnecessary stress to the planning process. We worked a lot with Michelle, the venue owner, on planning. To preface, my father unexpectedly passed away 11 months before the wedding day. Not long before he died, he had been emailing with and met Michelle in person when my parents toured the venue. He was actually the one that suggested Wishing Well to me and my husband. I informed Michelle of him passing away, which she initially acknowledged. However, for a long time she could not seem to remember that he was dead or note it down. We had to remind her three more times during subsequent planning sessions because she would ask “is your dad walking you down the aisle” or “where will your dad sit” etc. It was not a fun conversation to explain yet again that my dad was no longer alive and for her to act each time like this was new information. She never apologized for forgetting multiple times, which gave the impression that she didn’t really care. I did not call her out although maybe I should have.

On our rehearsal day, my family and I were an hour late due to heavy traffic and a small car accident. The members of my wedding party who got there before me were understanding about this and took the opportunity to practice dances they would be performing during the wedding. When I informed Michelle we were running late, her response was to sarcastically say “So you’re going to be an hour late to your rehearsal huh? I guess we’ll all just sit here waiting for you”. Some of my bridesmaids later informed me that after hanging up on me, she was talking to them and continuing to make rude remarks about me and my family being late before we arrived. To be clear, I take full responsibility for being late and understand that it caused inconvenience and frustration. However in that stressful moment I would have appreciated the same type of patience and professionalism that I’d been granting her. Especially considering that we were otherwise good about being on time to meetings, and in fact there was one occasion where we ourselves were inconvenienced and had to wait for an extra hour (our meeting with the DJ).

Having said my piece, I’d like to end this review on a positive note. Our actual wedding day was wonderful and the staff was amazing, especially our bartender. We enjoyed getting the opportunity for my husband to ride yella fella (the horse) and take sunset photos with him in the dandelion field. Our guests told us that our wedding was so memorable partly because of how beautiful and unique the venue was. They also had a lot of their own cute photos with the animals around the property like the donkeys and cows. Despite not having a lot of experience with hosting Indian weddings, Michelle, Blake, and their team were very present and helped make things go smoothly. They were flexible with last minute changes/confusions and I appreciate that as well as all the hard work that was put into setting up and decorating everything. Overall, it’s clear that they have a lot of passion for...

We had the pleasure of having our wedding at the Wishing Well Barn venue on Saturday February 10, 2018. We had the deluxe, all-inclusive package and I would highly recommend it for any brides like myself. If you need/want help with the planning process, know what you want but need/want help executing it and don’t want to have to worry about all those minor details then this is the place for you because Michelle Welch takes care of everything! I could have chosen a venue where I had to do everything as far as planning and coordinating out the timeline, minor/major details and decorating but I didn’t want to have to do all those things. I wanted to have someone guide me and know that they would take care of all that for me and Michelle exceeded our expectations. The Wishing Well Barn is a beautiful venue. We used the back pasture for our Ceremony and it was absolutely breathtaking. The barn for the Reception was perfect for our wedding and was beautiful. We had about 100 guests and was more than enough room and comfortable for everyone. We had endless compliments and praises from our guests about how beautiful the venue was, how helpful and nice Michelle and her staff was and how much fun they had. The getting ready rooms Michelle has at her Barn were a top priority on our list when searching for a venue. She had a room for the guys and a room for the girls. It was perfect, and we could not have been happier. Thank you so much Michelle Welch for everything you did to make our wedding day perfect and everything we wanted!

Love, Sean and...

I've had to think really hard about posting this; it was my sense of humanity that led to this review. We were excited to book our wedding here at this undoubtedly beautiful location for a wedding. We visited in early October and paid our deposit; before the end of October, we discovered we would be parents and the baby's arrival conflicted with the wedding date. In letting Michelle know on November 1st, I understood that we had signed a contract but hoped with 8 months until scheduled wedding she would be willing to work with us to give us some of our deposit back (I know what the contract says, but additional research has shown that the majority of other companies/venues work with people in extenuating circumstances) since applying that deposit to another event would not be feasible since we all live hours away. There was no offer to work with us, even with the time to rebook the date this summer. Additionally, she had the cheek to not pay attention to our communication and text me 2 weeks later to confirm an appointment I had canceled for wedding planning. There is no question that this place puts on BEAUTIFUL weddings; however, if you are a couple who finds yourself in a most extraordinary circumstance then be prepared to donate your hard earned money to the barn with no room for flexibility, no matter how early in the process you are. I myself worked in customer service and know the value of flexibility and decency for human beings and it's too bad that some compassion only 3 weeks after booking the date could...