Eolia Mansion at Harkness State — Attraction in Waterford

WEDDING REVIEW from a bride

This venue means so much to my husband and I, and we can’t imagine getting married anywhere else. Our guests loved the venue, as well. Its stunning views speak for itself!

When we booked this venue almost 2.5 years ago, we were specifically advised NOT to get a wedding planner, by the venue manager who has since retired. I could not disagree more, and I was an extremely detailed bride who loves planning.

Even hiring all vendors who have worked at this venue before, things did not go smoothly. The execution of my planning was lacking, and we kept things relatively simple compared to other events/weddings I’ve seen at Harkness. I think this is largely due to the staffing issues this past year that have since been resolved, and due to the extremely tight set up time vendors have.

However, in the last month of planning our wedding, Mike became our contact for Harkness, and he was incredibly responsive, helpful and flexible. I am optimistic that couples moving forward will have a better planning experience than my husband and I did, and I think that if Mike is able to make things more flexible, he absolutely will. Given its state property, I know it isn’t solely up to him, but I truly believe that things will improve under Mike’s leadership just given the 4 weeks I worked with him.

Some big things I’d advise couples to be cautious about if they choose Harkness would be:

Hire vendors who are highly experienced with Harkness and familiar with the intricacies of this venue. It is not a standard venue for many reasons - mainly because it is a historic place that is owned by the state of CT, and therefore has some rules and regulations other typical venues do not have to follow. For example, vendors only have 2 hours to set up for events. Even though you can fit 150 people technically, we felt extremely crammed with 114 people in attendance and maybe 20 vendors (including wait staff), which caught me by surprise. I wouldn’t recommend this venue for parties much larger than 100 guests. Be sure to ask questions about layout when it comes to table shapes and sizes, maximum occupancy per room, etc. When we booked this venue and were planning, all answers we got in response to our questions about seating/layout came across that they can and will make anything work. In reality, it really is not that flexible. No one checked in with us on our layout plans until 2.5 weeks before, which caused a bunch of logistical issues with seating charts, seating in general, etc. My husband and I did not want people in more than 2 rooms because we wanted as many people together as possible. We thought we could do that for 130 people, but we ended up in 3 rooms with just 114 people. This is not a place where you write a check and they take care of everything for you between food, decor, etc. I highly recommend a wedding planner for the entire wedding planning process, not just the day of. Even if you are a planner, I highly suggest having a day of coordinator.

Again, overall I love this venue. But it’s not the right fit for every couple, and that’s okay! If you go in knowing the time and effort you’ll need to put in, I think you’ll have an...

Completely overrun. It's not the park's fault, but there are thousands of people there (at all times) 11 months out of the year all having professional photo shoots. You can't even walk around without accidentally being in someone else's photos and getting yelled at, so you essentially can't even walk around or see anything anymore. Harkness used to be really enjoyable because it's so beautiful, but once every photographer within a 300 mile radius found out about it it was ruined. One of the last times we went it was in November and we counted 21 different photo shoots and it was 30 degrees and raining but that wasn't enough to deter anyone. When we moved here in 2017 it was always a good time coming here, but there are so many people there at ALL times that you can't even move or breathe. If you want to come here, go in January or maybe February unless you really love massive crowds where you are jam-packed in and always walking on egg-shells trying not to be in some angry person's photo. Most of it is not even accessible due to photographers claiming at least 2/3 of it at any given time.

There is also a big tradition of all the dog owners ignoring signs to keep their dogs off the beach during nesting season and not cleaning up dog shit so it's all...

The mansion is located within Harkness State Park so payment is required to enter and park your vehicle within park grounds. This visit occurred in July of 2017 with my friend and his kids and was actually an attempt to get access to the adjacent beach area. We were not able to and we spent about an hour exploring the gardens and surrounding grounds of the mansion. Surprisingly it was the first time visiting the mansion and walk the property grounds despite living in the area in the early 2000's, and it is very pretty. The gardens around the mansion were very lush, with ponds, fountains, sculptures, and pathways to make strolling at an easy pace quite relaxing. The mansion can be rented out which may impact access to certain areas of the gardens, however it appeared the event scheduled for that day had already wrapped up. So my friend, his kids, and I were able to explore to our hearts content. You should too! Check out Harkness State Park and the...